Housing, Planning and the Green Belt

William Wragg Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) in this important debate.

It is fast becoming a cliché to talk of a broken housing market and building for the future, but those rather trite phrases disguise both the difficult problem that we have in not having built enough homes for some time and the significant challenges that remain for the house building industry.

I want to make it clear that I am not against building and development. We of course need to provide new homes to meet the housing shortage, but that should be done in a way that is sensitive to the local environment and sensitive to the wishes of local communities, which in my assessment has hitherto been lacking.

I shall confine my remarks to the specific consideration of housing and green belt policy in Greater Manchester, but the principles could apply equally to other parts of the country.

The pithily titled Greater Manchester spatial framework, commonly known as the GMSF, is the Greater Manchester combined authority’s land management plan for housing, commercial and industrial use over the next 20 years. It will have a profound effect on the shape and character of local communities and will impact on the lives of many thousands of families for generations to come.

I, and others, have serious reservations about the draft GMSF in terms of the methodology for calculating overall housing targets, the scale on which it proposes to release swathes of green belt for housing development, the lack of sensitivity and awareness it displays towards the character of existing communities and the scant regard to additional infrastructure required to support new, large-scale housing developments.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the target population increase in GMSF ought to be wholly reconsidered, especially in the light of Brexit, whereby we will have more control over our borders?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wragg]

There are many flaws in the statistical methodology of the GMSF that I would like to unpack, but unfortunately perhaps, or fortunately for the House, I do not have the minutes in which to do so. However, my hon. Friend is spot on.

Further to that, to give an example, the draft framework proposed that 4,900 hectares of Greater Manchester’s green-belt land be built on, representing a net loss of 8% of green-belt land across the area. In my constituency, proposals included a development of 4,000 homes on fields around the village of High Lane—essentially trebling the size of that village, with little regard for the burden of increased traffic on the road network and the increased pressures on public services.

[Mary Robinson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. I appreciate the points he is making, particularly about the green belt, because, as he knows, in my constituency 8,100 homes are planned to be built on the green belt. That is not sustainable or wanted, which is why more than 3,000 people signed my petition on that very point, which I presented to the House.

[Mr Wragg]

The constituents of Cheadle have a doughty campaigner in my hon. Friend. We think we have it bad in the Hazel Grove constituency with the proposals for 4,000 homes. The figure is more than double that in Cheadle, which is beyond the pale. Her constituents are fortunate to have such a vigorous representative in this House.

As my hon. Friend alluded to, in the last Parliament we presented petitions to the House on behalf of thousands of our constituents who are opposed to the massive scale of development on green-belt land and urge instead the development of brownfield sites. I also had the pleasure of introducing a Westminster Hall debate on the matter, which was well attended by colleagues from all parts of the House, including the current Mayor of Greater Manchester. That demonstrated the concerns over the spatial framework right across the region.

Since then, the combined authority has undertaken a public consultation on the Greater Manchester spatial framework, which received an astonishing 27,000 responses. While many of those recognised the need for new housing, concern about the allocation of green-belt land for that development was the single biggest issue raised in the consultation. Concerns over the environment and infrastructure were also raised. The massive response to the draft framework rightly prompted a fundamental rethink of the plan. Work is under way on a second version, which is due to be published in June 2018 and will be subject to a further 12-week consultation. The grass is long on the green belt in my constituency, but I hope that the combined authority have not put the plan into the long grass.

While we await the second draft of the GMSF, I have a few suggestions that might make the revised plan more acceptable to the public. I hope that the Minister will put some of them into practice when considering national planning policy. First, we need a vigorous “brownfield first” policy. Brownfield sites that have had development on them before should be prioritised for the building of houses, rather than the green belt. That not only protects the countryside, but encourages the regeneration of our towns and makes best use of land where the necessary infrastructure already exists. In Greater Manchester, there is at least 1,000 hectares of brownfield land spread over 400 sites that has not yet been fully developed for housing. That is more than enough to build at least 55,000 homes and it is probable that more land of that nature can be found.

We must also look for ways to optimise the density and quality of new housing developments, without eroding the green belt. After all, the green belt is an important barrier against urban sprawl. It encourages us to build upwards and not out. That allows people to live nearer their places of work and does not extend commutes, which in turn reduces the strain on local roads and transport infrastructure.

The Government recently conducted a consultation on the new approach to calculating local housing need, to which I submitted evidence. If the Government wish to proceed, I believe that the most significant policy change that should be implemented is for the new approach to calculating housing need to be considered at county level, rather than at metropolitan borough level. In the case of my local area, it would be considered by Greater Manchester rather than Stockport. It makes more sense to look at overall demand at a broader county level, rather than at borough level, especially in light of the devolution to city regions, combined authorities and metropolitan mayors, which look after other infrastructure and services.

Furthermore, members of the public do not necessarily observe and are perhaps even unaware of council boundaries as they go about their daily lives. They often live in one borough and work in another, and they may travel through several others to get from one to the other. The more artificial boundaries that form the basis of planning policy, the more divorced decision making is from reality. Critically, my proposal would allow flexibility to improve how local authorities work together to meet housing and other needs across their respective boundaries. Just because one borough has higher levels of employment or property values, it does not necessarily follow that it has more sites to build houses on.

In conclusion, the strength of local opinion is clear. The voices not only in my constituency but in neighbouring constituencies and from colleagues across the House are clear: the green belt should be safeguarded and previously developed urban land should be prioritised for housing instead. I recognise that the housing White Paper proposes to make it clear that green-belt boundaries should be subject to change only where the local authority can demonstrate that it has

“fully examined all other reasonable options”,

including the proper use of brownfield land. Indeed, any changes to green-belt designation should be made only as part of a wider local planning review process to ensure that there are opportunities for community consultation. Giving neighbourhood plans greater legal authority in planning law would be one means of achieving that. I commend the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) and hope that those on the Treasury Bench were in listening mode for his submission.