Stuart Andrew
Main Page: Stuart Andrew (Conservative - Daventry)Localism in Planning
Stuart Andrew Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
Over the past 10 or 20 years, every part of my constituency has been affected by overdevelopment. The old mills and industrial sites have been replaced with massive new housing, which has put huge pressure and strain on the local infrastructure. Our roads are congested and our schools are bursting. We now have a massive issue in the Guiseley area, where the council is desperately trying to find places for schoolchildren for the coming year.
Local anger and frustration with the local planning system cannot be overstated. Too many people believe that planning is something that happens to them, and when localism came in there was a feeling of hope that they would be able to have some input. Local communities’ ability to develop neighbourhood plans is welcome, and I am fortunate that in my constituency rafts of people have come together to try to face the challenges head on and to take advantage of the opportunities to shape the future of their towns and villages. In Aireborough, Jennifer Kirby is leading a group that has provided workshops and involved children in the future that they want for their town. Parish councils in Horsforth and Rawdon are engaging actively with residents and their views.
The feedback I am receiving is united. People complain that despite their work, the local authority’s five-year land supply supersedes everything they are doing. It has sent applications for thousands of new houses to the inspector for approval. If that plan did not have to be approved by the inspector, I wonder what the real figure would be. I suggest that it would probably be far more realistic.
The people I speak to are anxious about the green belt in our area. An urban constituency such as mine values its green belt, which helps us to identify our separate towns and villages. We are in danger of creating urban sprawl. We have heard from other hon. Members that developers are going to the inspector, and that is happening in my constituency. Developers have taken applications for some of our precious green areas to the inspector, and I hope that they will be turned down so that local people have time to determine where houses should be.
One parish councillor said to me that he is worried that nothing decided at parish level can change the decision made by those at unitary level, who themselves are hidebound by central Government housing targets. We need to address the problem urgently, because local people are rightly getting angry. Let us give local people the real power that we promised. Let us stop the developers thinking that they can do what they like, and let us seriously look at abolishing the inspectorate, so that we can even the playing field and tip planning towards having far more localism.