communities and local government committee

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that I cannot comment on or have knowledge of every particular planning development throughout the country. Clearly, there are issues of contention where housing need in one area has to be met by putting housing in another area. The duty to co-operate, which should resolve that, has not been working in all circumstances. We went to Gloucestershire and found three councils working very well together, but even they said that they did not always have terribly good relationships with the councils next door that were not part of their process. A look needs to be taken at the whole issue of co-operation and how it can be improved.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

May I join in the congratulations to the hon. Gentleman and his Committee on this very good and useful report? I have a lot of sympathy for many of its recommendations. On partial adoption of plans and the statutory duty, has the Committee considered what might be done specifically to simplify the plan development process? Councils have sometimes had eight-plus years to develop local plans. If we are going to impose a duty, should we not also consider how we can reduce the amount of information that goes into the plans; how they can be made more strategic rather than needlessly complicated; and how in particular we can deal with the delays that are sometimes caused to planning authorities by statutory consultees? If there are going to be penalties for planning authorities, should there not also be penalties for statutory consultees when they delay the process?

[Mr Betts]

The hon. Gentleman’s last point is a very good one. We did not take particular evidence on it, but it does aggravate councils up and down the country. We made a recommendation that a look should be taken at how the process could be simplified. We did not go into the specifics, but boxes of documents at the Planning Inspectorate for one local plan for a relatively small district showed how complicated the process has become. At a time of spending and resource constraints, many councils are struggling to finish that complicated process. We think that the Government, the Planning Inspectorate and local government should sit down together and revise and simplify the process.