HIGH ROAD, CHADWELL HEATH (PLANNING DEVELOPMENT) (Hansard, 24 February 1956)

§ Mr. John Parker (Dagenham)

I wish to raise certain town planning difficulties which have arisen in Dagenham, with particular reference to the development of the High Road, Chadwell Heath. This road is a section of A.12, the main artery out of London to the East Coast via Chelmsford and Colchester. For about three quarters of a mile it runs through my constituency, from Ilford at one end—where there is a shopping area which 794 runs over the boundary into my constituency—to the other end in Romford, where it enters what is a Green Belt strip, part of the Old Crown Lands which have, fortunately, been preserved from building.

The area along this road has been town-planned by the Dagenham Corporation and the Essex County Council, and one end of it—the end towards the Green Belt strip—is scheduled for residential development. The rest of the road is intended to have one or two public buildings. There is already a library. A clinic is proposed. But, in the main, the rest of the road is scheduled for development as business premises.

There is a very big need in the whole of that area for shopping facilities, because there is a large residential population. At the south of the High Road there are private houses, and across bridges beyond the railway is a very large L.C.C. estate, the Becontree Estate. As hon. Members will know, that was built in the 1920s and early 1930s, and it has all the advantages and disadvantages of large-scale planning at that date. At that time no serious consideration was given to the need for shopping facilities. One or two shopping areas have grown up since then, but they are still far from satisfactory on that estate.

To the north of the High Road there has been before and since the war private building development. Now under construction is a large council estate at Marksgate, partly in Ilford and partly in Dagenham. There again, shopping facilities are required. The High Road at Chadwell Heath was felt by the town planning authorities to be a very good point for developing an extensive shopping centre. Just before the war quite a large number of shops were built along the road. They are mainly good buildings, with flats above them. No doubt that development would have continued if the war had not come. It was not possible to go ahead with further shops immediately after the war because of building restrictions.

Now this hoped-for shopping development right along this road has been stopped, and the whole position has been queered by the outbreak of a rash of used car marts in the last year or so. I understand that before 1948 there were only two in being. There were a few used cars sold, but this form of business 795 was subsidiary to the main use of the premises there, and there was certainly no large-scale display of used cars.

This rapid development of used car marts has been stimulated by a decision of the Minister. In an appeal in the Ashton Gardens case, in March, 1954, the Minister turned down the council's refusal to allow a car mart on the grounds, first, that the site in question had been scheduled for use later as a clinic; and, second, that it was in the area scheduled for business development. It was true that a permit was only given for five years; but since that decision, all along the remaining undeveloped part of the road one after another of these various used car marts has been established.

In another case which came before the Minister, relating to the Hainault Road site, an appeal was heard, and the Minister supported the local council's decision to refuse the use of the site for a car mart, on 19th January this year. But here there was a special reason. This particular site is at the end of the road which is scheduled on the town plan for residential development. The fact that the Minister gave that as his main reason for turning down the application for its use as a car mart rather suggests that when the time comes to give a decision in respect of parts of the road scheduled on the town plan for business premises the Minister may give a different decision. Most, if not all, of these used car marts now operating are in that part of the road which is scheduled in the town plan for business premises.

I should like to know the Minister's attitude on this matter. It is not only the wish of the council in Dagenham but the general desire of the population that we should have shopping facilities developed along the road, as was intended. It is quite impossible to get a person to come and build a decent shop and put money into the business if he is to have a car mart opposite or adjoining his property. That means that the growth of these car marts has brought down the value of existing shops and of the residential property immediately behind them.

Quite apart from destroying the value of property and the general amenities, these marts are a great nuisance to shoppers and residents. They complicate the problem of road safety, because people come along and leave their cars 796 on the road whilst they are looking at cars in the marts or, if they have no car, they borrow one from the marts and drive it along the High Road or the neighbouring residential roads. All this adds to the danger and increases the traffic. In fact, these used car marts constitute a business slum, and we do not wish to have a business slum in that area in this year of grace.

What can the council do to prevent this kind of development? No buildings are normally put up by these car mart owners. They put down cinders to cover the area, and there may be a shack for the person who takes charge or receives the money and looks after the cars hut, technically speaking, the site is "business premises." Would it also be open to people to use the site for setting up barrows for the sale of fruit and vegetables or to put up a coffee stall? Even though the area is scheduled for business premises, the council has no real control over the use made of it even when that use may be detrimental to the area as a whole and to surrounding users.

