Neighbourhood Plans

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Ms Ghani.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) on securing this very important debate, and I also congratulate all hon. Members who have taken part and given their own experiences, from their own constituencies, about the importance of neighbourhood planning. My hon. Friend has been and remains a tireless champion of both neighbourhood plans and neighbourhood planning in his contributions to debates and in much of his extensive correspondence with me as a Minister. He has been consistent in advocating for a more democratic and locally led planning system. Perhaps unlike other Westminster Hall debates, this might be one of those rare occasions on which the Minister responding on behalf of the Government agrees almost entirely with all hon. Members’ contributions. I certainly hope that my comments today will reassure him and other hon. Members that the Government are committed to putting communities at the very heart of our planning system, with neighbourhood plans playing a crucial role in that area.

Before I say more about how we are working to make that vision a reality, I should say to hon. Members that I am, of course, unable to comment on specific cases due to my quasi-judicial role in the planning system. However, I can talk in general terms about many of the issues that have been raised in today’s debate. At the outset, let me say that the Government believe that neighbourhood planning offers a powerful set of tools for local people to shape development in their area—development that meets their community’s needs, from protecting green spaces and local heritage right down to the design and characteristics of new homes.

As hon. Members will know, these plans continue to have real statutory weight in planning decisions. Once made, they form part of the development plan for the local area alongside the local plan, and they become the starting point for decisions on individual planning applications. In fact, the national planning policy framework makes it clear that where a planning application conflicts with an up-to-date neighbourhood plan, permission should not usually be granted. It is important to stress that the framework affords certain neighbourhood plans additional protections if the local planning authority cannot demonstrate a five-year land supply of deliverable housing sites—something that I know my hon. Friend has identified as a serious cause of concern for residents in his own constituency. These additional protections kick in where plans are under two years old, meet their identified housing requirement and other conditions are met.

Local planning authorities play an important role in this process too. They must provide advice and assistance to neighbourhood planning groups when producing their plans and take decisions at key stages. Planning legislation and policy also makes it clear that emerging neighbourhood plans can be afforded weight in decision making, particularly when they are at an advanced stage of preparation. I am delighted to say that many communities have taken up the opportunity to prepare a neighbourhood plan since the policy was first introduced. Over 2,800 groups have started the process since 2012, and over 1,300 plans are now in place across the country. As I understand it, there are no fewer than six in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Bosworth.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my admiration for the communities that have taken the time to prepare these neighbourhood plans, bringing local people together to shape development in a way that meets their needs. There are some brilliant examples of this work all over the country. The Bridport area plan in Dorset, for example, covers four parish councils and is located entirely in a designated area of outstanding natural beauty. The councils are working in partnership there to make sure that high-quality design goes into every affordable home that is built, so that they are indistinguishable from the available houses on the open market.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister. He is giving an excellent speech, including very robust answers to some of the issues we raised. The policy document that was introduced alongside the Bill talks about scrapping the five-year land supply for local authorities that have up-to-date local plans. Can the Minister confirm, either tomorrow or in future in Committee, that that will actually be within the legislation —in black and white in statute?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend is right. One of the big issues I have seen in my own constituency, and during my time in this role, arises when councils do not have a local plan in place—and even if they do in some instances. If they do not have the five-year land supply, there is speculative development that happens all over the place, and it pits communities against any sort of housing development. We are making it very clear in the Bill—and supporting documents will be published alongside it—that where an area has an up-to-date local plan, there is no need for it to prove that it has a five-year land supply to stop that speculative development happening.

[James Gray]

I very much welcome that stipulation in the Bill. However, will the Minister consider one of the problems that I suspect may arise, namely that if we give notice to developers that that clause is coming into effect in a year’s time, or that the local plan might well take a few more months or a year to complete, in the meantime there might be a deluge of speculative developments that we cannot stop, until such time as the law has become an Act?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend made that point in a conversation we had the other day. It is a valid point and one that I am taking back to the Department to double-check that we have all that in place, because it is important.

I mentioned the neighbourhood plan in Dorset, but closer to home in London, in Newham, is the Greater Carpenters neighbourhood plan. That post-war estate is seeking to develop and reoccupy existing empty homes. The policy emphasises affordability, prioritising low-cost family-sized homes and homes for older and disabled people. It is a textbook example of community-backed sustainable development. We want more areas to follow that lead, so we have put in place £40 million of funding up until 2023 to ensure that residents have the tools and resources that they need to get their plans in place.

In many ways, therefore, neighbourhood planning has been a great success story, but the Government and I want to encourage more communities to become involved and have a real say in what is built locally and where. That is why the Bill that has been mentioned on many occasions today includes the important role that neighbourhood plans will continue to play in the planning system. It makes it clear that communities will be able to continue allocating sites for housing, protecting green spaces and local assets, and setting design requirements for new developments through their plans. Crucially, the Bill will strengthen the role of neighbourhood plans in decision making. Planning application decisions will only be able to depart from plans if there are strong reasons to do so.

Neighbourhood planning is widespread, but—I take the point made by the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook)—take-up is uneven across the country. In some areas, usually in towns and cities, there is little neighbourhood planning activity. We recognise that some communities have faced challenges in getting a neighbourhood plan in place, and we want to ensure that all areas can become involved.

