HOUSING SITE, PITSTONE (ACQUISITION) (Hansard, 4 July 1955)

§ Major Sir Frank Markham (Buckingham)
With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to raise once again the question of the compulsory order on land at Pitstone, Buckinghamshire, owned by Mr. Mark Williamson. I raised this question on 15th February last and had what appeared to me at the time to be a reasonable, although not entirely satisfactory, answer. Since then, new facts have come to light which, I think, bear out more than ever my contention that the Minister should quash this order. The reason that I am taking up the time of the House tonight is to put this definite request to the Parliamentary Secretary that this order is an unwise order and that there are certain irregularities connected with it. I ask him to use his powers and cancel the order as quickly as possible.
The House is aware that this order was made in January, 1954, and I do not intend to traverse the history of it, except again to reiterate that the public inquiry, held in April, 1954, against an objection of the then owner, was one that could only be described as a "hole-in-the-corner" business, of which the village knew nothing. It is only now that the news has at last been thoroughly well ventilated that we realise that the entire district is up against this order.
The irregularities in this particular order are, first of all, that the Ministry inspector, when he went down to the village for the public hearing, did not see, or alternatively was not shown, all alternative sites. I would ask the Minister whether anyone on the rural district council or in the Ministry drew his attention to what is probably the best site in the village, which was never seen by him.
Secondly, and indeed, the Minister made this point in his speech last February, the fact was brought forward that other sites were ruled out by the possibility of a future by-pass. Has that fact materialised? Are those other sites still ruled out by a hypothetical conjecture?
918 Now we have reached a point where the whole village, or two-thirds of the adult population of the village, has signed a petition to the Minister asking him to cancel this Order. This petition was drawn up, was engendered, not by the man whose farm is being acquired, but first of all, as I understand it, by a school manager, and secondly, by Pitstone Parish Council, which, in the past, has been entirely ignored by the authorities in putting on this order.
The Minister is aware of the terms of the petition. Summarising them briefly, they say that the site is too far from the school, church, bus routes and the village itself. Secondly, that the children will have to cross by the main road which carries a considerable amount of traffic —a point I raised in my speech of 15th February—and, thirdly, that there are far more suitable sites in another part of the village, which is unquestionably true.
The situation now, therefore, is that we have the church authorities, parish council, school managers, National Farmers' Union, and the local Press, all against this order. Every form of opinion that can be expressed by a village is against it. Meanwhile, the Wing Rural District Council, at the instigation of the Ministry, are acting as if they were the actual owners of the land, even though no effort has been made to pay for the land and there has as yet been little or no attempt on behalf of the authorities to recompense Mr. Williamson.
The Parliamentary Secretary will remember that on 15th February last he said: I understand that the compensation has not yet been settled, but there is really no reason to suppose it will be unjust. I think that it will be found that the compensation in this case will be competently and sympathetically worked out."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1955; Vol. 537, c. 352.] I do not for a moment doubt that the Parliamentary Secretary was sincere when he said that, but five months have elapsed and there has been no attempt on behalf of the authorities to settle the question of compensation. The whole case bristles with high-handedness and irregularities. I once again ask the Parliamentary Secretary to quash this order and have a new public inquiry to go through all the facts to ensure that Pitstone gets a housing site which is infinitely better than that proposed.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. W. F. Deedes)
I certainly do not begrudge my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Buckingham (Sir F. Markham) a second chance at this small but controversial and important issue over the proposed Pitstone housing site. He raised this matter four-and-a-half months ago, and at that time, although I was unable to meet him, I hope I was able to satisfy him that what we did was done after a full study of all the facts. He accepts—and I hope all the parties concerned accept—that a year ago we did go to very considerable lengths in order to reach a fair and right decision.
Since that time, as he has indicated tonight, public feeling has stirred, or has been stirred, and there is now a petition by residents of the village of Pitstone to the Wing Rural District Council, signed by 200 people. That petition comes before the Wing Rural District Council tomorrow morning. I do not regret the timing of the two events, my hon. and gallant Friend's debate tonight and the consideration of the petition tomorrow morning. However, it does mean that I must weigh carefully the reply I give tonight to what my hon. and gallant Friend has said.
Let me first say something about the factors that he raised bearing on our earlier decision last year when we confirmed this order. I am not being stubborn about this, but after going through the papers again I can say that nothing has arisen which alters my view which I gave four-and-a-half months ago that the decision which we reached was the right decision. There is some feeling I know that there should have been a public inquiry instead of a hearing in the first place. Perhaps I might just say a word about that.
The Minister can decide whether to hold a public local inquiry or, alternatively, an informal hearing. A public local inquiry is held when the proposal is of general public interest or where a number of objections have been received. A hearing is arranged when the proposal is restricted in interest and there are few objections.
Had the petition been presented a year ago—and I stress this point to my hon.
920 and gallant Friend—we might well have had a public local inquiry instead of a hearing, but that does not mean that we should have reached a better or a different verdict. I hope I have made clear to my hon. and gallant Friend the circumstances in which there may be a public inquiry or a hearing.
My hon. and Gallant Friend tonight asked me about the alternative sites and how much attention was paid to them. It is fair to remind him that that was an issue which I answered in some detail on the previous occasion. I enumerated—I have them before me—the five alternative sites and the reasons which were held against each one.

