Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Cadbury Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady, but design codes will apply, including to PDRs. She might note that 72,000 additional homes have been created in the past several years thanks to PDR. That is about double the number of homes that the Mayor of London has managed to build in an equivalent time. We have stipulated that those homes going forward must be of a good design quality, must be of a reasonable space standard and must have light in all habitable rooms. We are building homes for people who need them on the brownfield sites where they need to be built, and she should support our reforms, not oppose them

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

Councillor Martin Tett, the Conservative leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, said that planned changes to permitted development will create

“open season for developers to break up”—

the high street. He has said that article 4 directions are vital in enabling local planning authorities to protect town centres such as the medieval streets of High Wycombe and that councils need time to implement article 4 directions to protect their high streets. Therefore, will the Minister agree to Councillor Tett’s request to pause these changes? What does he have to say to Councillor Tett and any other council leaders of all parties who oppose these highly unpopular planning reforms?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady is a little behind the times, because we have already announced our proposals for article 4 directions. We are keeping article 4s as a tool in the armoury of local authorities should they wish to use them. We have also made it very clear that, with permitted development rights, there must be prior approvals in place that local authorities can use to determine whether a planning application should go forward with a PDR, looking, for example, at the height of a building, the aspect of it, and whether there is an aerodrome within 2 kms of a taller-rise building. We made appropriate changes to ensure that we can build brownfield development where it needs to be developed in order to bring forward the homes of the future that people need.