HC Deb 02 November 1962 vol 666 cc560-70

Motion made, and Question proposed.

That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Peel.]

3.40 p.m.

Mr. Godfrey Lagden (Hornchurch)

In this House, on 19th July, I had occasion to ask a Question, which was answered by the Under-Secretary, concerning sewerage plant in Hornchurch, and I received an Answer from him which was hopeful and friendly, but not very inspiring. I therefore gave notice that I should raise this question on the Motion for the Adjournment, and I am happy to have the opportunity to do so on behalf of those who live in the largest urban district in our country—132,000 people. It may seem that today we have been discussing a matter which has had a nasty smell about it, and I can assure the House that before I finish I shall be referring to yet another rather nasty smell of a quite different kind in Hornchurch.

I do not wish to appear too unkind, either to the Ministry, the Ministers or the servants of the local authority who from time to time have had this matter under review. When I say from time to time, I am sure it will be appreciated that I am speaking back from 1946. It is rather surprising that when we refer to the official papers of that time, we read that the Ministry was in favour of a regional scheme in 1946.

I hasten to say here and now that we have no regional scheme in 1962. In October, 1948, having now jumped from 1946, a public inquiry was held into this matter, and since that time the various councils, in conjunction with the gentlemen from the Ministry, have got together and discussed this matter. But so far as I can see, and as far as the people of Hornchurch, Romford, Dagen-ham and Brentwood can see, these great discussions have merely been shelved from time to time. I am sure these discussions have given mental exercise to all who have joined in them, but they have brought nothing at all of a concrete nature to the people of Hornchurch.

I do not wish to rub salt into the wounds of the Minister, because he has had a very tiring two days. Yesterday he had a debate of great consequence, and I believe he had an Adjournment debate yesterday. He has another one today. I appreciate that that is a very fair proportion to undertake in two days. Nevertheless, I think we should examine this question. When I asked the Question he seemed so sympathetic. I ask him at the outset of my remarks, when he replies, not merely to say, "I am most sympathetic. We are giving immediate attention to the matter. I am sure it will now not be long delayed and we are doing everything possible." If we hear that sort of thing we can take it as read, as we had that in writing as long ago as 1948, again in 1952 and in subsequent years to date. Therefore, I ask that that shall not be the conciliatory line of his reply.

At this stage we have proceeded from a total cost of what the regional scheme was estimated to be—'namely, something like £56,000—to a cost, which has been given to me by the local authority only today, of £5 million. There have been some rises in costs over the years but an increase from £56,000 to £5 million seems to me to be rather an important and large sum to take into consideration.

At one time it was thought that the urban district of Brentwood would join in the regional scheme, and there was a time When the Minister was very anxious that it should. I do not altogether blame Brentwood, with these changing circumstances and changing costs, suddenly to find itself in the position of contracting out of this scheme because it feels that as a duty to its ratepayers it can produce something adequate at a much cheaper cost. I understand all that. But, at the risk of annoying good friends on my border, I would say that we feel it is a pity that Brentwood has done this because sometimes taking a long view is better than taking merely a short one for economic reasons.

Yesterday, the Minister made a fair and enthusiastic speech. I was delighted to hear his words, and he can be assured that I will support to the best of my ability any proposals he has to achieve his aims. He told us that we must increase our rate of house-building, speed up the slum clearance programme, and so on. Is he aware, however, that in Hornchurch—'this large area as I have described it—a single house cannot be built because of the lack of sewerage facilities?

The council's planning department has reached the stage where on any application they place their rubber stamp stating "Refused—Sewerage". This is a serious matter in an area with a long waiting list of people requiring accommodation. Builders in the area, even if they have land and wish to build, and the council itself, are frustrated because of this lack of sewerage facilities.

