Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Robert Neill

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

All meetings are dealt with appropriately through the codes. The hon. Gentleman will know full well that in any planning application all matters must be dealt with entirely appropriately and transparently.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

Time and again, my constituents complain about the effects of garden-grabbing on the character of local neighbourhoods. Will my hon. Friend assure me and the House that planning reforms will protect residential gardens, and stop inappropriate development in future?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stuart Andrew and Robert Neill

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

T8. I welcome the scrapping of the previous Government’s top-down housing targets, which caused so much inappropriate development, particularly in my constituency. As the Localism Bill goes through Parliament, however, some developers are land-banking brownfield sites so that they can gain planning permission successfully at appeal on greenfield sites. What are the Government doing to protect such sites in this interim period? Will they consider re-introducing the sequential approach to planning?

[Robert Neill]

My hon. Friend is right. The mixture of top-down regional targets, together with the removal of a specific reference to a sequential test in planning policy statement 3, did put pressure on greenfield sites. The Government have already changed the definition of brownfield sites to exclude gardens, and in the Localism Bill we have introduced proposals to abolish top-down targets from the regional strategies. The fact that that Bill is making progress through the Commons is a material consideration for developers to bear in mind.