Warwick District Council: New Offices

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Matt Western

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. At a time when local authorities are restructuring under the pressure of budgetary restraint, that could be an option, but there are other options, such as moving into vacant buildings that the authority owns. He is right to highlight that point, and I will come on to develop it.

How can a council that is likely to impose a 3% council tax increase in April, alongside other council tax increases that will mean a total rise of perhaps 7% to 8% for council tax payers, justify using scarce resources to build itself a shiny new office? Its sister county council has the necessary vacant space and is closing much-valued children’s centres, claiming that that is not what councils should be doing and that they should simply contract out delivery services. The council’s justifications include the fact that the offices are just 500 metres closer to the town centre and that they might be more economical to run. It claims that the move will be cost-neutral and could save £300,000 a year, but given my recent experience of its projects, including leisure centres, that will be wide of the mark.

There are three main issues: the development lacks provision for affordable housing, which is so desperately needed in the area; it is the wrong priority at a time of austerity; and it will disrupt car parking in Leamington town centre, and ultimately the viability of town centre businesses. In essence, it is the wrong development at the wrong time in the wrong place.

I want to touch on the issue of affordable homes. Some people may believe that the new office is critical at a time of economic austerity, and that the arguments of better heating and efficiency justify the £10 million spent, but then we discover that the council office project is being funded by the disposal of its current site for the exclusive development of private housing. In fact, the planning applications for the Riverside House and Covent Garden sites total more than 200 dwellings, but none of them will be council, social or affordable—zero council, zero social and zero affordable housing.

Remember that the two applications were made by the council for the council. What about the council’s own policy—the policy it wrote itself and specified in its own local plan—that 40% of properties on large new housing developments should be affordable housing? To be clear, large is anything greater than 10, so given that there will be 170 and 44 on the two sites, they comfortably qualify. It is clear that with these applications —approval has been outlined—the council is failing to meet its own standards for affordable housing, which it seeks to place on other developers. What sort of precedent is that setting?

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The offices are a local issue, but the use of land for housing is a national issue—the use of land at premium prices that prevents the development of affordable housing has to be a national issue. Will the Minister have a serious look at that to see whether the local plan, which requires 40% affordable homes, can be enforced by central Government? We need to think of that as national public policy.

[Matt Western]

I thank my hon. Friend, who makes the point so well, as ever. Currently, in Warwick district—I am sure there are other examples around the country—only 27% of housing plans that have been approved are for affordable housing. The council itself is approving 0% affordable housing, so there is a much wider implication for the principle and for necessary housing, as he said.

If the council applied its own policy to those developments, Leamington would gain 86 affordable homes, which would make a huge difference to families in dire need of homes below market prices. Those who heard my maiden speech will be aware that there are about 2,400 people on the housing waiting list in Warwick district, that there are 700 statutory homeless people, and that there has been a 50% increase in rough sleeping in recent years. For young people, the situation is particularly dire. In 2015, Shelter found that 31% of working young adults in the area live with their parents, compared with a 25% average in England.

Some might simply excuse the council for ignoring social and affordable housing and accept the argument that it is not viable to include them, but that is missing the point. The new office development is not necessary, and it is only that that is disguising the council’s claim about why it is not building the much-needed affordable housing on the two sites. In its outline planning application, the council managed to wriggle out of the 40% requirement for affordable housing by securing viability—that great “v” word—appraisals that say that the developments would not be viable if they provided any affordable housing. Furthermore, the council is refusing to release the details of those viability assessments on the grounds that they contain commercially sensitive information, partly because the developments are a joint venture with a private company, which ignores the public interest in the investment in new buildings.

The council claims in the viability assessments that the capital receipts gained from the housing developments are required to fund the building of the new offices, but if it did not have the capacity to provide any affordable housing, it should never have proposed its new office plan in the first place. There is also the broader issue that the viability assessments allow developers to avoid requirements for affordable housing across the board. That policy was introduced in 2012 as part of the national planning policy framework, which has been disastrous for the supply of affordable housing, contributing to the housing crisis, and which should be dropped. When housebuilders such as Persimmon claim that developments are not viable, but the chief executive is pocketing a £130 million bonus, something is not right.

There is clearly a fundamental issue with a local authority being both applicant and jury. The planning committee is supposed to be quasi-judicial, but it is evident, as in this case, that planning officers lean on it to ensure that an application gets passed. How can the planning department “recommend approval” to its own committee on its own project? Let us be honest: that is not quasi-judicial.

The third report of the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life—the committee advises the Prime Minister on the standards to be expected of those in public office—stated:

“We have particular concerns about…local authorities granting themselves planning permission…and we believe that there should be greater openness in the planning process.”

Warwick District Council has done exactly what the Nolan committee advised that local authorities should not do. In a case of commercial confidentiality, the failure to deliver affordable housing should preclude such exemption from public scrutiny. The council’s proposals, which fail residents in the area who are in desperate need of more affordable housing, should be dropped.

The people of Warwick district, in common with all communities, have been battered by a programme of Government austerity these past seven years, and local services are being cut. Communities are losing children’s centres, social care is at a crisis point and all services are suffering from the cuts. It is no wonder that, in such a challenging environment, many people tell me how surprised they are that the district council is proposing to build a new office.

Gypsies and Travellers and Local Communities

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Matt Western

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

If the Minister had been listening, he would have known that I talked about bringing private land into conjunction with public land and about making sure that the police’s powers could be used more effectively. The police are frustrated. I talked about the problem of section 62 and the fact that at the moment the police have to have an alternative site.

The reality is that we have to couple the use of those powers with the investment in sites, which Conservative Members are reluctant to do. When the comment was made that Government cuts to local government had had a serious impact on the capacity to provide sites, it was met with a howl of derision from Conservative Members, who once again want to protect austerity except when it affects their constituents.

We need to see investment in sites. We need to know where the £60 million has gone from the affordable homes scheme. We need a Government who have a genuine commitment to reduce the level of discrimination in our society. I sympathise with hon. Members who face problems from antisocial and illegal behaviour by Travellers, and those should be dealt with, but—as I began by saying—the lot of many of the travelling communities is unacceptable. One Traveller says, “As a PhD student I have been treated as an oddity or as incompetent by my peers and professors.” Another said, “I went for a cleaning job. When I told the pub owner where I lived, she said we don’t serve your sort and I won’t employ you.” I have read of someone saying to a nine-year-old child, “I’ll burn your caravan down while you sleep. Dirty thieves, you should’ve been deported, even the young one.” That was to an English-born child. When that happens, we know we have a problem. We can rail against the minority of illegal Travellers—we can and they will—but let us make sure we also deal with the real issues that affect this community which is so badly discriminated against. They are our fellow citizens and they deserve better from this House.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?