PLANNING APPEALS (MACHINERY)

HC Deb 06 March 1964 vol 690 cc1699-784

11.5 a.m.

Mr. Godfrey Lagden (Hornchurch)

I beg to move, That this House, while appreciating the many difficulties in connection with planning appeals, urges Her Majesty's Government to examine what improvements can in equity be made to the machinery of planning appeals and to take the necessary action to effect improvements. I am happy to have drawn a position in the Ballot which enables me to present this Motion today. I do so because I feel that the matter is of very great importance both to the very small man and to the tycoon. I regret that far too often the human angle is overlooked in planning appeals. Perhaps we do not realise the effect which some of the refusals have on individuals and on family life. I am certain that when local planning committees are constituted not enough attention is given to seeing that the right people are placed on these most important committees. I am sure that at times they are not chosen for their ability, but, in many cases, are merely put on to planning committees to make up the number.

That may not be the fault of the local authority; it may be that it has no option. Without wishing to be unkind or rude to the people selected for these committees, I must say that we often find they are not the right type of persons to be given this great power. They have to rely on the verbal advice of officers attending the committee. Perhaps I shall be forgiven for getting the more unpleasant things said fairly early in my speech. I also regret that the authority which these people find they have to say "No" to an application is very often "heady wine" to them. It is an experience enjoyed which, if possible, should be forgiven.

When a man in a small way of business submits an application, to him it is of vital importance, but to the local authority it becomes merely another printed application. I regret, also, that in many cases the refusal or granting of the application is influenced either by political or personal prejudice. That leaves the little man, who does not understand these things, frustrated and very bewildered. I hope that, later, the Minister will be able to accept the suggestion in my Motion which is designed to do away to a certain extent with that frustration and bewilderment. These committees exist to serve the public and the public should be able to have absolute confidence in them.

Let us examine procedure that has to be gone through before a planning appeal becomes necessary. It may be a very large enterprise that is required, or it may be a very small one. First, the application is made to the local planning committee. Forms, such as I have here, are required to be filled in, either with or without professional advice, and submitted to the local authority. These are received and vetted by the planning officer and he, in turn, will present them to his council's planning committee.

I suppose that there are many people who are still so naive that they think that, having sent in these forms and plans in triplicate, it is merely a question of waiting a short period before they will be informed that their applications have or have not been granted. Many of them must be very astounded when they learn, eight weeks from the date of putting in their application, that the local authority requires further time before it can come to any decision. They receive a printed letter. The mere fact that it is a printed letter indicates the number of applications which are dealt with in this way.

They are informed that the council has not been able to come to a decision for one reason or another, and whether the applicant will kindly—I read from the form of letter— …in writing (by return)"— "by return" is underlined—give his approval and his permission for the delay in time before he hears from the local council. That in itself must start them thinking. If they say "No", what will be the effect on the local council's mind?—here is a man who will not grant us a little further time to consider his application. He must be thinking, "I had better do it, or I shall not get quite the consideration I might expect."

He is in an even worse position than that because, if he does not agree and does not "by return", underlined, give this permission for further time, it is then deemed that he shall have a refusal. What a typical local government letter, "Will you please do this? If you do not, then we will do the other thing". I do nor want to be too critical about local government—I have been in it for many years—but I think that a slightly more suitable letter could be devised than the one which is used.

I turn to the question of the cost to industry of delayed planning decisions. It may well be that an application is made for a piece of land to be built on and the decision delayed for 12 months or more. The cost then of purchase and of delay and of the holding up of machinery and the non-use of manpower may be reflected very considerably in the cost of the house, shop, or whatever it may he. At a time when the Minister is urging the industry to build as many houses as possible for the accommodation of our people, it should not be expected to have these delays and these cost-raising methods.

The Minister, in my opinion, cannot see more than a very small percentage of the actual reports of planning appeals—it is not humanly possible. It would be interesting to know how many of the inspectors' reports the Minister actually sees. Perhaps we can be told, at the same time, how many planning appeals there are in the course of 12 months. The point I wish to make is that, while I am not in any way attacking the Minister—I know that he works extremely hard—it would not be physically possible for him to see all these reports.

Of those he does see, how are they chosen? Who chooses the ones that he shall see, and who says, "I think that the Minister should thoroughly study the inspector's report in this case"? Is it a case of the size? I should be sorry to say that it is because of influence—but why is a particular one selected for his personal observation? There are many quite small people who would say, "My case is as important as anybody else's and I should like the Minister to see mine." Of course we appreciate that that is not possible.

The gentlemen who are chosen to be the inspectors at these public inquiries—how are they chosen? They do not necessarily have to be qualified people. They are obviously in short supply. I am of the opinion, having been to very many inquiries, that perhaps they are not, owing to their being non-qualified people, able to do quite such a good job in this as in other respects—but they are almost all-powerful. They really represent Whitehall. They are practically members of the Ministry. At least, in many cases they must have heard in the Ministry the opinions of the civil servants, and I should like to know why, when they go back, they discuss with the heads of departments the actual cases which they have heard. It seems to me that this must take place.

It is felt by people who are dealing with this subject almost every day of their lives that the scale is very strongly weighted in favour of the local authorities. The local authority representative, the town or urban district clerk, as the case may be, and the planning officers, are constantly in touch with the Ministry's departments which deal with these matters, and both know the opinions of the other. The policy of the Ministry is well known to the clerks and the planning authorities and they must, in my opinion, unfortunately, even unwittingly, convey to the planning appeal the opinion of these authorities.

Is it the argument that there is only a small delay, not a very great matter? As I have said, the application is sent in. It has been with the authority for eight weeks and then comes the request for further time. On this being granted, eventually an inquiry is called for. This may not be for three months, or even more. After the inquiry, what happens then? Is it a question of reasonable time? If an applicant has to wait six months for a decision he is indeed fortunate. He should consider that he has been very lucky indeed. It is by no means unusual for these delays from the time of the public inquiry to the time of the decision to be well over 12 months.

I know that I shall be told that with all these inquiries it is not possible to avoid delay, but we are dealing here with matters of vital importance. If it is a quest on of manpower, something should be done. There should be an investigation to find out whether manpower can be increased to deal with these matters or some other administrative action can be taken to short-circuit these matters. I would quote one example in my constituency of a block of 218 flats about which an inquiry took place in December, 1961, and the Minister's decision was received in May, 1963.

By no stretch of the imagination should that be possible and be allowed. What about the feelings not only of the people who want to build flats, but of the people who have some faint hope of living in the flats when this vast expanse of time is permitted between the inquiry and the the Minister's decision? Incidentally, on the very day that this decision was received and it was favourable for the building of these 218 flats, in which presumably people would be using the water supply, and so on, a disapproval was conveyed to the local council of one bungalow on the ground that it would overload the sewerage plant. It makes one think—218 fiats, and one bungalow.

I recommend the Minister, if he finds that he can spare the time, to look at the pamphlet which was produced recently by the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors on this very subject. It is a most admirable paper and I should like to acknowledge the help given me today by studying it. The Association covered the points of the existing procedure which I have outlined and enumerated some of its faults. Some of these are very real and to my mind most important. The Association says, for instance, that An applicant has no right of audience with the L.P.A. and is largely dependent on its officers for the way in which his application is presented. Let us examine that for a moment. The application is in and the planning officer looks at it. It may be to him a fine application which he would like to support. This is fortunate for the applicant, because it is more than likely that he will have approval, but suppose that for some reason or other the planning officer is of the opposite opinion. He does not like the application for council policy reasons, or it may be even for personal reasons. When the committee sits to hear that application it will be presented by that officer, and there is not a man alive who will not be prejudiced in favour of his own opinion. He cannot help it.

The applicant is not present. He cannot ask for a few moments to correct whatever has been said. He has to rely absolutely for the presentation of his case, which is important to him, on the manner in which the council's officer deals with it. It has been suggested that an assessor might be used in connection with local planning authority committees. If that were possible it surely would give a far more balanced presentation of the case. I am certain that these assessors could be obtained quite easily.

I am also sure that this would make for a much fairer presentation and that people would feel that there was no jiggery-pokery. It is vitally important that people, probably for the first time in their lives, who have dealings with—I will not say come in collision with—their local authority should not come away at the end of the day feeling that there was something which had happened behind closed doors of which they knew nothing and which had had the effect of their planning appeal being disapproved.

I am also convinced that a time limit should be imposed on the Minister in coming to his decision. I sincerely hope that the Minister will not say, "I could not possibly do that. I am far too busy." I repeat that he is dealing here with most important issues for human beings and for the improvement of housing and of building. If it is merely a question of administration, then that administration must be looked at and improved.

There is another matter which some may regard as a small subject, but it is vitally important to many people. It is a question of the cost of these planning inquiries and appeals. This cost is for large building firms just an added cost to the building, but what about the small man? His application is refused and he knows that he can go to appeal, but can he afford to do that? When he goes to appeal himself he will find that he is incapable of dealing with the matter. He will have all sorts of Town and Country Planning Act provisions quoted backwards and forwards and he will have to obtain professional advice.

Many appeals are not made because the applicants cannot afford to appeal. These people are entitled to the same treatment as a person who has plenty of money. They should not be precluded from making appeals because they cannot afford them. As we all know, they cannot obtain legal aid in these matters. They cannot have any costs taxed and consequently they frequently have to leave the matter in abeyance because they can no longer afford to carry on.

I should like to mention a planning appeal in my own constituency which concerned Hornchurch Aerodrome. Here is a vitally important matter. I do not want to give the impression that I am in favour of one application against another, because there are many applications to the Minister for permission to use this large and important piece of land. There are applications for building, for gravel winning, a helicopter site, a pleasure ground, open spaces, and so on, but the public have become so frustrated in their endeavour to obtain a decision that after requesting me to raise the matter in the House, which I have done continually, they have gone to the county council and asked it to get in touch with the Minister. This matter arose well over a year ago and there is still no decision. The applicants have had letters, just as I have, from the Minister, months ago, telling them that the inspector's report is in his possession and that he is examining it.

The Minister has been most generous to me. He has told me quite recently that he is doing his utmost to reach a decision, but still the time goes on and now well over a year has passed. What is holding up this matter? Is it an administrative reason, or is it that physically the Minister just cannot get down to making a decision?

I appreciate that my right hon. Friend has many other matters to consider, but if this is the point that he intends to make today, I say to him, in the most helpful manner possible, that he should not find himself in this position. Regardless of which Minister is involved, and of which political panty he belongs to, delays of this kind bring the Minister and the Ministry into great disfavour with the general public. They cannot understand why, after an inspector's report has reached the Minister, there should be month after month of delay.

It may be that we shall be told by the Minister, "My legal department is still looking into this", or "The delay is caused by my technical department", or "My legal department and my technical department cannot quite agree on this." If that is the case, knowing that the Minister and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary do not desire this state of affairs to exist, I hope that they will be most sympathetic when dealing with this Motion which, after all, only asks them to improve the machinery of planning appeals and take the necessary action. I am sure they would not wish for anything but that.

I should like to quote from a letter which I have received from no less a person than Sir George Chaplin, who has spent his working life with the building trade and the architectural world, who has served the Essex County Council and is now its chairman. I do not think I shall be accused of giving any secret away when I say that he is very favourably inclined towards the Government. He says: Some local authorities take a negative attitude to planning and refuse applications wherever possible and they do not discuss with the applicants the merits or demerits of a proposal made by the applicants. Further local authorities take far too long in deciding planning applications and they do not appear to appreciate that delays add to the cost of a development and through these delays a purchaser often has to pay more than would be the case if a planning application was decided more quickly. There are too large a number of planning appeals decided in favour of local authorities. This, mark you, from the chairman of one of the largest local authorities in the country.

Sir George Chaplin goes on to say: Many local authorities take the line that they look to the Minister to support them whatever decisions they make rather than that the Minister should act in a quasi-judicial capacity and give a decision on the evidence which has been submitted. Consequently, the Minister is under some pressure from local authorities. Should he occasionally give a decision which is against them, they often write and protest to him about this and if they do not get satisfaction in this way, the local authority associations…. are asked to intervene.

Can one imagine the little man having this behind him—

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

If I may interrupt my hon. Friend, may I say that I know that I have been in this job for only two years but that I do not know of any case where a local authority association has intervened in an individual planning appeal.

Mr. Lagden

Perhaps my hon. Friend did not quite get the gist of what I was saying. I will read the sentence again: …if they do not get satisfaction in this way, the local authority associations take up with the Minister the cudgels of the local authorities. I can, and will willingly do so after the debate, give my hon. Friend an example of this sort of thing. What happens is that the local authority association writes to the Minister saying how astounded it is that his decision should have gone in the way that it has. I cannot imagine that an ordinary individual would have this great authority behind him.

Sir George goes on to say: It would be far better in my opinion if the responsibility for decisions on planning should not rest with the Minister of Housing and Local Government. His Department is too closely connected with the local authorities. In fact, the Minister often lays down the policy which should be followed by local authorities. Consequently, an inspector before he hears an appeal must have some regard to what he has heard in the Department beforehand. Appeals, therefore, should not be dealt with by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government or any other Government Department which relate to their own Department, but there should be created a separate Minister of Appeals and this Department would then deal with all appeals against decision by Government Departments. This would allay the suspicion that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government is too connected with local authorities and decisions in the main favour local authorities. If a separate Appeal Department was set up which was not attached to any of the other Departments then the public would be more satisfied. One does not hear many complaints about the decisions given by the Lands Tribunal and as an alternative this body again might be expanded to deal with all land appeals. Then he goes on to refer to the ease of Hornchurch Aerodrome, which I have already mentioned, and with which I will not weary the House again.

There is little or no doubt that the Minister, probably through no fault of his own, is preventing the very thing that he wants to do, which is to get more and more houses built faster and faster. The two examples that I have quoted represent possibly about 3,000 houses that could have been built and occupied by people anxious to get accommodation during the last 12 months. What is happening? They are still looking at the empty ground. They are still wondering why nothing seems to be done. They are frustrated and annoyed and. although I personally do not object, they worry their Member of Parliament and think that it is entirely his fault. For once, I say that it is not the fault of their Member of Parliament. Indeed, I think that I have already suggested whose fault I think it is.

I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary, when he replies, not to treat this matter as one in which he says, "We are doing our best. Manpower is short. Administration is difficult. There are big problems to be decided. All these things take a long time." This is a matter of great importance not only to the building trade and to those people who want houses, but to the Government themselves. I do not want to mention politics, but, if I might do so for one moment, I would say that the Opposition would be quite entitled to say "Here is ground which you will probably decide to build on in order to house people, and yet 12 or 14 months, and in some cases two years, go by and we can do nothing about it." The Minister is laying himself open to a criticism which I sincerely hope is not valid.

The Motion has not been tabled in any party spirit. It has not been put down for any personal reasons. It has been moved for one reason only. I hope that some improvement can be made in the machinery of planning appeals and that the Minister will give an answer which will enable people to get houses without undue delay and so that those who make their living by financing them, and by putting brick upon brick, will receive some advantage. I appeal to the Minister not to consider the matter lightly, but to assure the House that everything that can be done is being done and will continue to be done in the future.

11.40 a.m.

Mr. Emlyn Hooson (Montgomery)

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) on his good fortune in the Ballot and to compliment him on his choice of Motion and the spirit in which he has moved it. It is right from time to time that the House should review planning appeal procedure, because, as the hon. Member pointed out, it affects the happiness of many people and, let us be frank, also their fortune.