Are we to think that if the matter is left in the hands of the Minister all will be well in twenty-five years? Frankly, I do not think that the people of Horn-church are prepared to take kindly to that sort of suggestion. Why is the Minister apparently unable to say to the builders, "We will grant planning permission subject to adequate sewerage." I am told that there are technical reasons, perhaps legal ones, why that should not be done and we look to the Minister and his Department to cut through this sort of red tape to ensure that Hornchurch is provided with suitable sewerage facilities.

If the cost of doing this is, in fact, about £5 million, I hope that steps will be taken to ensure that the burden of raising this money does not fall solely on the ratepayers. The necessary finance should be raised in a way which will make the burden fall equally on the existing ratepayers and on those who are going to use the new houses when they can be built.

Hon. Members may think that I am exaggerating the position when I speak about undesirable odours emanating in this district. I have with me a letter from a highly respected doctor who practises and lives in the area. I know him personally as a man not prone to exaggeration. He states that unbearable and offensive odours are caused and that they result, in certain cases, in physical ill-health causing nausea and vomiting, especially to people with a delicate sense of smell. These remarks are supported by many other doctors who have been in touch with me.

The South Hornchurch Residents" Association wrote to the Minister expressing its views on this subject. As a result of all these protests, it is about time the Minister said: "My hon. Friend and I are very new brooms and we desire to show everybody that we will act and not talk." I ask him to knock together the heads of those in his Ministry and those officials in the boroughs concerned if he should find at any stage that they are dragging their feet. The people who live in this district are entitled to some action, and quick action. They have waited 25 years, and every year it has been getting worse.

I am aware that before my hon. Friend attained the position he holds now he had some experience on the legal side in connection with matters of this bind, and I hope that he will plead with his right hon. Friend on behalf of my constituents of Hornchurch, and that I shall not be long delayed in saying to them," You can see that the new Minister and the people in his Department are not people to take purely evasive action, but are doing something which should have been done as long as 25 years ago".

Mr. G. R. Howard (St. Ives)

On a point of order. On reading through the manuscript of a speech that I made recently, I find that I said, "Some people have talked about the difficulties of discovering homosexuals and people with similar tendencies. I do not wish to make specific charges, but many of us have been abroad and seen some of the members of our embassies. It is not difficult to see that many of them are rather inclined that way."

I was horrified, when I read this, to see what impression these words might give. It was not at all my intention to make such an allegation against the Foreign Service. What I had intended to say could read roughly like this," It is not difficult to see how charges, often false, can or could be made against people later on."

I wish immediately to correct any impression which this sentence might have given, and to offer my apologies to anyone whom I might have wrongly accused of such a dreadful thing.

Mr. Speaker

Very well.

3.53 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield)

The problem of my hon. Friend the Member for Horn- church (Mr. Lagden) is immensely complicated by the fact that we are dealing with sewerage and sewage disposal facilities in an area which is administered by no less than four county districts.

There are Hornchurch and Brentwood Urban Districts, and the Boroughs of Romford and Dagenham. Furthermore, the solution of this problem has involved three separate sewage disposal works. They are the Riverside Works, which are the property of Dagenham Borough Council, which discharge into Rainham Creek. There is the Nags Head Lane Works, which belong to Brentwood, discharging into the River Ingrebourne, and the Bretons Farm Works which are jointly owned by Hornchurch and Romford and discharge into the River Beam. All these, as my hon. Friend knows, are situated within the Hornchurch urban district.

My hon. Friend referred to the long history of this scheme and these efforts to solve the problem. It is indeed a long history, longer even than my hon. Friend supposes. I find that the first possibility of a joint scheme was investigated and put forward by consulting engineers on behalf of Essex County Council as long ago as 1940, though, of course, the war interfered with any possibility of carrying those proposals into effect. As my hon. Friend said, the next stage in this rather disappointing story is 1946 when the same consultants brought their proposals up to date and continued to base them on a joint scheme.

