SITE, MANGOTSFIELD (DEVELOPMENT) (Hansard, 8 December 1960)

§ Mr. Alan Hopkins (Bristol, North-East)
I am grateful for the opportunity of raising a matter which is very important to a large number of my constituents, and at the same time to sandwich among our Scottish matters something of English import. The matter which I wish to raise refers to planning permission for a public house in Down-end in my constituency.
The history is somewhat complex and I will give only a brief outline. In 1955, an application for planning permission for a site for licensed premises was put forward on behalf of the Bristol Brewery, but permission was refused on the ground that ingress and egress to the site would add dangers to the existing road junction. Later that year, and again in 1956, similar applications for planning permission were put in but were rejected. Somewhat later, the conditions varied and planning permission was granted, subject to two conditions. The first was that there should be no direct access between the site and Overndale Road, and secondly, that an unclimbable fence, to the satisfaction of the local planning authority, or a wall not less than 4 ft. 6 in. high, should be erected upon the whole of the site fronting Overndale Road. The basic reason for these conditions was that the access at the existing crossroads of Overndale Road and Cleeve Hill would result in danger to traffic, and already there is a considerable amount of traffic and considerable danger at that junction.
Somewhat later a further application was put forward, but the objections on the ground of traffic problems were withdrawn and planning permission was finally granted. At all times from 1958 onwards the Mangotsfield Urban District Council has objected strongly to the granting of this application for planning permission, and many local residents have voiced their objections not only to the planning committee but also to me, as their Member of Parliament. Those objections were heard by 1573 the planning committee, and I have no doubt that due consideration was given to them. My argument is that insufficient weight is attached by planning committees to the feelings of local residents and to the views of an authority which represents local residents even though it has not been empowered by Parliament with the responsibilities of planning.
I now come to the end of the story. I was told last week that the owner of the site, who had received planning permission, has decided to sell it, in view of the local opposition. Even if the land is sold and the public house is not built, however, it does not seem to solve the problem. The difficulty of the road will still remain. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to reconsider the matter and to see whether the position can be reviewed and altered in the interests of road safety.
A considerable number of decisions have been rendered by the local planning authority in Gloucestershire, some of which have been the subject of articles in the Daily Telegraph and other newspapers. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) has taken a very keen interest in these matters. I do not suggest any impropriety in any sense, or at any level, but it would appear obvious that considerable concern is felt not only by my constituents but by other residents in Gloucestershire at the manner in which some applications have been granted, and the result of their being granted.
I would ask my hon. Friend whether he will consider the situation suitable for an inquiry, since this is a matter of considerable public concern. In the interests of local government as a whole, justice should not only be done—and I am certain that it is being done—but should be seen to be done.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Hopkins) for putting the case so dearly. I should like to tell him at the outset that my right hon. Friend and I appreciate how deep feelings can run on what are purely local although none the less important matters.
1574 But the fact is that the Government have placed the responsibility for carrying out the administration of the planning Acts squarely upon the shoulders of local planning authorities. It is true that my hon. Friend has reserve powers to intervene in one form or another, but he uses them only when there has been either some gross error of more than local significance or where, coupled with a serious error, there is clear evidence of—

