Planning Reform

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Here we are again. I will try to be as brief as possible, and I will put the full text of what I had intended to say on my website—tonybaldry.co.uk. I am sure that constituents and right hon. and hon. colleagues will read the text in full, because I want to make three succinct—I hope—points in supporting and endorsing what my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) said.

The first is on the five-year housing supply, which will be a requirement—not only when there are approved local plans, but until 2031. At any point between now and 2031, developers will be able to come forward and say to a local authority, “At this moment, you haven’t got a sustainable five-year housing supply, so we are entitled to build wherever we want within your district”.

At present, there is no agreement on the methodology used by planning inspectors to determine the five-year housing supply. Two distinct methodologies seem to be used by planning inspectors. Different methodologies are used in different cases. One is now referred to in planning shorthand as the “Liverpool” method of calculation, and the other as “Sedgefield”.

In a recent decision in a planning appeal in my constituency at Deddington, the planning inspector calculated housing supply locally on what could even be described as a third method and a variation of “Sedgefield”; it might be described as “Sedgefield-lite”. It is simply not good public policy for local councillors, chief planning officers and others not to know what methodology a planning inspector will adopt in calculating whether a local planning authority has met its five-year housing supply. Ministers have to make clear and unambiguous the methodology that they expect planning Ministers and everyone else to use in calculating the five-year housing supply.

My second point is about brownfield sites. It has been an article of faith in the planning system, quite rightly, that one should bring forward brownfield sites first, but if local authorities are so keen and need to have their five-year housing supply, they will bring forward sites that are easiest to develop in the five-year supply. Invariably, those are greenfield sites, so brownfield sites will get put to the back.

I give as an example the Banbury canalside site in my constituency. The intention is to have that built in the centre of the town on an area that was in the flood plain, but now no longer is, because we built adequate flood defences. The plan is for 950 houses, but my district is so determined that it has to meet its five-year housing supply that that brownfield site is being put back rather than being brought to the front of the queue. That is daft.

I can see the situation changing only if planning inspectors, in calculating the five-year housing supply, give credit in housing numbers for brownfield sites when local authorities can demonstrate that they are undertaking sustained and credible work to make a brownfield site available in the market. Otherwise, given how the five-year housing supply is working at present, brownfield will be put to the end of the queue rather than being brought to the beginning of the queue. As I said, that is daft.

My third point relates to neighbourhood plans. All of us understood that, with the new national planning policy framework, neighbourhood plans and localism were going to be really important, but neighbourhood plans have to clear two hurdles. First, they have to be consistent with the local plan, and secondly, at present the community has to complete its neighbourhood plan until such a point as is agreed by a local referendum. Many of the communities that have started neighbourhood plans carry them out diligently and earnestly, but they are unlikely to complete them within a year or 18 months, by which time I suspect that a large number of them will be redundant.

A classic example involves the community in Deddington, a village in my constituency. People there are busily undertaking a neighbourhood plan, entirely consistent with the provisions set out by the Government. A landowner and developer come along and put in a planning application to build up to 85 houses on the edge of the community, which is refused by the local authority but allowed on appeal. Under the agreed local plan, because of what is happening with most of Cherwell’s new housing—we have planned for nearly 17,000 houses in our agreed local plan between now and 2031, so we are hardly not stepping up to the plate to meet housing requirements—Deddington is due to take something like 80 new houses to the end of the survey period in 2031. However, the location of up to 85 has already been decided—not by the local community, but on the basis of whoever happened to get their planning application in first. With respect, that is not neighbourhood planning. It is not a plan-led system; it is a system of first come, first served.

If a local planning authority has submitted an agreed local plan and if neighbourhoods are carrying out a neighbourhood plan consistent with the rules set out by the Government, in a timely and proportionate manner, I suggest that any planning application that will effectively pre-empt the neighbourhood plan should be dismissed on grounds of prematurity, in that it would effectively rob local communities of the opportunity to determine their future. Thank you, Mr Gray. If any colleagues would like the full text of what I was going to say, they should please refer to my website.