Nevertheless, by 1950 there was no agreement between the various authorities, and, as my hon. Friend said, an investigation was carried out by one of my Minister's inspectors at which all the county districts concerned were represented. In addition there were the Essex Rivers Catchment Board, which is now the Essex River Board, and the Essex County Council, though I gather that the latter did not, in fact, put forward evidence.

Following these investigations the Minister of the day wrote, in February, 1951, to the four county districts expressing the view that the conclusion to be drawn from those investigations was that the proper solution must be a regional scheme based on an extension and modification of the Dagenham Riverside Works initially designed to take the excess flow from the other sewerage works, but designed so that they would eventually be able to take all the sewage from the area into this enlarged and rebuilt Riverside Works.

As a result of that—and this is one of the several sad sides of the story— Hornchurch urban district, when laying a new main sewer in the Ingrebourne Valley, did, at the suggestion of my Ministry, allow for a sufficient sized sewer to take the whole of the excess from 'the Brentwood works. II would point out that even at that stage it was made clear that though it was the wish of the Ministry that a regional scheme should be carried out there could at that stage be no guarantee that it would eventually materalise.

Again, in 1953 it was necessary to remind the four local authorities of the view already expressed by the Minister, and they were told to co-ordinate all their future arrangements with a view to fitting them into the proposed regional scheme, but again another two years passed, and then Romford and Horn-church came forward with a request to extend their Bretons Farm Works which were at that stage said to be overloaded by no less than 1 million gallons per day, so as to take their own sewage. Again, it was pointed out that it was now four years since the Minister's views on the regional scheme had been made abundantly clear in 1951, and, of course, it was clear that this new request only made more urgent the need for progress.

In the meanwhile, the Essex River Board had been expressing their grave concern with regard to the state of the River Beam, which takes the effluent of the Bretons Farm works and also fine River Ingrebourne, which takes the effluent from the Nag's Head Lane Works. Also, about the same time, Dagenlham started to prepare a scheme for the extension of the Riverside Works so that they would be capable of meeting the needs of the whole scheme.

When the estimated costs were made known, a total of £3 million—and this was announced in April, 1961—the reaction of Romford and Brentwood was to ask the Minister to consider proposals to extend their own works to take their own sewage and so avoid joining the regional scheme. Here again, if one looks at the timetable it is depressing to find that this time it was ten years after the Minister's views had been made known and no fewer than twenty-one since the proposals were first put forward.

However, in September of that year, 1961, as a result of a meeting called by my Ministry and attended by the four county districts, the county council, the river board, and the Port of London Authority, agreement was reached between Dagenham and Hornchurch and Romford to take part in the scheme based on extending the Riverside Works, and it was at this stage, as my hon. Friend pointed out, that Brentwood objected. As he, I think generously, agreed, Brentwood had some very valid grounds for doing so, although one appreciates the disappointment of the other authorities in being no longer able to rely on that contribution, but they were able to show that by extending the Nag's Head Lane Works they would be able to take all their sewage—

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Batsford.]

Mr. Corfield

As I was saying, Brentwood Borough saw that it could extend its Nag's Head Lane Works to take its sewage at a financiail cost smaller than what it would cost to contribute to the larger scheme.

But I think the really new factor here was that the river board at this stage supported Brentwood because it had then come to the conclusion that modernised treatment would enable the effluent from the Nag's Head Lane Works to be discharged without causing pollution. Hitherto, that authority had taken the view very firmly that this effluent was so bad and the pollution was so damaging that the only possible solution was the closing of these works. I think it is fair to emphasise that this was a new factor, as I said, and as a result of that, and of the financial implications to which my hon. Friend has referred, the Minister decided to agree to these proposals, which included the separate works to be carried out by Brentwood. This decision was made known to the local authorities concerned in a letter dated 16th July this year.

My hon. Friend mentioned the question of the cost falling on the ratepayers, in particular relation to contributions from those who will in future occupy houses which will be built, presumably, on this land. But, of course, the general structure of local government finance in these matters, with the relatively long-period loans, does ensure that the ratepayer of the future will bear his share, as well as the ratepayer of the present.