The whole machinery for dealing with this difficulty is extraordinarily complicated. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is a great opponent of unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy. I should like to tell him, as an example, about the history of the Hainault Road site. It has taken a year to secure a decision on that matter. I will give the details because a similar sequence of events may well follow in other cases.

In April, 1955, an appeal was made to the council to permit the use of the site for the sale of second-hand cars. On 9th April, the council wrote to the owner and advised him that planning permission was necessary. On 15th April, the council decided to take action requiring the use of the land for the sale of secondhand cars to be discontinued. On 20th April, a letter was received from the solicitors acting for the owners of the car sales business advising that a planning application would be made within a few days. On 22nd April an enforcement notice was served requiring use to be discontinued within a total period of 35 days—and 28 days notice must always be given within which to appeal against the notice, under Section 23 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947.

797 On 29th April, application for planning permission was received, and this application automatically suspended the operation of the enforcement notice. On 3rd May, the application was sent to the area planning officer, for that is necessary under an agreement delegating planning powers to the council. He returned it to the council on 24th May. On 3rd June application was made to the planning committee, which refused consent. There was no committee meeting in May owing to elections.

On 8th June, notice of planning refusal was issued. On 1st July, Mr. Hall appealed to the Minister against the refusal of the council. On 18th July, notification of appeal was received by the Minister, and on 23rd August notification was received from the Minister of decision to hold a local inquiry. The local inquiry was held on 30th September. On 20th January notification of the Minister's decision to dismiss the appeal was received and the enforcement notice revived. On 20th January the appellants were informed of the decision and that the enforcement notice would take place on 20th February, when the council would expect the site to be cleared. On 21st February last the site was not yet cleared. The appellants asked for an extension to 5th March. That shows the difficulties under present town planning powers and their use in trying to get reasonable use made of a particular site and the prevention of this kind of nuisance. I am sure no one can defend the enormous amount of red tape and delays which I have indicated in that case. We want a general policy laid down as to what kind of development there should be in that area. It would help us very much if we could have assistance from the Minister on that point.

That is not the only kind of development which appears likely to take place on this section of road. Finding obstacles from the council to the use of the sites for car marts, four people have put in applications for development of the sites as petrol filling stations. We already have several petrol filling stations in the area. We are pleased to have a limited number of them if they are decent places with adjoining garages, but we do not want petrol filling stations all along the road, preventing its use as a shopping centre, especially if they are only 798 disguised car marts, as may well be the case.

From a development point of view, if there are too many greengrocers those shops can be adapted for use as other shops, but that is not the case with petrol filling stations. There is a waste of national resources if petrol filling stations are established and cannot be used later for other purposes. There is also a danger in that the big oil companies are financing such projects nationally. From the local point of view we want the area developed for shopping facilities and, although we do not oppose one or two decent-looking filling stations, we do not want the whole road taken up for that purpose.

What can the Minister suggest as a means of dealing with this problem? Would it be possible for the council to buy the whole frontage and lease it for development as shops? I quite agree that there should be sites on which second-hand cars may be sold, but it should be quite easy to develop such sites on areas intended for future industrial development in the district and left vacant for the time being.

This is not a party issue, but one on which all residents—members of the main political parties and organisations outside the parties, such as ratepayers' associations and the Co-operative guilds, citizens who have voted for me and against me, shopkeepers and residents alike—are all unanimously of the opinion that something ought to be done to prevent that area becoming a business slum, and that reasonable use should be made of that land and of the way in which it should be used.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. Enoch Powell)

The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) began by indicating the future use for the area around the Chadwell Heath High Road which was contemplated by the local planning authority. As the position at the moment is that the development plan is before my right hon. Friend for confirmation, it would be improper for me to express approval or disapproval or an opinion upon those prospects. That, however, need not prevent the House from considering the more detailed questions which the hon. Member raised in his speech.

799 I must, however, say in regard to the petrol filling stations, to which the hon. Member referred, that here again the applications for planning permission to establish new stations of this kind may lead to appeals to my right hon. Friend and that, therefore, again I am inevitably estopped from expressing an opinion upon that. I am not, however, under the same disability in regard to the main problem of the used car marts.

As the hon. Member said, there have been two recent oases in which appeals were heard and determined by my right hon. Friend. In the case of Ashton Gardens, the hon. Member—I think, inadvertently—did not mention that a time limit of five years had been placed upon the grant of permission. This should enable the local authority at the end of that period, if the development which it envisages is then likely or imminent, or if the character of the neighbourhood clearly demands a different use, to refuse to extend the permission and for the matter to be considered de novo by the Minister at the time. I do not feel, therefore, that the decision in that case has in any way prejudiced the future.