I hope that the hon. Member will forgive me if I do not follow him in that part of his speech which dealt with procedure at the planning authority level, that is, the local authority level, save in one respect. He made a valid suggestion, which has been made from time to time, but which cannot be repeated sufficiently often—that an applicant for planning permission should be allowed to meet the local planning authority, or at least a sub-committee.

There is a notorious case, of which no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary is aware, which occurred a few years ago when an inspector who was due to conduct a planning appeal was delayed by fog for half an hour. When he arrived, he discovered to his delight that the whole matter had been settled between the parties it was the first time that they had met face to face. A good deal of expense and trouble could be saved if the applicant had an absolute right to meet the local planning committee, or sub-committee, to put his case.

I join issue with the hon. Member on two things he said. The first is his reference to the inspectors. Over about 12 years, I have done a fair number of planning cases, and in my experience I remember only one case in which the inspector was not equal to his task. That case was many years ago, and he was a retired inspector who had been brought back in an emergency and seemed more anxious to get back to his golf than anything else. He was an exception, and I do not remember appearing before any other inspector who did not give all the parties the impression that he was thoroughly equal to his job. That they vary in quality there is no doubt, but let us also remember that even High Court judges vary in quality.

The other matter on which I disagree with the hon. Gentleman is that I do not think that a planning appeal as such is costly. It can be made as costly as one likes, but it is not necessary. A criticism which can be made is that the more wealth one has or is prepared to spend—in theory at least, and perhaps this may be true in practice—the better the presentation of one's case. But it does not necessarily follow. One of the tests of a "good inspector—and I have appeared in cases in which a man was conducting an objection or appeal in person—is that he affords the greatest opportunities to the appellant appearing in person, just as a High Court judge is said to bend over backwards when a man is appearing in person in order to see that every point in his favour is put. There are certain advantages in appearing in person. It is simply not true that in the average planning appeal the Town and Country Planning Acts are quoted at length. I have probably done a hundred cases by now, and I can remember only two occasions when I took the Acts with me.

A criticism sometimes made by laymen of planning appeal procedure is that the lawyers have made an industry of it and that many appeals are too involved and cover too many aspects which are entirely unnecessary to a decision. This criticism is very general and overstated. It is probably a fair criticism that lawyers sometimes take too legalistic a view of planning procedure.

Despite all that has been written in books on constitutional law and jurisprudence and so on, there is a tendency in lawyers to forget that they are dealing in planning with what is essentially an administrative matter. The whole purpose of a planning appeal is to arrive at an administrative decision. In arriving at that decision, we try to ascertain the facts on which it is based by a process which sometimes approximates to the judicial process. It is an administrative process arrived at in part by a quasi-judicial method. Nevertheless, a planning appeal is so substantially different from a case in a normal court that one must bear in mind always the great differences between them. In a planning appeal it is impossible to formulate the matters in issue for decision as can be done in a court.

This is not a full-scale review of planning procedure, and I am not treating it as such, but I have certain suggestions to make about planning appeals and the information made available to appellants during them. We would all accept that administrative justice is something different from legal justice. But, nevertheless, should be of the highest possible quality. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that this does not necessarily interfere in any way with Government efficiency.

One thing which would help to ascertain the facts at a planning appeal would be to attach absolute privilege to what is said. I have known occasions when counsel has had to take a spot decision, knowing that only qualified privilege protects him and those instructing him, on a point which has been put to him. It would be better if absolute Privilege were attached to the proceedings.

Secondly, it is very important that one should know the true basis of the refusal of the planning authority and not the dressed-up reasons. It would help if all planning authorities kept full minutes of discussions and debates when arriving at their decisions. After all, they take important administrative decisions which may affect the lives of many people and the individual citizen is entitled to know the true reasons for any decision.

What is now given in the statement of reasons is a dressed-up version, the planning officer's interpretation. Nothing is more annoying when having conducted a planning appeal on the basis of the reasons given by the planning authority than to discover when going for a cup of tea later that the true state of affairs was that Councillor Bloggs has said at the planning authority meeting that this kind of development basically affected the shop of his son-in-law round the corner. That statement may be an exaggeration, but it is important that the basis of the decision should be known to the appellant. After all, members of the planning authority are, or ought to be, responsible citizens and ought to be prepared to have their discussion minuted and available to those conducting the appeal.

Mr. James Allason (Hemel Hempstead)

Would not the hon. and learned Member admit that there might be considerable difficulty in making their views frankly known if they knew that every single word was being taken down and could be used in evidence against them later? Surely the important thing is that there should be frank discussion which is privileged.

Mr. Hooson

I am sure that no one in this House, for example, feels inhibited because every word which he says is taken down. Nor should local authority members feel inhibited when they are discussing important matters like planning decisions. If they are prepared to put forward reasons for refusing an application, they should be responsible reasons, and there is no responsible reason which cannot be stated openly and fairly.

The third matter which would lead to improvement is this. It would be helpful if planning authorities were compelled to disclose the precise advice and recommendations of their professional officers. Sometimes they follow the advice of the professional officers whom they employ and sometimes they do not. They do not have to follow it. I accept that there may be good reasons why a planning authority should reject the advice of its professional officers. Nevertheless, it is only fair that appellants, who sometimes appear in person and often do not have the resources to employ professional people or to obtain the advice of planning experts, should have the view of the planning officer available. It would be helpful if this were disclosed.

I move from the particular to the general and refer again to some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Hornchurch. I think that he put his finger on the matter which causes planning to fall into disrepute when he referred to delay. It is an intolerable state of affairs that there are so many great delays in planning decisions. I think I am right in saying—no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary will correct me if I am not—that last year, for the first time, there was a slight fall in the number of planning appeals. They seem to have passed their peak. However, I understand that the delay between tabling an appeal and the hearing is still 4½months, which is a long time considering that there may be an even longer delay between the hearing and the decision. Is it not possible substantially to cut down on this delay?

What causes the delay? I had a case in my constituency recently brought to my attention concerning an applicant who had applied for planning permission to build a house. He had filed an appeal in July last year and refusal of the decision appealed against has been directed on the advice of the Minister of Transport. It was the end of December before any statement of reasons could be obtained from the Ministry of Transport. Am I not right in thinking that most of the delays which occur between tabling an appeal and the hearing are caused by delay in such Ministries as the Ministry of Transport? The Ministry of Transport is a particularly bad offender in this respect. Perpetual delay brings planning into serious disrepute and must, I think, cause concern to the Minister and Parliamentary Secretary.

The other matter which I wish to touch upon is the status of the inspector. In the minds of laymen, the inspector is too closely associated with the Minister. There is no doubt that even administrative justice must not only be done but manifestly be seen to be done. The applicant cannot help but feel that the inspector is close to the planning authority; he often talks the same jargon as the planning authority. He goes back to the Ministry, and the Ministry officials have ready access to him.

It would be better all round if the Franks Committee's recommendation were followed and if all the inspectors were brought together in a separate Department under a Minister not connected with the administrative Departments concerned. It was suggested in the Franks Report that the inspectors should come under the Lord Chancellor's Department.

I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary whether this matter has been considered further and whether there are serious objections to the inspectors being brought under the Lord Chancellor's Department perhaps because they are not legally qualified and the Lord Chancellor is, normally, responsible only for the legal profession? In the alternative, would it be possible to bring them under, say, the Home Office? Would this not be a very good thing for the public relations side of the Ministry? People would then feel that the inspectors were more impartial than they sometimes appear to be. This would be a very beneficial development in planning appeal machinery.

11.56 a.m.

Miss J. M. Quennell (Petersfield)

Like the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) on moving this interesting Motion. We have not discussed planning and its difficulties in this Chamber for some time, and it is a very goad thing to ventilate every subject now and then.

However, I do not go the whole way with my hon. Friend in some of his strictures and criticisms of the operations of the planning committees and authorities. We must be fair in considering the planning difficulties confronting the country. They have been a national problem for a century. They are a human problem and, therefore, are as varied and difficult as the human race can make them. They lack uniformity and, therefore, are not susceptible to a convenient omnibus piece of legislation.

Since local authorities have to implement the planning Acts as they stand, they must deal with an infinite variety of problems, and, to be fair, the Acts from 1947 to 1954 were passed when one could not anticipate either the rise in population or the movement of existing population within the country. Since then, there has been a steady emigration from the North and Midlands to the South which has posed some extremely difficult problems for planning authorities in the South. I understand that the overall rise in population has been about 10 per cent. during the last 20 years, and that represents a corresponding problem in all the fields with which planning is associated and in practically all the communal services.

Although there has been a general rise of 10 per cent. throughout the country, the rise has been concentrated in some areas. In Hampshire, for example, the rise has been about 60 per cent. The rise has been fantastically in excess of the national average and local planning authorities have been faced with some unparalleled pressures and difficulties, not only in planning, but in housing, education and elsewhere. The planning machinery was not constructed to cope with this fantastic influx of population. The fact that it has succeeded as well as it has is a tribute to the devotion, application and perseverance of local government officers and members of the many councils involved. We must be fair and acknowledge that the comparatively few complaints against their decisions represent another tribute to their good sense and impartiality.

My criticisms, therefore, are not an attack on planning authorities. I wish to draw attention to areas where the machinery seems to be showing signs of wear and strain. I am not referring to human irritation at the decisions taken. As has been said this morning, in many cases the wear and tear is exacerbated by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Part of my constituency has been affected acutely by the enormous influx of population to which I have referred, but I am not under any illusions that Petersfield is unique in this respect.

Under the Acts, the local planning authorities have to prepare their draft maps in accordance with their obligations. In doing so, they cannot anticipate the problems and pressures which eventually will be thrown upon the zoned areas. Having prepared their zones, however, it is reasonable for them to expect the Ministry to confirm or reject them within a reasonable time. What has happened is that the Ministry has postponed its decisions. Faced with the swelling population in the south of England, it has delayed its decisions while investigating the full implications of the massive increase in numbers with which the South has presented it.

My right hon. Friend has admitted the difficulties to which that has given rise. The reasons for the delays make good sense, but they are not necessarily good for planning, because the authorities have been placed in an extremely difficult position. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch spoke of his suspicion that all was not well with planning and he described it as jiggery-pokery. The situation in which the local authorities have been placed by the delay in the publication of the Report on the south-eastern area has been made more difficult and the suspicions have been increased by the delays which my right hon. Friend's Department has imposed upon local authorities.

Faced with the growing demands on their "white" and "green" areas, both of which are still subject to confirmation, local authorities have, naturally, tended to refuse applications to protect themselves in the existing state of uncertainty, which is incomprehensible to an applicant. In many cases, applicants' exertions and labours have simply been frustrated because the local authorities have been obliged to observe the full procedures of the planning Acts knowing quite well that the doubtful position of the area concerned in the application prejudiced their freedom of decision. It is more than human to expect an applicant to comprehend the wider issues involved in population studies.

To an applicant, the planning authority is the planning authority from whose negative decision, if necessary, he has a right of appeal to the Minister. Why that Minister, in effect, suspends his own functions in respect of the areas where the need for them is greatest has been difficult for the ordinary applicant to fathom. What is worse, in so doing my right hon. Friend has been obliged to diminish an applicant's right of appeal to him or to his inspector from a planning authority because of the difficulties that could arise in showing how the proposals could fit in with wider proposals for the rest of the area and establishing that they were not premature before the outline plan for the area was known.

The next problem, which throws difficulty upon the planning authority and which is nationally felt and requires national consideration, is the shortage of professional staff for the local authorities. The wastage among officials, although not at present alarming, is constant and is one-way only. The lure of posts as planning consultations is great. Naturally, salary plays a part, but a man must have a hide like a rhinoceros if he does not wilt under the continual difficulties imposed upon him by the conditions caused by the delays to which both my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery have referred.

With the attraction of private practice, where a consultant is in the position of advising private and willing clients freed from the constant odium of denial, constant temptation to partiality and constant exposure to appeal, complaint and criticism, it is not surprising that after a time a number of men move over to private work. Very few of them come back in the other direction.

Furthermore, opportunities for promotion to the level of county planning officer are restricted, obviously, by the number of county planning officer posts which are available. While a county planning officer receives a reasonable salary as befits and is proper to his responsibilities, the gap between his salary and that of his deputies in the department is considerable. There is a perfectly natural temptation to able men to leave local government service to enter private practice.

That there has never been any financial or pecuniary scandal associated with planning officers is a fact which we might note with pride. The unbelievably vast sums which are involved in county planning officers' recommendations and advice to their committees would, I think, in other countries have provided a record not as good as this.

My right hon. Friend should be prepared to consider the position of professional local government officers in this onerous appointment. Far more men are leaving the service for private work than are coming to it. One thing which is quite certain is that in the future we shall need more, and not fewer, professional planning officers. Where they are to come from, however, is not certain.

There are two specific areas of wear and tear to which I should like to refer. One concerns the practice and procedures with agricultural applications. When a farmer applies to build extra accommodation, my right hon. Friend uses the services of the Land Commissioner's Department to verify the validity of the claim that the house for which application is made is necessary to the good husbandry of the holding. The Land Commissioner is supposed to acquaint himself with the agricultural circumstances of the application and the farmer's intentions as to future developments of his holding. He is then supposed to submit his views to the inspector who conducts the appeal.

In this connection, my right hon. Friend's inspector is dependent upon the expert views expressed by the Land Commissioner in regard to the agricultural value of the arguments advanced by the applicant. For fair and proper operation of the Acts, it is essential that these procedures should be fairly and fully observed. Unfortunately, this does not always happen.

Frequently, one meets criticism that the Land Commissioner has not been near a farm. In two cases which I have verified, the Department offered its views concerning an application in a "no views" letter without inspecting the farm. Subsequently, as a result of inquiry from myself, the Land Commissioner called at the farm without prior appointment, in one case two months after the appeal had been heard. Why he then bothered to do so, I cannot imagine.

The Land Commissioner called, unfortunately, on Christmas Eve. I am assured that he was able to inspect the land with the permission of somebody who was there to look after the dog while the applicant was away. How in these circumstances the official was supposed to ascertain the applicant's intentions or ambitions with regard to his holding in what is one of the most rapidly changing and developing industries, I am not sure.

The other case was even worse. Again, the Land Commissioners' officers called at the applicant's farm without warning, without an appointment, only to find that the applicant was out. Then they attempted to obtain the information which they needed from village sources. Since the applicant was a newcomer they got a rather remarkable picture of his intentions. With those they professionally disagreed; they thought that there was something seriously wrong, and they submitted two letters, one the usual "no-views" letter, and the other positively repudiating the application altogether.

The application was turned down, but, on my representations, my right hon. Friend corrected this very bad error, and I mention this case now only to emphasise the dependence of my right hon. Friend and his Department on the punctilious, accurate and thorough operations of the Land Commissioners in connection with agricultural applications. I am quite aware that these do not come within the purview of my right hon. Friend's Department, but of another Department altogether, but, nevertheless, his Department is at the very centre.

Where there does seem to be unfairness contrary to all natural justice is where a property, a house, or an area of land, is blighted by a decision which has been taken at some level of local government so that the owner is left with a property which he cannot sell and so, in effect, loses his savings. I take one example. A constituent of mine, not a speculator, not a developer, but a professional soldier, bought a farmhouse as a home against his retirement. Then, unpredictably, he found himself posted to the north of Scotland, and so, not unreasonably, he sought to dispose of the farmhouse. He received an offer, but during the negotiations the prospective purchasers learned that a decision had been taken at a level of local government critically affecting the property, and they withdrew, and the owner has been unable to sell the house ever since.

