Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Second sitting)

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st June 2022 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Okay, Minister?

[Stuart Andrew]

Q I just want to return to the issue you raised on neighbourhood planning. There is an interesting concept there about the neighbourhood share, particularly in areas where there is not a parish council or town council. What potential issues might you see in terms of any conflict between the interests of that group and what they are wanting to deliver for that community and the wider community? What governance arrangements might be needed to ensure that there is transparency around the needs of that community and how they develop?

We have a significant number of neighbourhood planning groups and neighbourhood plans around the country. However, there are areas—particularly more deprived areas—that have not developed those. The Bill provides for the neighbourhood priority statements to introduce a simpler way for communities to think about how they want to improve their place. Do you see any issues around that area in the Bill that need to be looked at again? Is this a real opportunity for such groups to formulate how the needs of their communities are delivered on the ground for those towns and areas?

Rich Bell: The creation of neighbourhood priority statements, which allow people at the local level to very clearly set out their priorities, and having those accounted for in local plans, is definitely a positive step forward, and we really welcome that. The point we would make is that community anchor organisations work in a way so as to unlock the capacity that is already present in communities. We would suggest that drafting them into this work could actually be key to addressing the geographic disparity in current levels of neighbourhood planning, particularly as research by the Communities in Charge campaign has demonstrated that the sorts of organisations we are talking about—community anchor organisations that seek to address local challenges in holistic ways that are truly reaching the community—are actually more likely to be found in areas that we would describe as deprived.

Clearly, there are challenges around how you ensure those organisations are acting with legitimacy. We think that the Government’s pledge to bring forward community covenants in their White Paper is potentially a game changer in that respect. We see that as a means of working through the challenges of a public body investing a degree of authority in a community organisation that is not on a statutory status. We would suggest that as long as you are working through the intermediary organisation in the form of the local authority, and as long as the Government provide guidance and regulations to ensure that that local authority is ensuring the community organisation has the trust of the whole community before it invests that power, it is a neat and relatively easy quick fix to what might otherwise be a problem by which the Bill would wind up deepening inequalities in control and power rather than resolving them.

[The Chair]

I call Matthew Pennycook.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I call the Minister, Stuart Andrew.

[Stuart Andrew]

Q Thank you very much, Sir Mark. I am half-tempted to say, “G’day, Sam.” Thank you for your time today.

Just touching on the local plans, obviously at the moment we have about 39% of England covered by local plans, which means that there is a significant area not covered by them. Clearly, the Bill is trying to simplify the process of developing local plans. What has been the reaction your members of to the measures in the Bill to try to achieve that, and are there any other suggestions they have made that they think would be helpful, so that we can get more local plans in place within a much shorter timescale than we are currently experiencing?

[The Chair]

Just before you answer that question, Sam, can I just bring it to the Committee’s attention that we have now been joined by Councillor James Jamieson, chair of the Local Government Association, and Councillor Tim Oliver, chair of the County Councils Network. Welcome to the sitting. I am sorry that you have had those technical problems, but we are glad to see you here. We are just partway through a question from the Minister, Stuart Andrew, at the moment. I will bring you both in and we will obviously tailor some of the questions towards you both as the sitting progresses.

Cllr Chapman-Allen: Thank you, Chair. Stuart, the answer is twofold. Local planning is an immensely complicated process—that to-ing and fro-ing with the planning inspector makes it immensely challenging. I think it comes back to the previous questions: “Is this a top-down exercise? Do we need a very clear framework for what planning is?” But planning derives from that local position.

If we are being really clear and setting clear parameters for what local communities need to deliver through that formula of housing growth, challenge if it cannot be delivered, and allow those local communities to move forward and deliver upon that in a set timeframe, then we will expediate that. In my local authority in Breckland, we delivered a local plan, confirmed in December 2019. We are already out for review again, at vast cost, vast expense and vast frustration for our communities, when actually we should probably only be tweaking some of those local policies.

The sad fact is that some of those locations that you mentioned, which do not have a developed local plan, are now in the challenge around nutrient neutrality and an inability to deliver those plans, and of course the duty to co-operate places a further burden on those councils to provide that local plan.

In answer to your question, really briefly—sorry to waffle—make the timeframe shorter; allow that local drive to come from the bottom up; ensure that the national planning inspector supports those local policies, not a top-down approach; and I think you would see expediated local plans and adopted local plans across the country.

[Stuart Andrew]

Q Thank you. I will try to give you a bit of a breather now, and involve our other two witnesses.

I want to turn to the infrastructure levy. The intention behind this is that it is non-negotiable, to try and reduce all the time that planning officers seem to spend on negotiation. Are the measures welcome? On the development of the infrastructure statements that local planning authorities have, do you see the opportunity for greater working between county and district councils in agreeing, as part of a local plan, the sort of infrastructure that is needed within those communities ahead of development being granted?

Cllr Jamieson: Thank you and apologies for my technical problems. On the infrastructure levy, I do think that is a helpful move. All too often, developers use viability as an excuse to increase their profits, or landowners to increase the value of their land. Really, where there is a significant uplift in the value of land as a result of receiving planning permission, it is only right and fair that that bonus of increase in value should go towards providing the essential infrastructure that is needed to support that development, whether that is roads, schools or soft infrastructure, such as health and community support. We welcome the community infrastructure levy as a simpler mechanism and one that will be applied to more developments, both commercial and housing.

One of the issues we have raised many times is the fact that developments of fewer than 10 houses do not pay anything. Quite clearly, that is all very positive. Of course, there are parts of the country where the land value uplift is not sufficient to provide the infrastructure, and that needs to be addressed and will have to be addressed by funding from Government. However, in areas where it is—yes, we welcome the fact that it is simplified. Of course, Sam just mentioned some of the other issues, such as nutrient neutrality, which is yet another imposition on development, so we need to be cognisant when we look at the infrastructure levy of the other levies and costs that are put on the land.

[Stuart Andrew]

Q Tim, do you have anything to add from a county council’s perspective?

Cllr Oliver: Many thanks, and my apologies too for the technical issues. We absolutely welcome a simplified community infrastructure levy and section 106 arrangement. At the moment, CIL is administered by the district and borough council, and the county council, in normal circumstances, would make an application for a part of that funding. It would be helpful for the Bill to provide clarification on how that infrastructure levy should be used. It is a levy to enable infrastructure support to facilitate housing and development. I know that part of the suggestion in the Bill is that 25% of that infrastructure levy would be set aside for parish councils, but, to your point, I would hope that there would be early conversations between all three tiers of local government, where they exist, as to how that levy should be spent for the benefit of the community.

[The Chair]

Thanks Stuart. Just before I bring in Tim Farron, I will give both Neil and Matthew the opportunity to ask a question to the other two panellists, who unfortunately were not present earlier. Neil, have you got any brief questions? I will then bring in Matthew.