§ Sir K. Joseph
—clear evidence of deliberate failure to consider local representations. I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that it would be intolerable for Whitehall to intervene continually and arbitrarily in local decisions. That is, in effect, what he is asking or, rather, what he has now carefully avoided asking should be done in this case by changing his request to one for some sort of inquiry.
Here the South Gloucestershire Area Planning Sub-Committee, with delegated powers from the Gloucestershire County Planning Committee, has given permission for a planning development within its delegated powers. The county planning committee can reserve cases for itself, but here it did not. Any question of interventon by my rght hon. Frend can be considered only if there was evidence of gross error or a serious error coupled with failure to give proper consideration to local representations. Is there the least evidence of either of these things?
Perhaps one should look at the planning situation. This site is shown in the Bristol fringe town map which is coming up for public inquiry in February of next year as part of a shopping site. The time for objections to that fringe town map has already passed, and, as my hon. Friend knows, no objections were made to the zoning of this site as a shopping area. It is a fact that a shopping zone covers a public house. If a public house is not wanted in this area then objections could have been made at that stage. But, of course, whether or not a public house 1575 comes on this site—I take my hon. Friend's point that at the moment it is thought the present owner will sell the site and therefore the future is not known—does not depend on the planning allocation agreed for the site. It depends on whether the licensing justices agree that a public house may go there.
All the planning committee addressed itself to was whether or not the site itself was proper for a public house. If this or another owner seeks to build a public house here, it will be necessary for his application to the licensing justices to be fully advertised and, of course, my hon. Friend's constituents will be able to make their case by argument before the licensing justices. We are not discussing whether or not a public house is to be put here, but whether or not the site is suitable for a public house. I think I have shown therefore that, so far as the development plan is concerned, there is nothing irregular in the suggestion about putting a public house on the site.
Can it be shown that not enough consideration was given, by the South Gloucestershire Area Planning Sub-Committee? By my hon. Friend's own admission he thinks that arguments were listened to. We know that a letter from the Mangotsfield Urban District Council was sent to and received by the sub-committee before it took its decision. We know that in the same way a letter from local residents was sent to and received by the committee. We know that a representative of the Mangotsfield Urban District Council could have been a member of the sub-committee. In fact I think that there are three places on the sub-committee reserved for representatives of the Mangotsfield Urban District Council which is said by my hon. Friend to have opposed this development so strongly.
Not only did it receive representations, therefore, and not only does my hon. Friend agree that the representations were listened to, but we know that a sub-committee of the planning sub-committee did make a site inspection. My hon. Friend made great play with the suggestion that a local planning authority should take care to avoid offending local public opinion, particularly when it has persuaded the immediate local authority. I suggest that that is a very bad doctrine. The duty of a planning authority 1576 is to come to the right conclusion after considering all the evidence, even if that right conclusion is unpopular. It would be a very sad thing if local planning authorities were to think it their duty to give in to considerable pressure, be it local or remote.
There are various ways in which the local planning authority is obliged to heed public opinion. If, for instance, a local planning authority refuses a planning application, as my hon. Friend knows, an appeal may be made to my right hon. Friend and an inquiry then follows where the arguments are fully exposed to Press and public, and therefore, the local planning authority is forced to take them into account. It is true that if a local planning authority approves an application there is no appeal to my right hon. Friend from that approval by local people who object to the approval. It is therefore all the more important that local planning authorities should take particular care that their public relations are such as to make it absolutely plain that justice has been done as well as actually to do justice.
My right hon. Friend has this point very much in mind, and when he sends out a circular which will precede the bringing into force of the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act, 1960, he will be giving some advice to local planning authorities, including delegated ones, on this point. Here I must repeat to my hon. Friend that there has been no evidence whatsoever of gross error, certainly no evidence of gross error that has any outside significance. There has been no evidence of failure to consider local representations. This is just another case, deeply felt, deeply important, of local people deciding local matters and here I come to the ultimate sanction—which must be in the minds of all the people serving on planning authorities or other local bodies—that is, the sanction of local elections.
My hon. Friend finished his speech by making some very tentative and cautious general remarks suggesting that there might be need for some sort of inquiry into the planning activities in this area. I am sure that he will not be surprised if on the very flimsy arguments he put forward in that part of his speech—I differentiate them strongly from the first 1577 part of his speech which was clearly and carefully argued—I cannot possibly commit my right hon. Friend to any such extraordinary interference with local authority conduct.
I hope that I have not left in my hon. Friend's mind any suggestion that we think this is unimportant to those immediately concerned. I think that they on their side will realise that they would be the first to resent it if Whitehall intruded itself in what really is a local matter and what, therefore, should be left to local decision.

§ Mr. W. A. Wilkins (Bristol, South)
I want to say a word or two in support of what the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Hopkins) has said. I happen to know this site very well, for I have travelled over it for forty or fifty years. I agree with him that it is a rather dangerous site.
What troubles the hon. Member and troubles me and other people is the reason why the planning authority could refuse for about three or four years repeated applications for permission to develop this site—as the Parliamentary Secretary has said—for shops, licensed premises and so on, and then suddenly reverse that decision. That is the point we are troubled about, how it comes about and what happened suddenly to make the planning authority override its own previous decisions.
The Minister said, too, that there were no objections by the local residents when they knew of the plan for the shops, and that any plans for shops automatically made provision or allowed for licensed premises. I think there is probably a simple answer to that. Probably, the general public are not aware that when a proposal is made to erect shops, it will automatically include the provision of licensed premises. If I know this 1578 area at all, I should say that there would have been a pretty strong objection in the area had the people there realised that in agreeing to the proposal to build 37 shops, they were also agreeing to the erection of licensed premises, because they have had a spot of bother from time to time from the existing premises.

§ Sir K. Joseph
I should make it plain that I was not talking about permission being given, but was saying that the zoning in the development plan shows shops, and that covers a public-house. The stage of giving permission is a much later one and is quite separate.

§ Mr. Wilkins
May I say to the Minister that if there are to be public objections, some provision ought to be made for them.

§ Sir K. Joseph
Public objections can be made at several points—at the stage of publication of the development plan, and later when the application actually to develop is made.

§ Mr. Wilkins
I am obliged to the Minister, and I appreciate the point. I understand that they would have to make objections when the proposal for the licence was made. What we are asking the Minister this evening is whether there can be more co-ordination between the planning authorities and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government so that we shall not again have this situation, in which such a long period of time can elapse, and when, not one decision, but three or four previous decisions, can suddenly be changed. There seems to be some weakness there, and I do not know whether that is something to which the Minister ought to give further consideration.