The reason for the withdrawal was sound. The prospective purchasers discovered that the area was scheduled for considerable highway improvement, though the plans indicating the building lines had not been confirmed by the various committees. The improvement did, in fact, affect adjacent sites for which planning permission had only recently been granted by another local authority—in the previous week—and the effect was to make the land unsaleable. Under Section 39 of the 1959 Act my constituent could not claim protection, and his only redress in the circumstances was to pursue the county council for damages. Frankly, he was not a rich man, and he could not undertake this rather expensive and risky procedure. It was not Parliament's intention, I am quite sure, by the 1959 Act, to bring about cases like this, but it was its intention to help people suffering from this kind of what I may describe as worsement.

In view of such desperate pressures as there are in the South, and the fact that Parliament's intentions can be rendered nugatory in certain circumstances, it seems to me only right that Parliament should once again consider whether we provide the private individual with sufficient compensation when society decides to affect his property and his rights as a freeholder. Here it seems from my experience that the planning machinery is showing severe strain. Perhaps the mere fact that my hon. Friend has moved his Motion, having been lucky in the draw, and given us an opportunity to ventilate our concern about these matters, will help to correct some of the troubles we are discussing. I certainly very much hope so.

12.14 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith (Holborn and St. Pancras, South)

In what will be only a brief intervention, I should like to start by contratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) on having moved this Motion and also on the way in which he has presented it. I should like to underline one or two points which have been raised in the debate.

First, I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell), in respect of the case she brought to our attention, to what extent she felt that the soldier who bought the property in anticipation of his retirement was himself at fault, or perhaps his solicitors, in not finding out what decisions had been taken by the local planning authority affecting the value of his property. Or was it that those decisions were taken after the officer had purchased the property? I understand from my hon. Friend that they were taken afterwards, in which case it would seem to me that there is an obligation on some local planning authorities to inform people when the future of their property is likely to be vitally affected by plans which they have made or are considering.

I believe that this sort of thing often happens. On many other occasions people find that when they come to sell their property important decisions have been made about which they have no information at all, which makes their property unsaleable. People then come to us saying that injustice has been perpetrated. Even when people have an idea that some big plan is being considered by the local authority, they are met with evasions when they make inquiries of their local planning authority. One can understand the reticence of a planning authority when it has not yet fully made up its mind about the wisdom of pursuing some course of action which is likely to affect a large area. To make such a disclosure may result in attracting undesirable elements who may wish to speculate. The prospective plan may not be cut and dried and it is difficult, therefore, for the authority to give a straight answer to anyone who has perhaps heard some rumours. I have some sympathy with the officials of a planning authority in those circumstances, but I also sympathise with those who are affected by what they consider to be the somewhat devious methods employed by local planning authorities. There seems to be a breakdown here of communication. Too frequently one hears of cases where a planning authority has not been as frank as it might have been with someone whose property is affected by its plans or decisions.

This leads me to a point made by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), who suggested that the committees which consider planning matters might be minuted. We know that some years back there was some controversy over the admission of the Press to certain committees of local authorities, and many Members of this House thought that some local authorities were far too secretive in the conduct of their affairs. A lot of the discontent in this matter stemmed from the fact that we found that many of our constituents were displeased at the very secretive manner in which planning matters were discussed. This is an important matter of communication. I go all the way with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery when he suggests that these meetings should be minuted. We have got to see that justice is properly done.

Mr. Arthur Skeffington (Hayes and Harlington)

May I put to the hon. Gentleman a point I might have put to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson)? I think it is a very attractive idea that planning applicants should see some of the people making the decisions, but I wonder whether either of the hon. Members has realised the volume of applications involved. Kent County Council last year decided 13,000 applications. It really seems to me that before we take the suggestion further we ought to consider just how practicable it is and how it could be done.

Mr. Johnson Smith

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That is a valid point, and I am sure it ought to be considered. Perhaps I might restrain my enthusiasm. I do not know to what extent the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery would like to intervene later, but I should be delighted to give him the opportunity.

We accept the principle that there should be minuting, but in the light of discussions we might decide that only certain types of planning discussions should be minuted. There are certain day-to-day matters considered by planning committees which need not—common sense will determine which—be minuted.

Mr. Hooson

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that in any event a decision could be minuted, even though the discussion was very short, and also that planning authorities have the power of delegation and where one has a large number of applications it would be possible to use the powers of delegation so that the interview could be conducted by a sub-committee of two or three people?

Mr. Johnson Smith

I find the first part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's suggeston most attractive. I prefer not to comment on the second part. That has attractive features, but I do not want to get into over-deep waters.

Mr. Lagden

I should like to hear my hon. Friend's views. I agree with much that he has said about minuting. But would not much of the trouble be overcome if the applicant himself were able to be present and hear his case discussed and decided? There can be nothing secret from him. I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that one should at least be entitled to hear one's own case discussed.

Mr. Johnson Smith

My hon. Friend has anticipated my next remark. The theme that I wish to develop is that of proper communication. If one established proper communication in matters of this nature one would remove some of the distrust which exists under the present machinery. It seems to me that if one accepts the suggestions that other hon. Members and I have made, one must accept that applicants are dissatisfied at having to rely on officers to present their applications and are not altogether convinced that their cases are presented in as good a vein as possible. Therefore, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch that in most cases—I imagine that in some cases there might be practical difficulties—the applicant should have the opportunity to be present, for he is entitled to know the true reasons for any refusal.

My last point is a very elementary one, but I should like my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to refer to it later. As I said, much of the suspicion about planning application procedure stems from the fact that there is not good enough communication. Much of it stems also from the fact that often people are not sure who actually makes the decision. When the Joint Parliamentary Secretary speaks, I should like him to tell us very clearly who makes the decisions and what the procedure is at the Ministry after the inspector makes his report.

Many people presume that the inspector makes his report to the Minister and the Minister looks at it and then either rejects or confirms it. I have received a letter which may sound naive to many hon. Members. In this letter, a constituent of mine has pointed these facts out to me. He says: …in 1962 8,182 appeals were settled by the Minister. Allowing a 52-week year and a five-day week, this works out at 31 appeals per day. It is obvious that the Minister cannot conceivably read 31 reports from the inspectors holding the inquiries per day. Consequently it is obvious that the Minister himself does not make the decisions, whereas it is his personal duty to do so under the Town and Country Planning Acts. I can tell by the reaction of hon. Members that this is thought to be somewhat naive. But the man who wrote the letter is not unintelligent, and I reckon that his view is held by a number of people.

One of my purposes in intervening was to invite the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to make it clear to us who makes the decisions and what the procedure is at the Ministry. I hope that, as with many other things, we can have this explained to us in very clear terms, and if the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will be prepared to go along with us a little about the importance of communication between the applicant and try planning authority, I am sure that we shall all be very indebted to him, as we are to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch for raising this subject.

12.27 p.m.

Mr. James Allason (Hemel Hempstead)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) on raising this subject. It is very much easier to voice complaints about planning procedure than to suggest improvements, although certain improvements have been suggested already, and I hope to make one or two suggestions myself.

Let us deal first with the original application. In this respect the applicant ought to receive every possible assistance from the planning authority. He should be told at once the number of copies of plans which ought to be deposited. There need be no delay about that. It may well be that when he submits his application it may hang about for two or three weeks before he is told that he has not supplied the correct number of copies, and it means that his application will not be considered until he has sent in the necessary number. A sympathetic letter to the applicant at the very beginning would be helpful. It should warn him of the dangers and possibilities of delay; that it is not a simple matter of the planning authority just taking a decision yes or no; that it has to think about such matters as drainage, access from the highway, which may raise most intractable problems; and that the applicant cannot expect a simple decision.

I advised someone a week or two ago that for a certain use he required planning authority. She wrote back saying "It is all right. We shall not need the use for several weeks, and so we will not apply for it yet." I was able to suggest to her that it would be wise to start the process quickly.

At this moment comes a difficulty that hon. Members has noted. It is not only the developer who is interested in the application. The neighbours, too, are extremely interested.

The Ministry has issued a circular suggesting that, wherever possible, neighbours should be informed. This will be of great help and is a considerable improvement. Cases still occur where neighbours are not informed, with the result that the first thing they know about the proposal is when they find that planning permission has been given and that they have not had the opportunity to object. It is then too late to do anything.

Frequently, there is delay. Under the system I would propose, however, the applicant will have been warned about the possibility of delays. At the moment, he receives the letter which my hon. Friend the Member for Horn-church referred to, stating that he must sign by return of post otherwise his application will be deemed to be refused. Surely a more sympathetic type of letter could be used. It should not be necessary for people to have to ask what it means.

The letter should say that the planning authority has not been able to deal with the matter in the time allowed and therefore requests an extra month. It should point out that, under the law, however, it must ask for the applicant's agreement otherwise his application is automatically refused. It should express an apology but point out that this is the law. The present method tends to create hostility between applicants and the local authority. It should be explained that it would be better for an applicant to allow an extra month rather than go to appeal, which will involve further delay and possibly more expense.

My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. G. Johnson Smith) would like applicants to be able to attend the hearing by the planning authority and the discussion to be minuted. But let us consider this further. The applicant may not necessarily be the owner of the property at all. He may be a speculator who sees a "juicy" bit of property for which, if he can get planning permission, he could make an offer. Why should he have the tight to meet the planning authority, hear what it has to say and discover exactly how far it is prepared to go?

There was the case of the St. James's Theatre in which, I believe, planning permission was given to someone who had not at the time even approached the owners about buying the property. Obviously it was a fairly "dicey" sort of situation as to whether he would get the theatre Why should speculators have complete access to the planning authority and be able to take the attitude, "We failed this time, but if we make a slight alteration we will get this bit of speculation for the future"?

Mr. Johnson Smith

My hon. Friend has not stated why they should be denied this right. He uses phrases like "juicy piece of property" and "dicey", but speculators from time to time do the public a good service. Will he spell out his objections to people going before the planning authority?

Mr. Allason

I consider that the planning authority should consider these matters in private. The members have knowledge of various future development. For instance, there may be a new by-pass for which the line has not yet been worked out in detail. That arouses the possibility of property speculation if the proposed line becomes public knowledge. That is the sort of thing that the planning authorities should keep quiet about.

Dr. Alan Glyn (Clapham)

There is great substance in what my hon. Friend is saying. The owner of the property is the person who should ask and receive planning permission. Speculators should not be able to apply for planning permission for someone else's land in which they have no interest at the time.

Mr. Skeffington

Under the present planning law, anyone can put in a planning application for anything anywhere. There should be some kind of distinction, however. We must give the bona fide owner who is the developer the rights. If a distinction were drawn, the number of applications would be cut down enormously.

Mr. Allason

I accept that. I think that it would be a great improvement if only a representative of the owners could make planning application. It becomes difficult where there is to be an area development and one man holds out. But is one then to deny the owners of the rest of the property the right to apply for planning permission? These cases frequently occur, and I foresee difficulties, but I think that the owners of some parts of the property ought to be involved in any planning application. At present, a planning application may be a probing manoeuvre to see how much one will get away with.

A speculator may hear a vague rumour about a new road and put in a planning application to find out what he can. The planning authority, in these circumstances, is surely entitled to be a little "cagey" and not place all its knowledge at the disposal of anyone who makes a planning application.

Now I want to deal with the appeals procedure. I have spoken of the rights of third parties, but in fact they have none. It is only a courtesy that they are informed of these planning applications. The third party has the right to make representations to the planning authority objecting to or supporting an application and at an appeal he may also appear, but he has not the right to do so. This is a nebulous position. The right to representation is of great importance. The Minister and his inspector are bound by the evidence given at the hearing. Rather odd evidence may be given and if there is not sufficient legal representation it may not be properly contradicted.

I know the case of a village which is, roughly, shaped like a "C". The road curves round it. Following the hearing of an appeal, a Ministry inspector said that the appeal site was in the core of the village and almost surrounded by development. But, from the middle of the appeal site, there is a view of open country for a range of 160 degrees. Admittedly, for the remaining 200 degrees there is the narrow ribbon of the village.

The Minister must be completely misled by a phrase such as that. He must say, "This is quite good infilling on a site in the core of the village almost surrounded by development". In fact, it is drawing a line from headland to headland and saying that the whole of that enclosed bay may be built up. This is a fairly considerable site, and this village in consequence will become a little town simply because behind one frontage of houses the site is to be completely built up.

This is a case which I hope to have an opportunity to discuss with my hon. Friend in future, and I raise it today to mention the danger of rather misleading evidence being given at the planning inquiry. If it is not properly contradicted at the time, the inspector must take it down as evidence which is given to him and pass it on to the Minister.

This brings me to the question of the Minister's decision. In these green belt villages we are up against a great difficulty. The current policy agreed with the Ministry is that in a green belt village infilling will be allowed to meet the needs of the local community. This seems to be a fairly clear and acceptable proposition. But when the Minister goes against this proposition by granting a substantial planning permission in a green belt village not for local residents at all but for people coming in from outside, he is contradicting his own policy, and it seems that the county planning authority is entitled to some explanation when there is this significant variation.

I turn to the question of compensation. Whenever a planning permission has been granted and subsequently it is revoked, the planning authority has to pay compensation. This discourages the planning authority from revoking planning permission frequently. I wonder what happens when the Minister has given planning permission and he then decides that he has been misled and wants to revoke it. Who is responsible for paying compensation? Is it the Ministry, or is it still the local ratepayers? If the local authority is the planning authority in such a case, the cost falls on the rates, and, naturally, the authority is most unwilling to change a decision. But sometimes decisions ought to be changed, and the matter of compensation being granted should not mean that natural justice is not done.

There are occasions on which it does not come to a planning appeal hearing. Although the appeal has been made, the Ministry suggests that it is possible to obtain agreement by modification of the planning application, and the applicant is told, "If you will modify it here and there, we can settle it out of court". That is an excellent arrangement which commends itself because it avoids further planning appeals. But what about the interests of the neighbours in such a case? They do not hear about this at all, and they are left completely in a void. They have been all set to make their objections known at the planning appeal, and suddenly they find that there is no planning appeal and that permission has been granted. The interests of local individuals have been cut away.

In the 1963 Act there is provision for an applicant to take up to 10 per cent. increase in floor space as an automatic right. This is rather awkward, because there must be many houses in congested London where 10 per cent. additional floor space will be a great inconvenience to other residents. Again, compensation will have to be paid if permission for that 10 per cent. is not granted. I wonder to what extent this is going on, with applications for an increase of 10 per cent. being made which the planning authority knows that it can refuse only at the peril of giving compensation—although it has to refuse on planning grounds and therefore has to give compensation. I should be interested to know whether there are any statistics to show whether this is in any way being exploited.

I welcome the debate. I hope that it is performing a useful function to help the applicant, to help the neighbour who is so deeply concerned in these planning matters and to help to avoid delay. It is very difficult to see how to make the necessary improvements. It is easy to see the errors and difficulties which exist, and I hope that the debate will give much help in solving the problem.

12.48 p.m.

