Empty Homes

Sarah Newton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) on making a powerful speech containing lots of good ideas. The situation that he described in his constituency is identical to the one faced in mine. I welcome the measures in the Localism Bill providing for neighbourhood planning, and I am chairing the steering group of the Truro and Kenwyn parish neighbourhood plan. We face the same challenges that he portrayed so well. Through the development of our neighbourhood plan, we have identified a great number of empty properties in our villages and the city centre of Truro, as well as other buildings that we believe can commercially and viably be brought back into use to create much-needed homes for local people. However, in constructing our plan, we are aware that it will have to be inspected by the inspectorate, and the types of properties that my hon. Friend described being brought back into use will be considered by the inspectors as “windfall” properties and therefore cannot be counted as contributing towards the housing targets that we are developing to meet local need.

I would very much like the Minister to consider that point, and when the Government are considering the national policy planning framework I would like them to examine the fact that these windfall properties need to be judged on their merits. I hope that if a good neighbourhood plan—such as, I am sure, ours will be when it is introduced—can demonstrate viable sites for bringing empty buildings back into use, they will not be deemed to be “windfall” properties but can be taken into consideration for our housing targets.