§ Sir F. Markham
My hon. Friend also brought out the fact that only four were visited.

§ Mr. Deedes
Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will allow me to say something about the visiting of the sites in a moment, because that is a point with which I shall deal.
A petition is to be presented, and I must weigh carefully what I say before the rural district council reaches its decision. Nothing we have done reduces the rights of the Wing Rural District Council or its obligation to weigh very carefully the petition from the local inhabitants. I am certainly not going to stand here and say "My right hon. Friend is right. We have given our verdict and it is the right verdict, and the Wing Rural District Council must now stick to its guns." That would be quite wrong. If the Council feels in the light of the petition that it should, after all these months, decide not to carry on with the scheme on the particular site, there is nothing in what we have said or done which prevents it from doing so. I hope it will approach the petition which it will consider tomorrow without prejudice and with an open mind.
Let me remind my hon. and gallant Friend what we were asked to do. We were not asked to say—here I come to the point about the site—"This is the only available or the best site for the houses in the village of Pitstone." It may not be the best site. We were asked whether on the facts as known at the time—this was the question before us—the Wing Rural District Council had made out a sufficiently strong case to justify confirmation of the order. On those 921 grounds we gave our verdict, which I still maintain was the right one, and we took full account of any possible hardship to the owner.
That has certainly not closed the door to the making of any fresh decision desired by the Wing Rural District Council when it has considered the petition. Of course it can weigh up far better than we can, or than we can pretend to do, the feeling among the electors of Pitstone. The petition is a matter primarily between the council and its electors.
Perhaps I should add that an order which is confirmed by my right hon. Friend is final. I have explained to my hon. and gallant Friend the circumstances in which the order was confirmed by my right hon. Friend's predecessor, the present Foreign Secretary, who went to considerable trouble, even to a small point of detail, to try to ensure that justice was done in the confirmation of the order.
I have said that, once confirmed in that way, an order is final, but it is fair to add that I do not think that any fresh evidence has been adduced in the correspondence which has taken place in the last few weeks or in the remarks made by my hon. and gallant Friend tonight. I cannot accept the petition as fresh evidence of a wrong verdict having been reached in the past. In my opinion, the petition in no way alters the validity of any of the evidence on which our inspector based his report and the verdict which was reached personally by the then Minister; but it is, of course, for the council now to decide whether or not it wishes to proceed with the scheme.
My hon. and gallant Friend will note that I have been careful to avoid, as I think I ought, any attempt to influence the Wing Rural District Council into one verdict or another tomorrow. I have tried to satisfy him that we did the job 922 we were asked to do, and that we did it fairly, and that it is now for Wing Rural District Council to take its decision on the petition which was presented to it and not to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, although we have received a copy and noted its contents.
I think that my hon. and gallant Friend would agree that it is not a good thing to interfere unduly with the processes of local democracy, when, as must be obvious to all, the local council is in touch with local feeling and so on and is much better equipped to test the weight of public feeling.

§ Sir F. Markham
That is my entire point. Public opinion was never given a chance to express itself because of the high-handed action of authority. This order was put in and carried through before public opinion knew about it. Democracy was never given a chance.

§ Mr. Deedes
I must ask my hon. and gallant Friend to bear in mind that a great many months have elapsed since the hearing took place—perhaps he can refresh my memory as to how many.
I hope that he is not trying to suggest to me that this is a matter which has been kept quiet in the village of Pitstone, or in the rural district, until this moment. The evidence of public opinion provided by this petition does not suggest that this has been kept quiet up till now. I repeat that we reached the decision required of us, and I sincerely believe that it was the right one. The Wing Rural District Council should now be allowed to take what, I suppose, will be the final decision without undue pressure from this quarter.