Sir Stephen McAdden (Southend, East)

I should say at once that as the interests with which I am connected may at some time in the foreseeable future make application for planning permission, in that sense I should declare an interest which is probably common to most hon. Members. Most members of the legal profesison who may be briefed to appear in these cases have some interest to declare. It might be just as well if we declared that collective interest.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) on his good fortune in drawing first place in the Ballot and on his selection of this subject for discussion. In one sense he rather under-estimated the delays which take place. He referred to the matter coming before the planning committee and then going on appeal to the Minister, but it is much more complicated than that. I am sure that he knows this well and that probably he did not want to take up too much of the time of the House in going through it in detail. But it is a fact that in the county areas one must first go before the local district planning committee, which passes it, after due deliberation, to the county planning committee, and only subsequent y, after a decision has been reached for or against an applicant, is it a matter of appeal.

The delays are much longer than might be thought. I do not know whether this problem lies within the Minister's province. It is a matter for local authorities to decide. But I think that they would welcome their attention being drawn by the Minister to the desirability of arranging the meetings of the district planning committee and the county planning committee so that when the local district planning committee has arrived at a decision to recommend to the county planning committee, it is not necessary to wait for six or eight weeks before the next meeting of the county planning committee.

The dates of these meetings should more or less coincide, leaving a sufficient number of days between them for the local district committee to convey to the county planning committee its views on the subject, so that there is no undue delay. Undue delay does occur.

Perhaps I may refer to an experience which I had some years ago, to illustrate what I mean. I was trying to travel from Malta to Gibraltar. I took a plane from Malta to Tunis, and when I got there the plane for Algiers had left, so I had to stay the night in Tunis. When I got to Algiers, the next day, I found that the plane for Casablanca had left, and I had to spend the night in Algiers. When I reached Casablanca I found that the plane for Gibraltar had left, and I had to stay the night in Casablanca. This was solely due to the failure of the airline to co-ordinate the times of its services from Malta to Gibraltar.

It would have been much quicker if I had gone back to England and travelled to Gibraltar from there. I could have done that in a day, instead of taking four for the journey. The same situation arises because of the lack of coordination between local authorities, their subsidiary planning committees and their major planning committees. My hon. Friend ought to look into the matter.

I now want to say a few words in his defence. In my part of Essex he has been subjected to a considerable amount of criticism, if not abuse, because although the inquiry into the application of the Southend County Borough Council for an extension of the runway of its airport—which, strangely enough, is not in Southend, but is in Rochford—was finished in November, 1962, the decision was given by the Minister only in February, 1964, and a great deal of criticism has been levelled at him for taking such a long time to make up his mind about this important issue.

In fact, in large measure the delay occurred because, after the termination of the inquiry by the inspector, representations were made by the Essex River Board which had never been made at the inquiry. Negotiations therefore continued between the Essex River Board and the Southend County Borough Council, and I believe that the matter was finally resolved only in October, 1963. The delay to be attributed to the Minister— who, obviously, could not come to a decision while matters were still at issue, which could have resulted in the inquiry being reopened—would, therefore, seem to be only the period from October, 1963, to February, 1964. Nevertheless, I do not doubt that he will continue to be blamed.

This raises another interesting point, upon which I should like to hear my hon. Friend's comment. How can it happen that after the completion of an inquiry into a matter of some importance, which was widely known about in the area, and after many people had been invited to make their objections, people who had never objected at all were subsequently allowed to hold up a decision upon the matter because of private negotiations which were taking place? It seems very unlikely that if a private individual had wanted to raise an objection after the inquiry he would have had an opportunity of being heard at all. It seems extraordinary that such a delay should have occurred in this case.

My hon. Friend the Member for Horn-church was more critical of local authorities than I would dare to be, but there was some justice in what he said, in certain respects. I know a local authority, the appropriate committee of which approved a general development plan and recommended that the council should approve it and send it to the Minister. The council gave its approval to the plan, which involved an expenditure of millions of pounds, without any member of the council asking how much it would cost, and before any members of the council, other than those who were on the committee which had considered the matter, had seen the plan.

It seems incredible that people should do these things, but they do. Fortunately, my right hon. Friend's predecessor, who is now in supreme command of the Independent Television Authority, but who then was Minister of Housing and Local Government, had the good sense to turn down the plan—because the members of the council subsequently discovered that the plan which they had approved, and had not seen, involved the demolition of a substantial number of good-class residential properties of fairly recent construction in order to provide car parking facilities. Not unnaturally, upon discovering what had been done the irate owners of those houses proceeded to launch upon the local authority all sorts of abuse, and the councillors were placed in the awkward position of having to explain that they had not known what they had approved. Thank goodness, the Minister turned down the plan. It is a good thing that the Minister considers in detail the proposals put before him.

This experience, incidentally, has had the further beneficial effect that, chastened by experience, the local authority has now prepared new development proposals which it is explaining in detail to the residents of its area so that they will know exactly what is proposed to be done in their name. That is a much more satisfactory and sensible procedure.

I now return to the question of the decision made with regard to Southend Airport, because it touches upon the compensation question which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason). As a result of the decision, the Essex County Council has decided that it will impose a standstill on any further development in the Rochford area until more exhaustive inquiries have been made into the effects of noise from the airport upon the local population.

This means a further delay in the planning proposals in the pipeline, until that inquiry has been held. The strange thing is that prior to the decision about the airport the authority had already given permission for the development of land much closer to the area concerned than that which is in dispute at present and is now being further delayed. Should the council finally decide not to permit any further redevelopment in the area the logical consequence would be for it to revoke the planning permission which it had already given. If it did that it would have to pay fairly substantial sums in compensation, depending upon the size of the site. That compensation would have to be paid by the Essex County Council, which is the loser in this matter, and not the Southend Corporation, which is the gainer, in that it has had permission to extend its runway. The effect will be a sterilisation of the development of the area.

I can well understand local authorities having the power, and perhaps the wisdom, to prevent development because they believe that people will not like to live in houses which are subjected to noise. But in this case the people knew before they bought the houses that they were close to an airport, and that there was bound to be a good deal of noise. Planning decisions of this kind take a long time to resolve, and there has been an almost complete sterilisation of development in this area because of the necessity to look at the matter again and to obtain the advice of consulting engineers, and so on.

All these planning appeals are held up, and it is not the Minister's fault. Neither do I necessarily blame the local authority for looking again at the situation in the light of changed circumstances. I mention it only to show that delays occur for a variety of reasons, and I should like to see some of them cleared up.

My hon. Friend has referred to the report on Own planning procedure published by the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors. It might be thought that the members of the Association are interested parties, but I can assure the House that they have gone into the matter impartially. The following extract will show that they are not so professionally interested as might be thought: It has sometimes been argued that all planning applications should be submitted through professionally qualified advisers. The committee wishes to make clear its view that the task of all parties to a planning application or appeal is immeasurably eased if the applicant or appellant retains professional advisers to act for him ab initio. But the committee maintains that the decision to employ professional advice must remain with the applicant or appellant. That is quite right. Why should a man who feels that he can make his case for himself not be allowed to do so? I would not stop him.

Personally, if I were proceeding on an application of some substance I would want to seek professional advice. With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), I can only say that if people come to me for legal advice I tell them, not myself being a lawyer, "Do not go to law if you can possibly help it but, if you must go to law, get a good solicitor". I would always advise anybody going into a complicated matter of planning to avail himself of professional advice, if he could afford it.

I support my hon. Friend's suggestion that an applicant should have the right to appear in person before the committee to state his case. This would save time and trouble, and it would save the committee having to remit the matter back for further information if the applicant were able to discuss his application with the committee. That would lead to a great saving, and not a loss, of time. I should like to see that idea put into operation, so that people might feel that they were getting a fair deal—which is the important thing. We want to give the impression that the Government are seriously concerned in making sure that people get a fair deal, have a right to state their case, and are not treated as a lot of numbers.—"Case No. 1 has come before the committee." We want to avoid that purely impersonal manner. The original information might have been inadequate, but could have been amplified by the applicant appearing in person before the committee.

The report on town planning procedure states: If no decision is given by an LPA by the end of the statutory period an application should be deemed to have received consent". That is a good idea. If local planning authorities are put under the pressure of knowing that unless they make a decision by a certain date their consent can be presumed to be granted, they might get on a bit more quickly than they otherwise would. I would welcome such an attempt to infuse into planning authorities a sense of the urgency of the matters they have been called upon to deal with.

The report also states: Reasons for the refusal of planning consent should be stated in precise and unequivocal terms". That, too, is important. People should know beyond a shadow of doubt just why their application has gone to the ground, and should not be left with just a vague rejection of their application without some precise definition of what it is all about.

The next recommendation may not commend itself so much to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary: Appeal decisions should be given within six months from the date when the appellant's pleadings are lodged, and in default of a decision within this time the appeal should succeed". This would probably cause consternation in the Ministry of Housing—

Mr. Corfield

I am not sure that my hon. Friend has adverted to the alternative that is likely to happen: that local authorities, towards the end of the two months, would be much more likely to give a refusal rather than allow an automatic consent to something about which they were in doubt. The same would probably apply to any Ministry, including the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. If the six-month period were running out and the Ministry were still not certain of its decision, there would be many more refusals—and, at a lower level, many more refusals, and more delay.

Sir S. McAdden

I am distressed that my hon. Friend should adopt this extremely negative attitude of, "You must give us all the time we want or we will turn down your appeal in any case". That is not the way in which either planning authorities or the Minister should look at the matter. They should try to run these affairs in a businesslike way. They should not need all this time to come to decisions, and I hope that they can be persuaded from this attitude.

Another recommendation is: Intervention of third parties in appeals should not be allowed without prior notice and only when a third party cannot join with one of the other parties. All pleadings should be made available to all parties. Again, that seems to be very desirable.

I have tried to put my case as precisely as I can so that the large number of other hon. Members who wish to speak—those who are learned in the law, and the like—may advance their arguments with that great facility they always have. The subject that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch has brought to our attention today is one about which a large number of people feel very deeply. They do not like being treated as impersonal objects whose applications receive the minimum of personal attention and scrutiny.

This is a large problem, and perhaps my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to tell us the volume of applications involved, how many applications the planning authorities have to deal with, how many go to my right hon. Friend the Minister, how many he himself sees, and how many my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary sees. What is the procedure that goes on in the offices of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government which prevents more rapid decisions being taken for the satisfaction of those who, after all, can be involved by delay to the extent of thousands and thousands of pounds?

I often wonder whether the Ministry realises how much is involved in this way, and what financial hardships are caused by continual delays. The financial hardships are just as much, in proportion, for the small man as they are for the big man. The sum may seem comparatively small judged against the millions that may be involved in big property developments, but there is real hardship for the private individual concerned. Delay should be removed as far as it possibly can be removed. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch deserves the congratulations of the House on bringing this matter to our notice today.

1.8 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)

I am sure that when my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) chose this subject he could not have realised how topical it would be. I congratulate him on choosing it as well as on the way in which he has presented the Motion. It is topical because only this morning the National Economic Development Council issued its Report on the Construction Industry.

On the very first page, where the Council discusses the total demand which will be expected from the industry in 1964, it is stated: The industry considers that it is unlikely that all the demand expected will be placed upon contractors because of bottlenecks—some administrative—at the planning and design stages. The Council goes on to explain that more fully. Paragraph 59 states: The construction team has to do its work within a framework of planning and of administrative procedures and of legal regula tions. It is important that these procedures and regulations, which are often restraints upon the construction process, fulfil their purpose with the least possible damage and delay to the projects concerned. There is much that is criticised. Planning procedures cause expensive delays, both at the local offices and in the central appeals, procedure. Paragraph 61 states: The structure of local government and the relationship of the many local authorities to central government often cause apparently unnecessary delays in the approval of certain projects. Throughout this Report the Council points out the great importance of the construction industry meeting the demand placed upon it. One reason it has been unable to meet that demand is delay in planning. I think, therefore, that my hon. Friend is right up-to-date in bringing this matter before the House.

The machinery of planning appeals is seriously hampering building development. I think that it is likely to get worse as land becomes less available. The cost of development and the time factor has increased substantially over the years, and although one would not wish to go back to the position which obtained in the 1930s, when there was scarcely any delay from planning, the increase in delay each year since the last war is a very serious frustration to the building industry. This frustration must have led to the abandonment of very many desirable schemes.

There is a fiction that town planning appeals are administrative decisions, and that, therefore, they must be Ministerial decisions. I have never understood that argument. Our courts, as judicial tribunals, deal with many administrative decisions every day: bankruptcy, company liquidation, receiverships under the Court of Protection, the administration of the estates of deceased persons—all involve many administrative decisions. There is no need for an administrative decision to be a ministerial decision.

Another fiction is, perhaps, a little more plausible. It is that planning appeals are decided by a Minister because there is some political responsibility on the Minister and because they have some, political content. It is argued that there is some policy involved in deciding a town planning appeal. This really is a fiction. Take, for example, the 2,000 outdoor advertising appeals a year. What is the policy in respect of 1,999 of those? No real policy is involved; it is purely a decision which could be made not by a Ministerial tribunal, but by a judicial tribunal, and this is the point which I wish to make as I develop my argument.

There may be policy involved even in some of the outdoor advertising appeals which I have mentioned—Piccadilly perhaps. Policy was involved there. But the gable-end of a house in an industrial area surely would call for no decision which would have a political content and about which it would be essential that a Minister should decide. The fact is that if there is any policy involved it is set out in Ministry circulars from time to time, and not in any decisions which the Minister may reach on particular cases. When it comes to adjudication in a particular case we ought now, I contend, to follow the recommendations of the Franks Committee's Report: …preference should be given to a Tribunal rather than to a Minister, and this requires that every effort should be made to express policy in the form of regulations capable of being administered by an independent Tribunal. I think that the Ministry has failed up to the present in the administration of town planning appeals in not setting out clearly in the regulations the policy to be administered by a tribunal. At present, the tribunal is the Minister's own inspector but I hope that we may have an independent tribunal which would deal with these matters far more clearly and certainly.

After all, there are many matters which are matters of policy, and decisions which have a political content which we leave to judicial tribunals and not to Ministers. I think of the traffic commissioners, for example. They are independent judicial tribunals but they certainly decide matters of policy in connection with the haulage industry. I think of the Monopolies Commission and the restrictive practices courts and—if I may refer briefly to it—the House is to consider soon a Bill on resale price maintenance, by which, again, certain political matters will be referred to a judicial tribunal. What could be more political than some of the decisions which will have to be made in connection with resale price maintenance? There is far more political concept in such decisions which we leave to a judicial tribunal, than in deciding town planning appeals.

One of the advantages of a judicial tribunal, rather than a Ministerial inspector, for dealing with these matters is that there is greater certainty because of the building up of precedent. In itself, that would reduce the number of cases that would come to an hearing. If an independent tribunal decided these things, a great deal of precedent would build up and parties who wished to appear before a tribunal would know pretty well what would be the decision because of those precedents. At present, what is called a town planning appeal is not an appeal at all, because the Minister can consider any other matter, apart from those which were considered upon the first decision of the local authority.

A local authority may decide a planning application on a matter, for example, of amenity. The Minister can bring in other considerations when it is on appeal to him. The result is that the parties to the appeal do not know what issue they may have to face when they come to appeal before the Minister's inspector. This tends to increase the number of appeals. Frequently it is a matter of "having a go", because one may "get away with it". If it were a question of coming before a judicial tribunal, the parties would be aware of how previous cases had been decided and I am sure that this would cut down the number of appeals.

