National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Tessa Munt and John Hayes

Thursday 16th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.

I am pleased to see you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I am grateful for the time to introduce this debate on the impact of the changes to the national planning policy framework. I called for this debate following a decision affecting the village of Yatton in the north of the Wells and Mendip Hills constituency, with 190 homes set to be built on a site known as Rectory Farm, Yatton Batch. Yatton Batch is in flood zone 3a, which is the highest level of risk, according to the Environment Agency. The consequences of this decision affect not just the people of Yatton, as I believe it sets a precedent for every other community living with flood risk across this country.

I will give the Minister some context to the geography of my constituency, which matters enormously. Wells and Mendip Hills falls roughly in two parts. One part comprises the limestone Mendip hills and the rest, the majority of the constituency, is wetlands and coastal plains: the Somerset levels and the North Somerset levels. Fifty-one per cent of my constituency is less than 20 metres above sea level.

I will send the Minister a map, on which he will see that the Somerset levels are a man-made landscape. The monks, led by the Abbot of Glastonbury, drained the land hundreds of years ago by digging what locally we call “rhynes”, which is why the map shows the waterways as straight lines in my part of the world. It does not take a PhD in geography to work out that low-lying coastal wetlands are prone to flooding. It has taken centuries of careful management and regular maintenance of the local waterways to keep this land habitable at all.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

On the subject of keeping land habitable, the hon. Lady will be familiar with the fact that the Lincolnshire fens, and particularly South Holland and The Deepings, are entirely flat, without even the undulation equivalent to the Mendip hills. Our land is drained, and much of it is reclaimed from the sea, yet there are perpetual attempts to put critical infrastructure on it, including solar, pylons and suchlike. That is incompatible, and those things cannot be reconciled. I entirely endorse what the hon. Lady says about the character of the land, its propensity to flood and what we should do with it.

[Tessa Munt]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point. I will suggest to the Minister that, if he wishes to pursue a policy of building on land that will almost certainly flood, we need to put those buildings on stilts. That is not impossible, and there is certainly one very beautiful house on the levels that sits on stilts.

Yatton, the village subject to the decision, sits within the North Somerset levels, barely 2 km from the Bristol channel. On Friday 12 June, the High Court handed down its judgment permitting the development of 190 homes in this flood-prone area, on a site that failed the flood risk sequential test. The judgment follows the NPPF exactly, as the judge had to, and prioritised building homes over protection from flooding. It imperils not only the new homes—I should explain that the judge said that homeowners threatened by flooding had sufficient time to vacate their houses before the floodwater reached them—but the homes and businesses in and around the Yatton site. The impact of flooding does not disappear just because people can get away safely. This is about property as well as people. The damage to wellbeing and mental health takes its toll on those affected, as does the damage to property, which can take months and sometimes years to remedy and replace.

I would not want the Minister to think that this is a case of nimbyism and anti-development sentiment by those in rural areas. My Lib Dem colleagues and I agree with the Government’s desire to meet the huge need for housing across the country. There are 12,800 people on the Homefinder list in Somerset, which covers 66% of my patch, and a similar proportion on the North Somerset list.

I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on flooding and flooded communities. Many of our discussions centre on the Flood Re scheme, which was a great initiative that meant insurers could cover flooding claims and the premiums for home insurance in high flood risk areas were not astronomical. The scheme comes to an end in 2039, and the Government have been very clear that it will not be extended. As set out in legislation, homes built after 2009 are not covered by the scheme. As we get closer to that 2039 date, more and more homes built in high flood risk areas are not covered by the scheme and so risk becoming uninsurable and consequently unmortgageable. The consequences for developers and those who have already bought the homes will be awful. And the Yatton decision compounds the problems with the NPPF in allowing the need for home building to override common sense.

To press the point, it is very likely that residents of new homes built on floodplains, such as those in Yatton, will face flooding damage in the coming years. Not only will they not be able to make an insurance claim, but any new buyers will likely struggle to access a mortgage. Residents may well end up trapped, unable to sell a home that might cost them thousands of pounds in repairs every winter. The Minister knows the weather experts say that what we are experiencing now is the most stable weather that we are ever going to see.

I mentioned that the current neighbours would also be affected due to the simple fact that the floodwater must go somewhere. If developers choose to build up the land on which they wish to develop, the floodwater may well not hit those homes precisely, but will cause the existing homes and businesses in the area to be flooded more greatly. I have a lovely set of photographs of the land I am speaking about, which I will send to the Minister, showing exactly how it floods every year.