Planning and Housing Supply

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I thank the hon. Members for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) and for St Albans (Mrs Main), and the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) for calling the debate, which is very timely.

I declare an interest as a member of the National Trust—I am concerned about its announcement that the National Trust will allow fracking on its land, but perhaps it will consult its members—and in my previous life, I used to litigate on behalf of the Government on planning matters.

I want to focus on three main areas that have affected my constituency of Walsall South, which is an area of mixed housing, with 11 farms—planning and the green belt, land banking and permitted development.

The green belt was first proposed by Ebenezer Howard in 1898, in his book “Garden Cities of Tomorrow”. Hon. Members may not know that as well as writing that book, his day job was as a transcriber for Hansard in Parliament, so who knows what the transcribers get up to in their spare time? In 1935, the metropolitan green belt was proposed by the Greater London regional planning committee, under the leadership of Herbert Morrison, one of whose relatives is in the other place. In 1947, under the main Town and Country Planning Act, councils outside London became able to control the use of, and to develop, undeveloped land. In 1955, the green-belt policy was established, requiring local authorities to set out the green belt in their area.

Like the hon. Member for Tewkesbury, I still find that there is a misconception about the nature of the green belt, what planning in the green belt is and what “very special circumstances” means. We have a national planning policy framework in place. In old money, which is what I am used to, it was called planning policy guidance. There were lists of criteria of what could and could not be built on the green belt. Either way, whether we use the old money or the new framework, the green belt should be protected, and it is not.

In Walsall South, we fought against development on the site of the Three Crowns pub. Against the planning officer’s advice, permission was granted for 14 flats with three detached houses on the green belt. The development was clearly out of character for the area. Since then, nothing has happened, except for the development of a car wash. No building work has taken place. The only sign of creativity is graffiti on the building. Land and building have lain empty and unused for three years.

As we are debating this matter today, a decision will be made about the disused site of the Three Crowns school. It is green-belt land that was given to the community, so it is council land. Permission will be given—or perhaps not—for eight detached houses. Such development is not required in the area. Not only was the consultation carried out in the summer holidays when people were away, but the plans go beyond the footprint of the building.

There is need for housing in Darlaston, in another part of the constituency, and there is permission for 224 houses to be built on a former factory site. Permission was granted in 2007 and still the site remains derelict, without the sound of people coming in and out of their houses. The owners are a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The residents in the area say that they want housing, a community space and a place for young people. The owners, however, want a retail development on a site that is near the largest retail parks in the region; that is land banking at its worst.

My third area of contention is permitted development and its extension. We have the extraordinary situation in my constituency where a phone mast has been placed in a high street. The council rightly refused permission, but because it sent the rejection by second class post, the company was deemed not to have been given reliable and verifiable notice of the refusal. There was notice: Vodafone were informed of the result by phone and the refusal was on the council website. Residents will have to put up with this phone mast, as there has been no compromise from Vodafone. Indeed, Vodafone is planning to extend the height of the mast. There were many sites for the mast—I have been in discussions with Vodafone—but the company insists that it wants to keep it on the high street. It is an eyesore, and because of a simple mistake, my constituents are affected. Furthermore, with the new permitted development rights these phone masts can be extended up to 20 metres and widened by up to a third. The Phesay phone mast is on a pavement on the high street. Once again, other interests carry more weight than those of the people who have to live with the consequences of such decisions.

In conclusion, with cuts to local authority budgets, those with the skills to make coherent planning decisions are in short supply. Such people should be valued, as should the views of residents, with a tribunal attaching the appropriate weight to the views that are based on planning grounds, and not just on commercial interests. In that way, we will maintain the spirit of Octavia Hill and Beatrix Potter and balance the need for housing with a protection of the countryside preserved for future generations.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I thank you for your time consideration. I now call the co-sponsor of the debate, Mrs Anne Main.