I must justify my plea for judicial tribunals under the existing law. I am not asking for any change in the law. I wish to refer to Section 44 of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1962, which Act, as the House will remember, is a codification. This Section goes back to the 1947 Act. I pay tribute to Lord Silkin, who might be called the father of the 1947 Act, for this legislation which has stood the test of time extremely well. The Section which I propose to quote, however, Section 44, has never been used, and I think that it should be.

Section 44(1) of the 1962 Act states: Provision may be made by a development order for securing that, in the case of decisions of a local planning authority of such classes as may be prescribed by the order, being decisions relating to the design or external appearance of buildings or other similar matters, any appeal under section twenty-three of this Act"— That is the general appeal Section— shall lie to an independent tribunal constituted in accordance with the provisions of that order, instead of being an appeal to the Minister. Here is power for the Minister to set up at once an independent tribunal to take over from him any appeal relating to the design or external appearance of buildings or other similar matters". I think that the phrase, "similar matters" could be stretched quite far to include, for example, conversions of existing premises and that sort of thing. This would take thousands of appeals off the hands of the Minister and they could be efficiently dealt with by judicial tribunal. The Minister could do this by a development order. A development order can apply to the whole country. A development order could set up the tribunal to take over these appeals.

Now may I refer to subsection (2): Without prejudice to the generality of the powers conferred by section thirty-four of this Act"— Section 34 deals with the control of advertisements— regulations made for the purpose of that section may provide that any appeal from the decision of the local planning authority, on an application for their consent under the regulations, shall lie to an independent tribunal constituted in accordance with the regulations, instead of being an appeal to the Minister". Therefore, there are four ways in which the Minister could hive off his duties: appeals relating to design, external appearance and other similar matters—which could be very wide—and appeals on outdoor advertising. I beg of the Minister, now that we are faced with grave delays in development, to set up these tribunals and to shed his own burden in this respect. These tribunals, of course, would have to be adequately staffed for speedy decisions. I should not mind if they were staffed by the existing inspectors, who do an extremely good job so far as they are allowed to do it.

This, of course, would not solve any delays at the planning application stage, any delays at the local authority stage, but it would provide a far more satisfactory procedure of appeal from the local authority. It may be limited, as I have suggested, to these categories in which the Minister has power at present under the Act to create tribunals, but even in that limited sphere it would be enough to relieve the Minister very considerably. We should still have to give the Minister power to "call in" any appeals where there is a substantial political content, but even if we gave that power to the Minister that would still leave 999 cases out of every 1,000 to to be dealt with by the tribunal.

They would be dealt with without the pretence of the Minister deciding. This is where the grave delay comes at present. There is considerable delay in bringing an appeal before an inspector for hearing, but the really unnecessary delay occurs while the inspector's report is hanging about in the Ministry waiting for the fiction of the Minister himself taking a look at it and deciding the appeal. Unless we hive off planning appeals in this way to independent tribunals staffed to deal with them properly and speedily, we shall not achieve the modernisation of the construction industry which is so absolutely essential at present.

I end by quoting the final sentences of the Report issued today by the N.E.D.C. It concludes: What is clear is that there is no certainty, in present conditions, that the industry will be able to meet the demands upon it. And the possibility cannot be ruled out that by falling short it may hold back the expansion of the economy as a whole. That is the seriousness of what we are debating today, that town planning appeals are a factor which is holding back the modernisation of the economy as a whole.

1.25 p.m.

Dr. Alan Glyn (Clapham)

I am sure that the whole House is grateful that this subject has been raised today. It is a very suitable one for a Friday debate. I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) said about the N.E.D.C. Report and the timing of the Motion moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden). This seems particularly appropriate, in view of the Report which has just been issued. I do not think that many of us have had time to study the details of that Report. Nevertheless, it brings force to the choice of the Motion by my hon. Friend for today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend (Sir S. McAdden) touched a rather important point when he said that we were all in this matter. Without bringing in any political aspect to it, I think it fair to say that a very large number of people, without realising it, are affected by this debate. About 42 per cent. of the people own their houses. If they wish to put up a glass-house, or conservatory—whichever word we employ—or a garage, or even to add a spare bedroom to a house, they come within the compass of a very extensive Act of Parliament and have to go through the mill of this machinery. I make no apology For introducing this point, because I do not believe that the number of people involved in this question is recognised throughout the country.

The whole matter turns on two points. How do we achieve speed in this field while, at the same time, maintaining democratic machinery which gives fair play to the local authority in its genuine desire to see that its area is properly developed but also to those who are interested in developing the area? This is one of the most difficult things to achieve. I am always challenging my hon. Friends on the question of housing, but I think that the Minister is faced with an extremely difficult problem here.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby talked about hiving off responsibility. He was virtually saying that if we could find another channel for appeals—he will correct me if I am wrong—we would be in a position to deal with the backlog and so speed up the process of appeals. I cross swords with my hon. Friend in one respect. He spoke about a tribunal. If we did anything of this nature the tribunal should be a judicial one. I am not in favour of extending this sort of machinery to administrative tribunals. My hon. Friend advocated that it should be done only with a certain category of appeals, but even in those it would be much fairer if the tribunal he suggested were of a judicial nature.

Mr. Graham Page

My hon. Friend need not cross swords with me, because I think that throughout my speech I used the phrase "judicial tribunal". That is distinct from an administrative tribunal and that is the sort of tribunal I should set up.

Dr. Glyn

I apologise to my hon. Friend because I was not clear. I think that he mentioned the inclusion of district valuers.

Mr. Graham Page

No.

Dr. Glyn

I am sorry. My hon. Friend said something about including a certain category of people, but he has now cleared up that point. I think that the point he made is very important and should have consideration given to it by the Minister.

My hon. Friend mentioned the fiction of the Minister going through the report. I do not know what happens in that vast building but I imagine that generally it is an administrative matter and in the vast majority of cases the Minister cannot possibly be compelled to adjudicate. If it is a matter of national importance, for instance, the development of Piccadilly Circus, or something which affects the great centre of our capital, I imagine that the Minister himself has to enter into the matter and consider extremely carefully whether or not it is in the interest of the Metropolis in general.

I agree with my hon. Friend that, although there is appeal to the Minister, I do not believe that every appeal which goes to him can be dealt with personally by him or by the Parliamentary Secretary. In this context, I ask him these specific questions: how many appeals does he receive per year? How many times does he refuse them, and how many times does he back them up?

A further point on which I should like some enlightenment is who pays—this was raised by an hon. Member earlier today, but I think it is worth reinforcing—the compensation, if it is the Minister who turns down the application. The compass of this Motion is of increasing importance because, as long as we have this very difficult strain not only on the building trade but of developing in and around our urban cities, we shall have constantly appeal after appeal on general planning lines.

If we look at our own city, London for example, where we have this so-called green belt around it, continuously there must be a process whereby people say that this is a ridiculous section and it ought to be used for housing. There is this so-called nibbling. When my right hon. Friend last introduced this subject in the House, he talked about little bits and pieces which were isolated and which it was quite ridiculous to retain in the green belt.

This is a matter to which the Minister, the Government and everybody have to give extremely serious consideration. Earlier, one of my hon. Friends referred to the appalling development which took place in the 30s, simply and solely because this machinery, about which we are talking today, was not exercised, or used, or in fact in existence. We all know the result of the failure, and that any relaxation might lead to the same tendency again. Any hon. Member has only to go by road from here to Brighton to realise the straggling mass of houses built along the roadside in the ribbon development that occurred in the 1930s.

I hope that one of the things that flay come out of this debate is the small message that, if we are a nation which will come very shortly to 60 million or 70 million people confined on this island, the whole machinery of planning will have to be looked at very much more carefully. As a nation we tend to go on from day to day with very little long-term planning. We always introduce the excuse that perhaps the registrar of births has gone wrong, but in this case I think that we have a clear road ahead. We know that short of a catastrophic epidemic of disease, or appalling disaster, this country's population must march forward in the next 30 or 40 years and approach 60 or 70 million.

In the light of this, I would put to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary one point which very much enters into the terms of the Motion. I ask him this specific question: can we afford to allow local authorities and private developers to go on building small houses in long lines throughout the country, using up and despoiling the countryside, or ought we not to look at the whole machine again and say that in many cases, even in out country districts, we must go for perhaps higher buildings, flats and more amenities for the people who live in the area.

I know that my views on this may not be accepted by a large number of hon. Members. The reason for that is that our society likes the small house, with its garden and garage. As I have repeated on many occasions in the House, I do not know whether, in this day and age, we are able to afford this luxury.

There is the question of compensation for refusal. This is an extremely difficult and dangerous subject. Of course, we do not want public funds to be spent on unnecessary compensation, but I would remind the House that perhaps one of the values of compensation is that it ensures that the local authorities look extremely carefully into planning applications because they know very well that if they do not give proper grounds and turn them down they are liable to pay large sums in compensation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East, raised the question of standards and of what ought and ought not to be approved. The very fine report to which I have referred indicates quite clearly that the pressure on our existing building machinery will be very great in the next 20 years. It draws attention to the necessity or speeding up and modernising the whole of our construction industry in this country. This is not criticism. The building industry, throughout history and throughout the world, has discovered that many of the processes which it has been using are somewhat out of date. It is important, in the context of this debate, that the Government, without interfering too much in the methods used, should put out recommendations for standardisation and the use of standard equipment.

Planning permissison may be turned down for a variety of reasons. If we look at the rules and regulations for sanitation in London—I know that there is a Bill in Committee—we find that they are so difficult and complex in the various adjoining boroughs that there is a very real case—and I understand that my right hon. Friend is engaged in this process—for trying to smooth out these difficulties. Is would be a great help if some form of standardisation could be laid down. This would give an indication of perhaps one sphere where planning permission should not be given. Hon. Members have referred to the question of regulations being issued by the Ministry—a sort of standards omnibus code—whereby local authority authorities could have something like the M'Naghten Rules as a guide by which commission should be granted or refused. One of the great difficulties is to establish a code when the circumstances of each individual application are so different and it has to be orientated to meet those circumstances. Every area has its own character and its own history. It is extremely difficult to lay down an omnibus proposal whereby permission should or should not be granted. If anything of that nature were laid down it should be in the simplest of forms, allowing some scope to the local authorities which, I believe, they would use fairly reasonably.

Earlier in the debate, a very practical and extremely important point was raised when it was asked whether when an application for planning permission was put forward the person making the application should have a right to appear before the local town planning committee. This is an interesting suggestion, but I submit that if we were to do this it would virtually mean that the person who was making the application, or his legal or professional representative, would have to appear in the first instance before the local planning committee. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will correct me if I am wrong. The difficulty here is that these are committees of a council and it would be difficult to introduce outside evidence into one committee if one did not introduce it into another.

Hon. Members are aware that some committees of some local authorities are open to the public, for example, the Education Committee of the L.C.C., but there are good reasons why sometimes a local authority should be allowed to sit in private so that its members can discuss matters among themselves. I do not believe that it would be easy to introduce at this stage the person who wishes to make a planning appeal. There is a certain amount of substance in the point, of course, because he is the person who knows more about the details of the application than anybody else.

On the question of appeal, I understand that anybody can go and give evidence. It was suggested, however, that people should not be allowed to roll in on the last stage, not having, in judicial terms, put in their pleas. There is a big difficulty here, but one which could be solved quite easily. Many people do not realise that planning applications have been made perhaps for an adjoining property where the development would affect the other property considerably. It is only at the last stage very often that they realise that they might well be affected by the development.

The next question is that of notice to adjoining owners. I should like it to be made clear what statutory duties there are on a person who, in the early stage of having obtained planning permission, has started to build, other than serving a normal party wall notice, and what steps are taken by the local authority which grants the permission to inform adjoining owners? The right course here is that any person who is in the affected area should be informed by registered letter of the intentions of the developer. It is true to say that if planning permission has been granted by the local authority the civil remedies open to the adjoining owner are by no means extinct, but the courts should only be the final adjudication in the matter as it is an expensive process for an owner to get out an injunction and obtain a judgment. One practical way in which my hon. Friend could help in this matter would be to make sure that all local persons affected by a development are informed at an early stage.

I should also like to know whether it is possible to turn down an application on the ground that insufficient use is being made of the land. In London and in the central areas of all cities land is extremely valuable. Some sort of central direction is required. I have spoken on this subject many times in the House. Valuable areas are wasted by a two, three or four-floor development when the land should have been put to better use. I hope that my hon. Friend will see what he can do about this.

I should also like to elaborate on the question of how many applications for planning permission are turned down by virtue of the fact that insufficient parking and garaging space is provided in the proposed development. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be aware that some people believe that the present requirements by the L.C.C. and some boroughs for the provision of garage facilities when they give permission to redevelop are insufficient. This is something which my hon. Friend would do well to look into extremely carefully. We cannot afford to allow developers, whether private persons or local authorities, to go forward and not provide sufficient facilities for the future, because we shall then be faced with the prospect of having no land available on which to provide the necessary garages.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) raised the question of the 10 per cent. increase in accommodation allowed on redevelopment. This subject, too, must be looked at extremely carefully. This applies particularly in congested areas. My hon. Friend says that the 10 per cent. allowance may inconvenience neighbours or put pressure on all sorts of facilities. I do not share this view. We should encourage people to develop fully those sites which are inadequately used. Even a 10 per cent. increase in the accommodation helps in the centre of a city where accommodation is badly needed. If local authorities felt that they would be penalised by being forced to pay compensation for loss of accommodation in a development they would be much more reluctant to allow them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead also spoke about anybody being allowed to apply for planning permission. I share his views. In my view it is the owner of the property alone who should have the right to ask the local authority and eventually to go to appeal, if necessary, about the use to which his own land should be put. But there is a practical difficulty here. One can imagine a case where the owner has absolute right as a freeholder to develop three properties, but there is a fourth adjoining property which is outside of his ownership. There is a marginal case for his saying that the whole of his projected development in cludes the fourth property, in which he must have an interest although he does not own it.

The only way to get round the difficulty is to say that the application must be made by the owner or by someone with a beneficial interest, or where the application refers to property which adjoins the one which the owner proposes to develop. This is a problem and I dislike, as I am sure does my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, to see these sorts of pilot schemes being put up by developers to find out what they can do even before they have entered into negotiations to purchase the property.

People ask for permission to develop somebody else's land over which they do not have control. There is a real point here because in marginal cases the development affects property adjoining and immediately outside the original property. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give an assurance on this point about adjoining owners. The position at the moment is most unsatisfactory in that adjoining owners are not kept informed of proposed development in the area.

It should be the duty of the local authority, certainly by registered letter, to make sure that owners are kept up-to-date with information. It may be said that people should jolly well look and find out, but people are very busy and they do not understand a great deal about the machinery of planning. They ought to be kept informed. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary takes the view that people ought to know. I take the opposite view. I believe that if it is proposed to develop a site next door to someone else's site, everything should be done to make sure that the adjoining owner is aware of the development so that he can put in an objection at an early stage and probably negotiate for something agreeable to both sides and thus avoid having a planning appeal at all.

I hope that my hon. Friend will consider all the matters that have been raised in the debate. Also, in view of the importance of new development and the necessity for housing a greater population, I should like to know whether it is possible for him, within the compass of this Motion, to indicate how Her Majesty's Government intend to tackle the problem, while ensuring that the countryside is not bestraggled with small dwellings after the fashion of what happened in the 1930s.