As the hon. Member himself said, in the other instance—the corner of Hainault Road—the appeal was refused by my right hon. Friend. It cannot, therefore, be said that recent decisions have been unfavourable from the point of view of the intentions of the local planning authority.

Of course, there are already car marts in this stretch of the road which rank as existing use under the Town and Country Planning Acts. There also, however, the local authority is not without the means of coping with the situation, because it can make an order, subject to confirmation by the Minister, for the termination of these uses where it thinks it desirable and, of course, subject to payment of any necessary compensation which might be involved.

The hon. Member asked a general question as to whether change of use from car mart to, for example, a vegetable stall would be a change of use requiring permission and involving a planning procedure under the Act. I should be wise to decline to answer at large a question so wide as that. As the hon. Member probably knows, some of these questions as to whether change of use requires 800 planning permission are appealable questions which might go to the Minister in a particular instance on one of the actual sites that we are discussing. It would, however, probably be generally true that any substantial change of use of these sites would require planning permission.

Then, the hon. Member raised the question of delay in dealing with an application for planning permission where that results in an appeal and where, on the appeal being rejected, a notice to terminate the user is served upon the enterprise concerned. I was obliged to the hon. Member for describing me—I trust, accurately—as an opponent of red-tape and bureaucracy. Both I and my right hon. Friend are very much alive to the importance of reducing the average length of time which a planning appeal takes.

In this instance, the time from the appeal being lodged until the decision was only a little over six months, which is by no means abnormal or, perhaps, even unreasonable. It must be borne in mind that there are a number of elements in the process which cannot in reason be shortened. I should be out of order, of course, in referring to any alterations which would require legislation, for the periods of notice and so forth are fixed by Statute and could not be varied without legislation. But such periods as that within which the planning authority can reasonably be expected to come to a decision on an application, must be of a certain length. It is impracticable for planning committees, which are manned, of course, by the voluntary labour of local councillors, to meet more than, say, monthly or in some cases bi-monthly, so there is an inevitable delay arising from that cause.

There is then the factor of finding a date for an inquiry which will be suitable to all parties, not least the planning authority itself, which has to make its officials available for the inquiry. The inspector's report then has to be carefully compiled to give the Minister himself an accurate picture of the arguments put forward at the inquiry and the circumstances of the case. That, in turn, must be carefully examined by the Minister before he comes to his decision and issues his letter. Although I should be the first to say that every effort must constantly be made to reduce this period, one must be realistic and admit that there 801 is a certain irreducible minimum, which to the general public might still seem quite large, below which we cannot get this period.

Now, if I may turn from the individual cases of the planning permissions applied for and appeals considered, to the general principles, I should make it clear that in determining planning appeals the Minister not only does not consider commercial questions but ought not to do so. It is not part of his business, in deciding whether an appeal for planning permission should be allowed or not, to consider whether there is a local demand for that particular type of business. After all, a planning application arises on the initiative of the private individual who wants to develop. Responsibility for determining whether there is demand and whether it is sufficient to justify his outlay rests upon the private individual and should not be taken from his shoulders. A planning appeal relates to and should be decided on purely planning considerations and it is those which the hon. Member felt were of outstanding importance.

In such a case as the present, one consideration would be the effect upon traffic. Clearly, the establishment of businesses of this kind along a busy traffic highway is bound to influence traffic and, by influencing traffic, to influence safety. It may also affect 802 amenity in the surrounding roads, which, as the hon. Member said, might be used for the trial of cars before purchase or otherwise. Those are factors which very properly should be considered not only by the local planning authority, but by the Minister.

Beyond that again, there is the whole question of amenity in the widest sense, not merely the appearance of the installations themselves, but also whether they properly belong in the context of the neighbourhood as it is and as it should develop over the coming years. Those are the kinds of considerations on which in the past my right hon. Friend has decided these questions and on which he will endeavour to decide them as they come before him in the future.

The development plan covering this area will in due course be approved and that will, of course, give clearer guidance as to the types of development which are envisaged. In the meantime, I feel that the hon. Member and his constituents need have no anxiety that planning powers will be exercised, either by the local authority or by my right hon. Friend, in such a way as to prejudice the future desirable development of this area.