I turn to one or two of the town and country planning aspects. In November, 1961, the Essex County Council, as the local planning authority, decided that the Bretons Farm Works were so overloaded that it was necessary to place a restriction on all developments in all parts of Hornchurch and Romford which drain into those works. My Minister has before him at this moment a number of planning appeals against refusal of planning permission. These are sub judice and it would be quite improper for me to comment on them, but it is fair to say that my Minister clearly will have to take into account, although these matters will be considered on their merits, the reasons which impelled the Essex County Council to impose this restriction.

It has been suggested from time to time that it would be a useful compromise to grant planning permission subject to a condition that no development should be carried out until the drainage facilities were available. I am advised, however, that this sort of condition would be wholly beyond my Minister's powers and that any action of that sort would be ultra vires. But, without in any way presuming to forecast any legal decision of the courts, if this advice is sound, either the condition itself would be invalid, and thereby it would make possible development which could cause quite serious hazards, or the planning permission as a whole would be invalid, and there clearly one would not be doing a favour to the prospective developers, whose difficulties we understand. We appreciate that builders have to have a reserve of land to look forward to and to be able to programme their work forward. We should not be doing them a favour to impose a condition which would have this effect.

I am sure that all of us, and not least the officials of my Department and of the local authorities who have had very long and earnest discussions and who have filled many files of correspondence on this, are immensely thankful that there is substantial agreement between Romford, Dagenham and Hornchurch for a scheme Which will initially take the excess flow of sewage that goes into the Bretons Farm Works and the sewage from the area as a whole to a reconstructed Riverside Works with enlarged capacity. But much as I should like to be more reassuring to my hon. Friend —'and, after his remarks on the subject, I am even nervous of expressing sympathy—these things cannot be done overnight or by the wave of a wand. It is clear that it will be some time before any great benefit is apparent from this agreement.

I understand that the first stage will be a scheme designed to take a certain amount of the excess from the Bretons Farm Works to the Riverside Works but designed and constructed so that it will be able to expand to take the whole. It is hoped that this first stage can be designed and constructed and be in operation within about five years. I do not imagine that my hon. Friend will be over-enthusiastic about a time lag of that sort, but it would be unfair to try to be over-optimistic without good grounds.

I conclude by saying that, having reviewed this long and depressingly slowly developing story, and appreciating as I do that local authorities may have had great difficulty in coming to agreement, I cannot believe that the attitude of the officials of my Department has been anything but helpful throughout. I give my hon. Friend the pledge that, although we should be most reluctant to use compulsion of any sort and will continue to be reluctant, we are anxious to continue to help. We are doing everything we can to keep the local authorities working together in so far as that is necessary and to help so far as it is within our power. I hope that my hon. Friend will not feel that I have neglected his warning by expressing sympathy to that extent.

Mr. Lagden

My hon. Friend was correct when he said that I should not be very pleased with the concluding part of his speech. I hope that I have misunderstood him and that he does not wish to convey that the present state of affairs means that there will be no building of houses in the Hornchurch urban district for another five years. I hope that what he meant was that at least some houses can be built much quicker than that.

I ask my hon. Friend it make it clear to me and to all those people who are waiting on his reply—and I say that quite seriously—whether or not there is to be any more building in Hornchurch and Romford for five years. If not, this will shock to the very core all those to whom approval has been given by the local authority and who are waiting for houses physically to be built. They at least have a right to know whether that is so or not.

I appreciate that there are very great difficulties and that compulsion is not a weapon which I, or the Minister, like to see used. But I would like my hon. Friend to assure me that the Minister and his Department will, if they see any signs of feet dragging in this matter, seriously consider as a last resort action of this kind. I ask this because, to so many people, what has been said by my hon. Friend in the last few minutes will come as a very great shock indeed. There will be many people in tomorrow greatly saddened if what he has said can be read as meaning what I have suggested.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Four o'clock.