1.51 p.m.

Mr. A. Bourne-Arton (Darlington)

Although I am not a medical man, I presume to agree with the diagnosis of the problem which my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) made at the beginning of his speech. I think we are faced with a conflict between justice and expedition. If I do not always write the same prescription as my hon. Friend, it does not mean that I necessarily think his medicine will be bad.

Like all hon. Members in the debate, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) on having raised this subject, and I support his Motion. It has been helpful to hear the suggestions of other speakers, which have promoted thought on this tiresome problem. I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch, however, will forgive me for saying that I do not follow him in some of his strictures, particularly on elected members of planning authorities. Every speaker in the debate has referred to delay. I take the view that our procedures, by and large, are fair but that they are slow. The irony is that slowness itself produces an unfairness of its own.

There is no doubt that there is delay. Every speaker has drawn attention to the fact. For this delay my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary cannot escape a good deal of personal responsibility, for it was he, in the years before he adorned his present office, who was most prominent on these benches in leading campaigns to establish the rule of law in the administration of government. He and those associated with him, inside and outside this House, struggled and campaigned that our administrative procedures, the procedures of tribunals of all kinds, should be absolutely just and fair.

This in turn, however, has brought with it its own problem, and the price we pay for the activity of my hon. Friend and others is, as the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) said, that appeal procedures are now increasingly being made to resemble procedures in courts of law. The hon. and learned Member spoke of the lawyers' industry, and I think there is a great deal in what he said. Anyone who attends many of these appeals finds a multiplication of lawyers—counsel briefed by solicitors for the authority, for the owner of the land, for other parties who either do or do not want a development to take place, for the owners of neighbouring land who either think their interests may be affected or wish the development to take place on their land instead of where it is sought to effect the development.

These worthy lawyers so often forget where they are. It is not uncommon to hear learned counsel putting questions to a borough surveyor, for example. The borough surveyor answers and, in the course of his answer, asks a question in return, and it is not uncommon to hear the lawyer having the impertinence to say, "I am asking the questions here". That sort of thing is, no doubt, appropriate in a court of law, but, as the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery pointed out, it is not appropriate at these appeals, and it is time-wasting.

In saying that, it is only fair, whatever we may say about lawyers—and who does not?—to pay tribute to the fact that it was to a large extent lawyers who struggled so hard to ensure that our procedures should be just. But I make a sincere appeal to the legal profession that, having done what they have, they should not now "make a meal of it" because delay causes its own unfairness. This delay is caused, to a large extent, by the length of time consumed by the immense amount of work that leads up to an appeal. There is an inordinate number of appeals. I believe the number of appeals is now running at something like 10,000 a year. I understand that the number has been rising steeply for some years, but that it is now dropping away again. Nevertheless it seems to me that there is a connection between the length of time that an appeal takes and the number of appeals that take place.

The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery reminded us of a classic case when he was talking about the desirability of personal contact between the planning officer and the would-be developer. It was the case of an inspector who was delayed by the fog and turned up to find that there was no appeal to hear because, for the first time, the would-be developer and the planning officer had met face to face in the room where the appeal was to be heard. I remember reading the account of this occurrence in the Daily Telegraph some years ago, most wittily and ably written, I believe, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes).

I believe that there are very few appeals in areas served by authorities whose planning officers succeed in seeing personally every would-be developer, who are able to advise on the probable decision of the appropriate planning committee or sub-committee, or who are able to point out that a minor variation in a plan might not only secure approval of the plan but also in many cases would save money.

I am informed that this country is short of technical planners to the extent of about 2,000, and far too many of the planners that we have got are spending far too long in appeal procedures which would not have been necessary if they had been able to get out and meet the would-be developers to prevent them from appealing. Here is the dilemma.

In our commendable determination to be absolutely fair, we allow too many appeals to be lodged on purely trivial grounds, or out of anger, appeals which not even the applicant expects to succeed. While these appeals must be heard, because it is for the appeal procedure to decide whether they are valid, I wonder whether something could be devised to weed out and sift appeals of that nature. Any local authority will say that a great deal of the time and effort of scarce officers is taken up with the sifting of evidence and preparing cases for appeals which they know will not succeed. If there could be some grand jury type of weeding out procedure, it might save time and, therefore, be more fair and just to those waiting in the queue.

I do not go quite as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch in condemning delays. Let us remember that local authorities as such are not wont to be backward in criticising the Government, but most of them say that the time taken is not as much as it was a year or two ago and, on average, is now between three and six months. Most of them believe that to be reasonable, bearing in mind the procedure and the large number of appeals, which brings me straight back to the point on which I am in entire agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham this vicious circle of the over-complicated and over-professionalised procedure for appeals taking up too much of the time of the too few planning officers who should be getting out preventing so many appeals from developing.

Much has been said about the personal appearance of the developer before the planning committee. I have said that the developer should always be interviewed by an officer of the authority and I am attracted by the idea that he should have the opportunity of appearing before the committee which makes the month-by-month decisions. However, if we made it possible for every would-be developer to appear, the works would be clogged.

I have great admiration for the people who serve on planning committees—in rural areas, on the joint planning committees set up by the county council and composed of representatives of several district councils and nominees of the county council who meet month by month to spend several hours carefully deciding many planning applications. They could not get through their work if every developer could appear in the first instance and, no doubt making a meal of the one case out of the 137 up that afternoon, plead his case for at least half an hour.

However, bearing in mind that at this level we are talking about developments before they are refused, or before such refusal has led to an appeal, it would be possible to allow the applicant whose application was refused at that level to appear before the same committee the following month. That would substantially reduce the number of appeals subsequently disallowed, appeals to the Minister which are enormously time consuming.

Dr. Alan Glyn

The answer is not to make it possible for everybody to come up at even the next monthly meeting, but for the developer to see the officer concerned and to show him the plans he has submitted and to ask that officer for his views of the likelihood of the committee's decision. Negotiations could take place there, long before the matter went to the committee.

Mr. Bourne-Arton

I agree, but I am assuming that those talks have taken place and that the applicant has been in personal touch with the officer. What I am now discussing is the idea that he should also have the right to make a personal appearance before the committee which has turned down his application. That might make a substantial reduction in the number of appeals which do not have a good chance of success.

I wonder whether with Franks and all that we are now being almost pedantic in our worship of public inquiries. A local authority may take many years to draw up a development plan, which is then published to give objectors a chance to object, and there can be inquiries about it. All that having been settled, it goes to the Minister for his approval. If he varies it, the variations have to be published and can be the subject of a public inquiry. The minor variation, something written into the plan, is subject to the same procedure.

We all know of cases where the variation is minimal, where the Minister's approval could be expected to be automatic—a factory is to be built on a site one corner of which will jut by an acre over the boundary of a piece of land which fifteen years before was roughly designated as an open space. Nobody supposes that the Minister will cavil at this, but this is a variation which the Minister is liable to say should be advertised, objections to it being invited.

All this is immensely time consuming and may well prejudice an industrial development, to the prejudice not only of industry, but of employment in the area. Many of us know the fears which this sort of thing engenders. I pay tribute to the speed and alacrity with which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary dealt with this kind of problem in my constituency recently, and I thank him very much for it.

Could not more be done by having some form of regional co-ordination of planning? I am not one of those who wish to have regional planning authorities, but I should like more coordination and co-operation at the official level among interested parties on a regional basis. The Government have made a start here, for other reasons, by establishing in one building in Newcastle an office which houses the regional representatives and controllers of Government Ministries. I am sure that it is right that the Government should have done this, and it has been acclaimed on all sides.

If the regional office habit spreads, one could well give a great deal more local autonomy to local planning authorities. The minor variations which at the moment have to go to the Minister could be reviewed by the Minister after the decision had been taken, and not before, provided that the regional officers of all the Ministries concerned—the Ministry of Transport, the Board of Trade, the planning Ministry, and so on—had been consulted and their advice given to the local planning authority making the decision. Those regional controllers would have the right to withdraw the decision for consideration by their Minister in exactly the same way that the county planning officer has the right to withdraw from the area joint planning committee an application for decision by the main planning committee of the county council. There is an analogy there. This is a point which might be considered to see whether there is anything in it.

Such a regional set-up would be of very great help in co-ordinating other matters, particularly in industrial development. At the moment, if an industrial development certificate is granted by the Board of Trade, the local planning authority can make a fairly good guess that, even if it turns down the planning application for the development, it is likely to be allowed on appeal. But all this takes time. I do not think that the regional office is the only solution to the problem of tying up the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, because sometimes these considerations stretch across England.

Not long ago a firm applied for an industrial development certificate for a site in Berkshire on the ground that development there would create employment in my constituency of Darlington. This was the case because the firm which applied in Berkshire for an extension showed that it could extend its business and that its main suppliers and main work was centred in another firm which was tied up with it in Darlington. As a result of that development, employment has been created. Another 35 people are employed and extensions are going on there.

The industrial development certificate was granted in this region in order to create employment in a development district, but the Berkshire County Council, as it was perfectly entitled to do, turned down the application on planning grounds. The result was that there was, not an inordinate delay, but a delay of upwards of six months while the appeal was heard and subsequently, I am glad to say, allowed. Appeals consume the precious time of planning officers. That might be one way in which we could reduce delays.

May I now join issue, as I said I would, with my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch on his generalities about people who serve on planning committees. I have nothing like his experience at the professional level of planning appeals, but I have served, at two or three levels, as an elected member of planning authorities for 12 years or so. Therefore, I may be prejudiced. But I am informed about what goes on behind the doors because I was concerned in these matters month after month for many years. Whatever else may properly be changed in our planning arrangements and procedures, I hope that we shall not think that there is very much wrong at the local level.

Local joint committees in rural areas in particular are composed of people who, in the main, before their service on those committees, believed that planning was a fiddle and that it was a question, not of "what you know", but "who you know". When they go on the committee they generally feel that their primary duty is to keep the planning officer in order and to stop him getting his own way.

Those of us who have served on these committees are mostly prejudiced, but, thank heaven, in different directions. The representatives of different district councils are at loggerheads with other district councils on various matters. There are round the table in the room two or three people who know the applicant personally in almost every development and who know the gossip behind his business, and so on. In that amalgam of opinion and conflicting prejudice, which I maintain is in the finest traditions of English government extending back over centuries, there is rough and fair justice.

Mr. Lagden

I was challenging, not the honesty of elected members or local planning authorities, but their ability. If my hon. Friend has ever had the unfortunate experience of sitting next to more than one of these people—and one in particular, who meeting after meeting would give the committee his advice but who would for the last three-quarters of an hour have been looking at a large plan upside down—he will know what I mean.

Mr. Bourne-Arton

I accept all that, but it is a committee in which there will be some people who, having sworn an oath, will not be a party to any application in respect of a black-painted roof, others who do not like bow windows, and plenty of people who cannot read a map. It is the man who cannot read a map who might well know all the local gossip about the applicant, whose business was affected, and all the local pressures. This is valuable, and it would be a bad day if we were to abandon it.

I am sorry to have been diffuse. My prescription may not only not be the same as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham, but it may be even less easy to read than most doctors' prescriptions. However, in supporting the Motion, and believing that these matters should be carefully examined with a view to improving them, I once again ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to remember his own deep personal responsibility for the dilemma in which we find ourselves and the conflict between justice and expedition, and I express the hope that neither he nor any of his fellow lawyers will forget that expedition is often the path of justice.

2.18 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Skeffington (Hayes and Harlington)

We have been listening, no doubt, to some of the experience gained by the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton) when he served on the North Riding County Council. Broadly speaking, I agree with the sentiments which he expressed.

May I say to the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden) that my hon. Friends the Members for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) and Widnes (Mr. MacColl), who take great interest in these matters, are sorry that they could not be here because of constituency engagements. However, I know that they will read the debate with great interest.

I was pleased that the hon. Member for Hornchurch initiated the debate. I was very pleased to hear the hon. Member's announcement while waiting to hear the result of the strange Parliamentary gamble which we have, the Ballot, because I should have chosen almost identically the same subject if I had been fortunate. However, I may have made it a little wider, because we cannot deal with one aspect of planning procedures without thinking about other broad aspects of town and country planning legislation. As the hon. Member and other hon. Members have said, this matter is of great importance to many individuals whose hopes and aspirations are involved. At the same time, the decisions which we make about land use will affect the convenience of many generations to come, let alone questions of amenity. This, then, is always an extremely difficult problem and I am sure that the hon. Member feels gratified in having initiated such an interesting and, up to this point, well informed discussion.

Mussolini used to say, "We are 40 million in our narrow and adorable peninsula". We are now over 50 million in our islands, and although I do not take the view that there is not enough room for all of us, despite the increase in population to which the hon. Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) referred, increasingly whether there is room for us and our activities will undoubtedly depend on how wise we are in the general planning of land use in city and [...]country. In some respects, a new planning strategy is required. Although I do not want to detain the House long I should like to refer to it briefly later. It touches upon the point raised by the hon. Member for Darlington in almost his concluding remarks.

There is little doubt that in some areas the existing procedure, if not on the point of breaking down, is excessively strained, and gives rise to most curious results. It will call for some kind of review by whatever party wins the election. There is the matter not only of planning delays, but of curious planning consequences.

I want, first, on the narrower point of individual applications, to give some evidence of what is happening in the part of Kent in which I live, where I have taken an interest in these matters. I have experienced a good deal of depression as a result of my inquiries, to say nothing of frustration. Indeed, I sometimes get the impression, in the part of Kent where I live, that nobody or no agency knows what is going on collectively and that the picture of the area as a whole almost from London to the Medway is probably unknown. It may well be understood by those who are conducting the regional survey, but I do not believe that the local authorities fully appreciate the significance of what is happening following a multitude of planning decisions which have been taken during the last few years.

I should add that I have discussed the matter with my Member of Parliament, who cannot intervene in the debate today as he is Under-Secretary of State for War. Although I must be responsible for what I say, I know that the hon. Gentleman is gravely concerned, on behalf of his constituents, at some of the developments which have been taking place in and around the area that he represents.

To give an example of what is happening, according to the town map the village of Meopham should have reached a planned population of 4,000 by 1972. On that basis, the local authorities have planned their social services. One of the functions of the development plan is to show what the population will be and to enable the local authorities to meet its needs with the services which the community will want. That figure is still the basis upon which some authorities work. Indeed, I saw a letter from the county education office last year giving the figure as 3,700 in 1978. Obviously, this estimation is quite wrong unless the office was concerned with only part of the village.

I have ascertained by various tests that the planned population of 4,000 by 1972 has already been reached, without any announcement being made or concern expressed or without any action taken. I am certain that some of the local authorities in the area were not aware of this fact. We have had no mention of it from the county planning office at Maidstone. Nevertheless, eight years ahead of target the population figure for 1972 has already been reached. What sort of system is it which, in addition to the sort of delays and injustices of which we have heard today, gives a planning result which is quite inappropriate to the progress of the social services, supposed to be based on it?

The results can be seen. They affect the lives of quite a number of people. Both village schools are overcrowded. All the classes in one school are crowded and are over 30, with the hall being used as a classroom. The top form in the other school has more than 40 pupils. New classrooms are in course of preparation, but they will not be ready until after the summer, when the planning applications continuing to be granted all the time will mean that the school population will have more than kept pace with the building which has been allowed. It is wrong to inflict these conditions upon children and staff in an area because, apparently, there is no machinery to stop the deluge of planning applications which are being submitted and granted. This is the opposite to good planning. It certainly was not intended under the Act and it is having serious social consequences.