Through the Bill, we will introduce neighbourhood priority statements—a new additional tool to provide a simpler, faster and more accessible way for communities to participate in neighbourhood planning and to shape development in their local areas. The statements can be prepared by neighbourhood planning groups and can be used to set out the community’s priorities and preferences for their local area, on everything from the new facilities that they need to the buildings and green spaces that they want to be protected. In fact, we anticipate that in some areas the statements might also act as a springboard for preparing a full neighbourhood plan, a design code or other community initiatives outside the planning system. Councils will be required to consider statements when they prepare their own local plans, meaning that neighbourhood priorities cannot be brushed aside easily; statements have to be treated as formal input. Taken together, we are confident that the reforms will further cement—forgive the pun—the role of neighbourhood planning in the system. Perhaps more importantly, that will provide communities with more opportunity to influence development right on their doorstep.

I will turn to a couple of the points made by Members. I want to make it clear that I am a huge fan of neighbourhood planning. I am fortunate enough to have a parish council and a town council—in Rawdon and Horsforth, respectively—as well as a group of volunteers in Aireborough, developing neighbourhood planning. I have seen at first hand the enormous amount of time that they put into developing the plans.

In the first few weeks of doing this role, I was keen to do a roundtable with neighbourhood planning groups around the country. It was useful to listen to their experiences. We have taken on board a lot of what they said and we are looking at how we can make further improvements. Among a number of the points made today, however, was the argument that where such planning is locally driven, we often see more houses built. I was particularly struck by a council official, I think from Herefordshire, saying that because the council had invested in and supported neighbourhood planning, it had ended up seeing more houses built than it could possibly have achieved as a council. I would like to see that happen elsewhere.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth was right when he said that too often planning is something that people feel happens to them, and we have to change that. That is why, in the Bill, we want to make local plan making easier so that more people can engage and can do so digitally and not to have go through hundreds of PDFs and complicated documents. He is right that it is about building the right houses in the right places. That will get public support for house building and stop the problems that we have seen. He is right to have mentioned the BIDEN principles, which really do stand for many of the things that we want to see, and he was completely right to raise the issue of older people’s housing too. We will soon establish a taskforce to look into that so that we provide our older generation with a choice of housing—not just one type of housing—so that we can help them downsize if they want to. They will not be forced to.

[James Gray]

Does the Minister agree that there is one other area that needs to be looked at, particularly in the area of older people’s housing—namely, better use of the stock that we have? There are at this moment 800,000 empty houses in the United Kingdom. We must find a way of making better use of them. Many of those empty houses are old people’s houses that they have inherited or perhaps moved out of. It seems they do not know what to do with them. Can we find a way of writing into the Bill some means by which we can make better use of the existing stock?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not just about building new homes, but making sure there is efficient use of the stock that we have, and there are measures in the Bill to try to encourage the use of empty homes.

The two-year validity of a plan was raised at the roundtable. Again, it is something that we are looking at. I have mentioned the issue of the five-year land supply. The issue of local housing need figures is also something that we are trying to resolve as quickly as possible.

I love the fact that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) comes to each of these debates to give a Northern Ireland perspective, which is particularly helpful on this matter. I remember a few people scratching their heads in a debate when I was talking about HS2. I thought, “If I can’t even get it to Leeds, how are we going to get it to Northern Ireland?”, but there we go. He was right to talk about areas of outstanding natural beauty and protections for them. Neighbourhood planning could be more imaginative about the sites that could be developed. I have seen that in my own community where people are really very clever. He was also right to talk about the provision of infrastructure. That is why the “I” in BIDEN is so important. The levy that we are introducing will capture more of the land value so that there is more money for the local community.

One thing that I have certainly picked up is that we need better engagement between local planning development and the provision of health services so that they all come at the same time. People are frustrated when they see the houses and years later, if ever, the infrastructure that is needed to support them comes down the line. My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) was right to say that local people know best. The design standards that we are putting in the Bill will be a key feature for many local communities, and new developments will complement the local area.

On development management policy, I know that people are concerned, but it is not meant to override a local plan, which has supremacy because it is the local plan. However, there is an enormous amount of duplication in the development of local plans—for example, protections for the green belt, heritage sites and so on. Many local authorities are not confident that there is enough weight in the current system, so the policy is to try to stop that duplication and make sure we have protections in place. Again, I have listened to colleagues’ concerns and we are actively looking at many of the points that have been made.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I accept the Minister’s response, but the explanatory notes and the text of the Bill talk about what happens in the event of a conflict between a local plan and a national plan. What does he envisage the conflict will be in a scenario where it may override a domestic plan?

[Stuart Andrew]

It would not be possible to set land uses through national development policy. No housing will ever be built on sensitive sites if the local authority opposes it because of any of the NDM policies. I hope I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance, but I have heard his points and will come back to him.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth for securing today’s important debate, and I am grateful for the opportunity to reiterate the Government’s commitment to putting local communities in the driving seat of a simpler, smoother and more inclusive planning system. I should add that many of the measures we have set out in the Bill, such as neighbourhood priority statements, will be honed and refined as we put the legislation on the statute book. I speak not just for myself, but for all my ministerial colleagues, when I say that we are committed to working closely with hon. Members in all parts of the House to make sure we get these reforms right and delivered on the ground, and that they deliver the improvements we all want to see and help us to fulfil our pledge to level up communities right across the country.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

It would be remiss of me not to mention how important this debate is to my constituents in Wealden as well.