If a man wants to go to hospital, there is a delay of at least six months for all but the most urgent cases. If he waits long enough, he probably has an opportunity of becoming an urgent case and then gets in more quickly. Last year, I found that at the Dartford Hospital, to which most of the local people go, there were 137 neurological and 172 gynaecological cases awaiting admission and waiting periods for practically every other branch of surgery. The area has fewer maternity beds than before the war. Surely, somebody, somewhere, some day, will say that residential development cannot continue while the social services are strained to that extent.

I hope that I shall not get today from my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary the same reply as I once received when I raised the question with his colleague the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Health, that hospital conditions are difficult all over the country. That is not very satisfactory to us. The point is, what will be done about it?

As a result of the fact that we are eight years ahead of target in having already reached the population which was intended to be reached in 1972, in addition to schools and hospitals the transport situation is quite appalling and very little can be done about it. The general manager of the Southern Region wrote to me last year and said: … we halve always pointed out that there is no more capacity to run additional trains in and out of London during the morning and evening peak hours, and the point has also been put to the county planning department at Maid-stone in connection with the county development plan". It makes no difference to the Kent County Council. Development continues to be allowed all along the line, although in a report which the Kent planning committe itself considered it was again put on record that We must here record that commuter trains on certain Kent routes have now become seriously overcrowded and the building of further house for commuters there must be in question unless further transport facilities are forthcoming". They will not be forthcoming because it is simply impossible to run extra trains into the termini on these routes. Again, what kind of chronic situation must one reach before action is taken? Does it mean that commuters must sit on the railway lines? Is this the only kind of action which gets attention from the authorities?

I wish to raise a particular point with the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. He may not be able to give an answer today, although I advised him that I would raise it. Not only are we eight years ahead of target, but at an old estate called the Homestead, in addition to the development which was asked for, somebody agreed to the development of an added area of 1¾ acres for another 22 houses. It was extraordinary how that happened. I have been unable to ascertain who authorised it, why and on what conditions. I should like an answer some time about how this happened.

I should be very glad if the Joint Parliamentary Secretary would say at what stage either his Department, the county planning office or somebody else says, "We have investigated certain parts of the area. Residences are already so far ahead of the provisions which the social services are able to provide that a change must be made, either in the development plan or in the way in which planners' decisions about residential development are made ". It was almost bordering on the impertinent, although it was probably not meant that way—it was certainly irrelevant—that when I put this matter of the services to the planning department of Kent last year, I was told that if there was any difficulty in relation to the services and it was felt that they had failed to keep reasonable pace with the development, they should be approached direct. They have all been approached direct and the county planning office is aware of this. Yet development continues to be allowed. So there is a circle which somebody at some time has to break.

The answer may be in the South-East Survey, but there is a case for a Ministerial inquiry into this planning in Kent. This is not a condemnation of the planning committee or of the procedures. I am sure that the committee is doing the best it can in the circumstances, but, as I said in an interjection, it has had to deal with about 13,000 applications in a year, apart, I understand, from those which are delegated. But, obviously, the planning, or so-called planning, procedures in this part of Kent are quite unrelated to what is happening in reality. The situation is extremely serious and I hope that the Minister will consider it, and consider what action to take.

I have mentioned one village, but this growth has happened all the way round. I noticed that last year in the village of Otford, not very many miles away, protest meetings were being held and a statement was made, which I think was correct, that Otford and the neighbouring village of Kemsing would soon have doubled their population beyond those originally envisaged in the Kent County Plan. What is the point of having a Kent County Plan if years ahead we double the population? The whole thing seems to me to become meaningless.

This is not the only place. There is the Darenth Valley. I have a newspaper cutting, also of just before Christmas, saying that Dartford Rural Council tomorrow launches a campaign to prevent the Darenth Valley becoming the victim of what it calls urban sprawl". Another 25 acres, apparently, are planned for development. There are difficulties in the village of Shoreham, also not far away. Of Edenbridge, it is said, in a letter: The population of Edenbridge has expanded during the past decade at a pace greatly in excess of the national population growth. This expansion has already caused serious dislocation consequent upon the time lag between growth and the supply of social amenities, with the result that present accommodation and facilities relating to schools, maternity services, roads, etc., are inadequate for present needs—without taking into account the further large increase in population due to be added in the next eighteen months from the second-stage building of the L.C.C. overspill estate and other schemes. The accommodation problem in the county primary school is already critical. … Facilities at the newly built county secondary school even at the time of completion were inadequate for present needs. All mothers having their babies in hospital have to be accommodated as far away as Pembury and Tunbridge Wells. There must be something curiously adrift in the planning arrangements in Kent and I hope that the Minister will seriously consider whether an inquiry can be made in his Department, if only as a guide to future action. At the moment, no one seems to be able to take any steps, but there comes a point at which somebody must say that there must be a review of the arrangements.

One curious thing about the planning procedure is—and this really comes back to the Motion—that in a situation like this in Kent, where there has been this growth in a number of villages already, under existing planning law it is perfectly competent for a firm to suggest, as has been done, setting right down in the middle of all this another 6,000 people. Of course, in this case, the local planning authority and the county council will refuse an application, but there will have to be the usual inquiry, at which, I hope, when it reaches Ministerial level, the application will be turned down.

It seems to me senseless, in places where the social services are already greatly overstrained, and where there is this extraordinarily rapid development and growth in population, that it is possible for another developer, who may or may not have any interest in the land, to come in and suggest another scheme for 6,000 people, and the only way to stop him is by the elaborate, expensive procedure of having an inquiry.

This is where I think we come on to suggestions as to how, in future, some relief may be given to hard-pressed individuals in the area and also to the planning authorities themselves. On the more general point, I would dissociate myself from the general kind of criticism which has been expressed about inspectors. I have always found them highly technically competent, usually more competent than most of those who appear before them—if I may say so; and I can say so. Also, I have always found them extremely courteous and urbane. I have never come across an inspector who has been inadequate for his job. I may have been lucky, but I have been to many of these inquiries.

I was attracted by the scheme of applicants being seen by the local authority, but even a small authority may have 100 applications a month, and if an applicant has not got very much of a legal interest in the development I doubt and question the wisdom of whether it would really be advisable. In any case, one would not know how far the application may be put in to see what sort of reaction the planning authority may be going to have in connection with somebody else's application.

This is not at all a simple matter. The Government may say that we must restrict the right of an individual owner only to develop, but we have always taken the line that an individual must not necessarily stand in the way of development which may be essential. I am doubtful whether, except in very rare cases, committee procedure which involves personal interview would work, but, of course, planning officers have seen developers—and I am very much in favour of their doing so—about the details of their applications.

This can mean that the matter can be disposed of more smoothly; or the applicant may be discouraged, because the planning officer, without revealing the whole of the, as it were, planning strategy for the area, which cannot always be revealed, and for obvious reasons, such as speculation, can sometimes head off a developer by giving him sufficient information. Another difficulty is that the officer may give advice which may be turned down by his committee subsequently. So even this course is not free from possible accidents.

There are two simple proposals which might be considered in connection with reducing the deluge of applications. It seems fantastic that a developer can put in an application, have it turned down, move his ground a little, and have the whole procedure gone over again. There is no limit to the number of applications which a developer may make, or to the expense in which he can involve everybody. I know that the inspectors, on behalf of the Minister, have a right to award costs, but they very rarely do so. It does seem to me that in a case of repeated application for a similar or identical site, or a frivolous application, they should be encouraged to award costs. No doubt, there would have to be an appeal procedure there, but county councils do it, and the courts do it in connection with frivolous summonses. I think that this provision might be used, and so I would suggest some kind of a limitation on the period when an identical or similar application is made.

I have seen this often, and it happens particularly in the green belt. What often happens is that an applicant will put in for a development. The application is turned down. He moves his application for a little farther along the site and that is turned down. He goes round almost in a circle. What happens eventually is that somebody, perhaps on the planning committee, or somebody else, gets a bit tired, and part of the scheme is allowed. Of course, once that happens the whole concept of that area may be changed.

Sir Eric Errington (Aldershot)

I was wondering what the hon. Gentleman had in mind about the awarding of costs. To whom would the costs be awarded—the representatives of the local authority? To whom would they go?

Mr. Skeffington

I think that the local authorities are often put to very considerable expense in this connection and I should think that costs might go to them to aid the ratepayers from time to time in cases of frivolous applications.

Mr. Lagden

Would the hon. Gentleman hold the same opinion if the decision went the other way—that costs should be paid to the applicant?

Mr. Skeffington

Certainly. This is a much more difficult circumstance to imagine because of the way in which these procedures function, but just as a county court judge has a right to award costs, I see no reason why an inspector should not.

As I say, there should be some limitation on the time in which applications can be repeated. Perhaps that is the best way to put it.

There is a more fundamental way in which one could reduce the flood of applications. As some hon. Members have said, the planning personnel cannot do their proper job of planning because they have to attend to this flood of applications. I agree to some extent with what Mr. Norman Wate said at the annual building conference at Folkestone last year: "the feeling of frustration stems chiefly from the slowness of the planning process." I believe that this is due, in part, to the countless applications.

One other change that we ought to consider—the Civic Trust has devoted a good deal of attention to this—is to make it very much easier for a local authority to create areas of comprehensive development. It is at the moment a difficult procedure, slow and longwinded, and this encourages piecemeal applications from individuals. But the whole logic of Buchanan and modern town development, and the whole sense of economic reconstruction, in that one makes the profitable parts of a development pay for the unprofitable parts, should encourage the concept of areas of comprehensive development among all forms of construction. The more that was done, the fewer individual applications there would be, and these could be fitted into a general scheme. There would thus be one general developer—the local authority or a company—doing the work, and this would reduce the number of applications and obtain better development.

We shall have to look—any future Government will have to do this—very much more to the concept of regional designation of land use. I do not want to be controversial and go much further on that. I am talking about not the ownership of land but broad designation. It is farcical that Manchester, over its overspill, has been fighting the Cheshire County Council for I do not know how many years because of a difference in policy about where it is to go. At an inquiry into Manchester overspill, held in September, no fewer than 24 local authorities had a right to be represented and had their own particular interests, as the set-up is now, to safeguard. If one has that kind of set-up it will be years before the problem is settled.

A regional designating body, which would make broad decisions about land use, overspill, green belt, where new towns should be and industrial location, all of which is a part reflection of national policy, would aid local authorities to make their county development plans much more sensibly. It would not take power away from local authorities. On the contrary, they would have much more certainty about development within their borders and would, within the confines of the broad designation, be able to do a much better job.

It would also mean that some types of development would never go forward. A developer now does not know the situation about vast areas because there is no planning body responsible or development man. If one knew that some area had been designated by a regional body for overspill or green belt and that one's application would stand little chance of success, this would be another way to reduce the number of applications.

So there are four methods—a time limit on repeated applications, discouragement of frivolous applications, comprehensive development and regional designation.

The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) drew our attention to an extremely useful provision of the 1947 Act, Section 44, whereby certain classes of appeal could be dealt with by a judicial tribunal. This matter should be examined, and the House should be grateful to the hon. Member for having called attention to it.

I express my gratitude to hon. Members who have taken part in the debate and focused attention on what is a very grave national problem in some areas. I realise that this is a difficult problem. We have to balance the rights of individuals against the rights of the community at large, and the needs of development against the need to preserve what is good from the past, particularly the precious legacy of fine buildings in some old cities; and we have to preserve development, on the one hand, and, on the other, secure the beauties of our countryside, which are without parallel. This task demands all the wisdom and brilliance of administration that we can give to it, and I hope that, whatever Government may be in charge in the future, that brilliance and wisdom will be available.

2.45 p.m.

Sir Eric Errington (Aldershot)

I am sorry that I have not been able to be here throughout the whole of the debate, but I should like to raise one or two points.

First, we must accept that there is a general feeling of anxiety about planning appeals and some of the methods of procedure. There is no standard practice for informing the public about applications for planning permission. In a number of cases the first thing that neighbours have known about the matter has been when they have seen bricks arriving on land adjoining them, and they then have found that permission has been granted.

This is not only a bad thing, but it is very exasperating, because some local authorities have methods of communicating applications either in the local newspaper or by putting lists up in the town hall or some other convenient building. If the procedure were better known there would be less feeling of frustration and annoyance.

Secondly, I should like to know what the position is in regard to appeals from the grant of planning permission. It is obvious that these are very difficult borderline cases. However, as I understand the position, if a grant of planning permission has been made by a local authority, it can be cancelled or changed only if the Minister considers it unwise for it to go forward, and even in that event compensation becomes payable. This seems to me to make the procedure a lit the lop-sided in that, if someone has not got planning permission, he can go forward to appeal, and someone who has got it can go forward to appeal only under certain limited circumstances, involving the local authority in the compensation problem.

Thirdly, might we hear clearly and definitely from the Parliamentary Secretary what the position is in regard to the alteration of development plans, particularly in large towns? Those of us who are interested in property in various parts of the country find that almost imperceptibly the development plan, and, consequently, the basis on which one can make an application for planning permission, has been changed with hardly any knowledge of this reaching the ordinary man in the street who is interested in these property matters.

It would be very helpful if my hon. Friend said something about the question of the change of development plans in cities.

2.50 p.m.

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

We have had a fairly wide-ranging debate and it is fair to say that it has been mainly concerned with the procedure for hearing appeals of planning applications and that hon. Members have had very much in mind the delays that occur, on the one hand, and the apparent injustices that occur to individuals, on the other. I do not accept that these are two irreconcilable interests. I am sure that hon. Members will realise that, to some extent, the procedures which incorporate the maximum safeguards for individuals cut across our desire for speedy decision because, obviously, the more safeguards we put into the procedure the more, inevitably, it is strung out.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) will recognise that our main concern has been the problem of speed on the one hand and the safeguarding of private interests on the other. I had not intended to go into detail about some of the more local problems of Kent. At the moment, I will only say that, of course, the whole basis of planning must be to the in development as we know it in the form of bricks and mortar to the various services, but I think that we have to draw a distinction between different services.

Obviously, if one is considering a residential estate, the school facilities are absolutely essential to the inhabitants. On the other hand, one really must leave it to the builder not to be such an idiot as to build his house without ensuring that an electricity supply will be available.

The same thing to some extent applies to water supply, although here one generally gets wider issues with the river authority and other bodies being involved. Certainly local authority sewage disposal and sewerage plans are clearly relevant in any large-scale development.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington made other comments on the problem of speeding up procedure and safeguarding individual rights. I have always had sympathy with the idea that an appellant who has lost his appeal should have imposed upon him a time limit before the expiry of which he should be unable to come back again. But when I came to consider this problem I was astonished to learn how few cases a time limit of this kind would catch. I cannot remember the figures now, but I sent for them when I tried to get the thing thrashed out.

This proposal is the sort of thing one might well consider for the future. It would, however, have such a minimal effect for the present that it would not be worth the heavy hammer of legislation on its own. It is surprising how few cases there are in which a second appeal occurs within a very short time and still fewer when appeal is made on frivolous grounds.

The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington also referred to costs and I agree that, if one is to award costs, there must be power equally to award them against a frivolous applicant as against a local planning authority which has behaved unreasonably. Costs are from time to time awarded, although officially by the Minister rather than by the inspector. There again, however, frivolous applications occur very infrequently. One or two people keep coming back even though they must find it more and more expensive.

I entirely agree with the hon. Member that, as life gets more and more complicated—roads do not stop at county boundaries and industry is not confined to one area—we have to look at the whole problem from a much wider point of view. Indeed, this is one of the objectives of our various studies, beginning with those of the South-East, the North-East and Central Scotland.

The aim is to provide a regional framework which local planning authorities will be able to fill in in detail. This will be the same general relationship that the Greater London Council will have with the London boroughs. The larger authority will provide the essential framework of communications and industrial locations while the smaller authorities will fill in on the local level.

As the hon. Member stated, our whole problem is to keep a series of balances—not only a balance between the rights of the individual and those of the public and between the niceties of procedure and speed of decision, but also—and this is the point which should be borne in mind by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Lagden), who seemed to skate over it—between building and preserving.

As the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said, one of our greatest neritages is the countryside, and one of the main functions of planning control is to see that we pass on, in spite of our rapidly increasing population, a good part of that heritage to our descendants. The idea that we should make snap judgments—which will have effect for many generations, perhaps for centuries—is a wholly wrong approach.

I was glad that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) spoke of the inspectorate and that his remarks were supported by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington. I had professional experience of this procedure before coming to the House and I share the view of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington. I cannot recall a case in which I appeared before an inspector who, I thought, was not up to the job, who was not courteous and, above all, who did not fall over backwards to help people not legally represented.

It is unfair to make the sort of comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch made. We must remember that, as the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery said, inspectors vary, just as we all vary. On the whole, however, they have kept a fairly high standard. Nevertheless,, they are people with skills and professional qualifications which are in immensely short supply. Although we have increased the inspectorate substantially—from 53 in 1953 to over 140, which is a steady increase—the complement is still not entirely full, and that is our main problem.

The other question which arises is whether these inspectors should be part of the Ministry or part of another Department or should come under the Lord Chancellor. This is a difficult problem, and I do not pronounce on it as a problem which has a definite answer and on which there cannot be another point of view. But under present legislation the final responsibility for a planning appeal or for the approval of a development plan is the Minister, and the inspector appears as representative of the Minister.

Where I part company from this document of the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors is in bearing in mind that planning decisions have to be taken on policy, and that when one applies that policy in a particular area, to some extent one does so on opinion. As my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) said, we cannot produce a planning code of the exactitude which is required when one applies these things either in a court or under the ordinary procedures of arbitration, which is what this document suggests. Arbitration is not designed for this sort of argument. I strongly stress that it is a question of policy and to some extent of opinion.

There is room for two opinions on the question whether, on the one hand, we should have an inspector merely to find out the facts who is not particularly familiar with the policy on which the Minister will make the final determination or whether, on the other hand, we should have an inspector who is part of a Department in which the policy is generated and with which he is closely in touch. But on the whole, while we have this administrative decision, it is probably right that the inspector should represent the Minister who will take the decision.

Mr. Graham Page

I do not think that my hon. Friend was in the Chamber when I put forward an argument under Section 44 of the Act, which gives the Minister power to set up independent tribunals in four specific cases.

Mr. Corfield

I am aware of that case, and I will not dodge it. But for the general run of things, where one is applying policy there is a good deal to be said for the inspectorate being truly representative of the Minister who is responsible. Whether the Minister should indo finitely be responsible for this sort of thing is another matter to which I shall refer later.

Mr. A. E. Hunter (Feltham)

Is not the Minister responsible for decisions taken under the Act on the evidence submitted to him by the inspector?

Mr. Corfield

It is entirely the Minister's responsibility, and under the Act it is for him to send anybody he likes to make the inquiry and to advise him on it. But it seems sensible to send somebody from his own Department who is aware of his policy and his way of thinking.

One of the main problems at local level is communications or public relations, and several hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason), have referred to this. I do not think that it is a practical proposition to bring the applicant to the planning committee to make his case. There is the problem of the vast numbers of applications; the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington said that there were 13,000 in Kent alone. Quite a number of the applicants would be making to some extent a purely speculative application.

I think that the right approach is for the officials of the planning authority to make themselves available to talk to people, to explain the general policy of their county or county borough, to help applicants in making their applications, to tell them which documents must be filled in and to help them to fill them in, on the assumption that in at least 99 out of 100 cases the county planning officer or the borough planning officer should be able to interpret fairly accurately the policies which his committee is likely to apply—always with the proviso that he may be wrong and that the committee may take a different view.

It seems to me that there are two broad types of circumstance, in which, in the one case, publicity is not desirable, and, in the other case, it is desirable. One is that in which we are dealing with broad questions of policy affecting the designation of a large area of green belt or a large public open space or a new area for residential accommodation where, before a firm decision is taken and the town map stage reached, there is likely to be a large amount of speculation; and there it seems to me that the tighter and more firmly we close the doors, the better.

On the other hand, where we are dealing with an individual application whether it does or does not affect the neighbourhood, it seems to me that the more the public know about what is going on, the more they can see how their locally elected representative in fact represents their interests. This must be good for public relations, for planning and for local government. I would hope that local authorities would do this.

Sir E. Errington

Will the Minister deal with the point that I made? I agree with what he has been saying, but the point is that at the moment knowledge that applications have been made is not available.

Mr. Corfield

I was coming to that point.

Several hon. Members have talked of the position of neighbours. Hon. Members will know that in the 1959 Act we introduced provisions to endeavour to ensure that where a third party made a planning application in respect of somebody else's land, the owner and tenant were informed of the agricultural proposals and given an opportunity to state their case to the local authority. Although this procedure occasionally goes wrong, it is working fairly well and we need not worry much about that.

The real problem arises in respect of the neighbours who have no legal interest in the planning application. Here we should get into very deep water, no matter what form of planning tribunal we set up, or anything else, if we had to go round and invite anyone in the neighbourhood to make representations and send in registered letters, and so on, even in respect of a development which clearly had no general effect on the character of the neighbourhood.

I take the view that we should always bear in mind that the whole purpose of planning control is to control private development in the public interest, and only in the public interest. I appreciate that the public interest is the same as the sum of private interests, and that it is not always easy to draw a line and to say when a certain interest ceases to be a private one and becomes a local public one, but, broadly speaking, one has a general idea that a certain type of development will alter the character of a district and that it is clearly a matter of local public interest, in which case there is a great deal to be said for sounding public opinion, whereas if it is a question of building upon a piece of land, which may or may not affect one or two neighbours, we should remember that the planning concept does not cut across the old common law rights, and that if a person has a piece of land and wants to safeguard his view, he is expected to pay for a restrictive covenant over his neighbours's land, or to purchase it.

We should not engender in people the idea that planning control exists for this purpose, because the more we do so the more sense of grievance, hardship and injustice we shall create when a person finds that a neighbour has built something in his field which spoils the view. This sort of thing is bound to happen increasingly as development goes on. We should not burden the planning machine by telling local authorities that they must take account of the views of every conceivable person who has a grouse if Mrs. Jones builds a garage, and allow everybody to protest. That would be bound to slow down the procedure. It is all very well to say that these people should be allowed to make their protests to the local authority, but somebody has to read the letters and to see the people, and all this adds to the delay.

If we had a system by which third parties could appeal against the grant of planning permission—which my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) suggested—we should not only have delay; we should have the appalling position in which a developer would have no sense of finality until the period for appeals had run out. This would be immensely damaging to our economic life and immensely expensive to much of our essential production and I cannot think that it would be helpful in solving the main problem to which our attention has been drawn, namely, the question of speed.

Mr. Allason

I am disappointed that my hon Friend is blowing so cold on the idea of neighbours being informed of planning applications. Is he now proposing to withdraw the Ministry circular that was sent out in 1961?

Mr. Corfield

Of course I am not. I was dealing with the idea that we should go further, and make it a duty on local authorities to send round individual notices. Had my hon. Friend been listening, he would have heard that I was very much in favour of the maximum amount of publicity being given, in order to make sure that everyone concerned knows what is going on.

My hon. Friend the Member for Horn-church hoped that I would not answer the debate with the assurance that we were doing our best, that it was a question of manpower and that administration was difficult, but I am sure that he would not want me to say that I am not doing my best. We are taking this matter very seriously indeed, and I will advert a little later to some of the ideas we have, and the sort of problems we see. Of course I shall say that there is a manpower shortage, because there is, and it affects the issue. Of course I shall say that administering this sort of thing is difficult, because it is difficult.

At the same time, I am very grateful for the various suggestions that have been made. I can assure the House that I am in no way complacent about performance or speed but I believe, with my hon. Friend the Member for Petersfield, that the relatively small number of complaints on the merits of decisions—bearing in mind that almost anybody disappointed about planning tends to feel aggrieved, because the amount of money involved is considerable—is fairly strong evidence, on the whole, that the merits of the cases are considered fairly, that the answers arrived at are, on the whole, fair, and reflect the fact that in my Ministry—which I myself know so well—immense care is taken; and immense care is taken with the small man.

I have been asked how many applications and how many appeals are seen by my right hon. Friend or myself. I shall not go into that aspect, but I can assure hon. Members that no easy distinction is made between the small man and the big man. Offhand, I should not like to say whether, between us, we see more small cases or more big cases. We always see those that contain matters of personal difficulty. I should not like it to go out from this House that we are interested only in the big battalions of development we are very conscious of the hum in element as well—

Mr. Lagden

Perhaps my hon. Friend will tell us who decides which cases the Minister himself sees.

Mr. Corfield

This is something that varies a good deal. Obviously, the whole object of having officials in any Government Department or in local government is that they should follow, and apply, one's policy. Quite a number of cases are sent for ad hoc, as it were, so that no one knows whether or not they will go to the Minister. Quite a number are brought up on policy lines, there is a categorisation—if it is thought that certain issues should be looked at at the top—and so on. I must warn the House that every time I see a case it probably adds another week to the time involved; and that is one of the problems of delay.

Referring again to delay, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) referred to the Southend airfield case. He is quite right in saying that in that case we had very long delays arising from something quite outside my right hon. Friend's sphere. It is easy enough to say that these people should have appeared at the inquiry—end they should have done—but I understand why they did not appear. They had not realised that this proposal was likely to interfere with their flood plain, but decided, on getting further engineering advice, that it might well do so.

But, obviously, it would be irresponsible of my right hon. Friend to give a decision particularly when it is not simply because a six-month period had run out when there is a serious decision involved. This answers the proposal that there should be a time limit not only for the local authorities but for my right hon. Friend and that once that limit was up a proposal should be deemed to have been permitted, or planning permission should have been deemed to have been granted.

As I pointed out and my hon. Friend rather scoffed at it, most cases in which a local authority say that they want more than the statutory period are cases where they wonder—and may require outside advice—about whether provisions for sewerage, water supplies and so on will be available. If there is any doubt and if it were forced to give a decision before the end of two months the authority has no option but to say, "No". The authority is a responsible body and it would be wrong for it to take a serious risk.

The whole idea of the two-month period in the original Act was to help the applicant so that if a local authority was dilatory, the applicant could start going to appeal without waiting for a decision which might never come. It was simply a period at the end of which his appeal rights arose. If it is remembered that that is the purpose, it does not appear quite so unfair as some of my hon. Friends may have implied. The same applies in respect of fixed periods for appeals to the Ministry. Almost inevitably these appeals take a particularly long time. It is for a good reason and because we do not want to take a risk about some public matter. Therefore, if the Ministry were forced to make a decision before the end of six months it would be forced to refuse.

My hon. Friend the Member for Horn-church raised the tricky problem of the Hornchurch airfield, and I think that it is fair to place some of the difficulties on record. There are no fewer than 10 applications and two appeals in respect of this piece of land. The main applications were for the extraction of gravel, to be followed by residential development after restoration. Other applications were for the temporary use for five years for storage and warehousing of the three hangars on the technical site, followed by its incorporation into the residential development, the use by Hornchurch Urban District Council of about one acre from the R.A.F. sports field as a community centre and a proposal by Essex County Council to use 18.6 acres for a Roman Catholic primary school and other school playing fields.

The two appeals were in respect of an application to use the airfield as a helicopter base and exhibition site. To each of these applications there were a number of objections. My hon. Friend has been pressing me to bear in mind the views of the neighbours, the views of the residents. What is the good of doing that when we have a whole mass—some of these objections by nearby residents run into several hundreds—and if we are not to be given time to go through them? My hon. Friend cannot have it both ways.

I appreciate that the delay has been lengthy, but these are the issues involved. Apart from the applications which I have mentioned, a green belt issue is involved. There is the importance of gravel with the rapidly expanding building industry and the problems of the construction industry—which were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page)—against immediate residential development. There is also the question that this is a large area, and clearly, if we are to go in for a form of residential development, a proper layout is needed on a comprehensive basis. I do not think it right to assume that this is the sort of thing which can be rushed. It is certainly not something about which an automatic decision should be given after six months, if the various technical researches and so on are incomplete.

I wish to put another thing on record. My hon. Friend said that this had been going on for over a year, or for 18 months—

Mr. Lagden

For nearly two years.

Mr. Corfield

The first three planning applications were received in my Department on 13th February, 1963, only just over a year ago, and were called in on 26th February. Further application was called in on 6th March. After consultation with the parties to agree on an inquiry date, we wrote on 10th May informing them that the inquiry would be on 13th August. Thereafter we had six more applications up to 31st July and these were called in on that date. The inquiry lasted from 13th August to 22nd August.

The inspector made his report on 28th September. The actual time in my Department was considerably less than that. I agree that it is a long time, but I assure my hon. Friend that the issues are difficult. It is in the interests of the whole of Essex and a wider area that we should get them right because they will not be there for a week or a year, but for a number of years, perhaps centuries.

I pose this further proposition to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch, who made criticisms of the calibre of people on planning committees. I do not pretend that everything is perfect; of course it is not. I do not think that any local authority would pretend that it is perfect. I hope that it would not, but let us face the difficulties. As soon as we packed a local planning committee with experts it would be almost bound to be up to its neck in vested interests. If we are to see that justice is done we need to have a committee which is not composed only of local builders but, on the other hand, not solely composed of people whose knowledge does not go beyond the planning of a sweet pea bed.

We need to have a mixture. If we have people who look at the map upside down, they must be balanced with those who have other interests. We have to face this problem. Once again, it is a question of balance. If we want expert knowledge on a committee, we do not want it to be so loaded and so interested that it ceases to be objective. This is one of the big problems.

I do not think that I have answered anything like all the questions which have been raised, but I shall, of course, read the debate and I shall write to any hon. Members whom I have not answered. This is a human problem and many individual aspirations are involved, but let us remember that the basis of planning is land use. If we get local authorities or other bodies involved in planning at too local a level it will become very difficult for them to be reasonably objective. If we have them too remote, they will become too much unaware of local problems. Here again, it is a question of balance.

The ultimate decisions must be on what is the right use to which we should put a piece of land. That is always a difficult problem. Sometimes it is rather heart-breaking when there is an application from someone who is crippled or is a hard-luck personal case who wants to put a bungalow where it could not be at all suitable from the point of view of planning. This is the difficulty. When sometimes we have to over-rule that sort of personal approach, I hope that hon. Members will realise that we have done so with a heavy heart and have realised the human angle. Our main duty is in preserving the planning of our country for the future.

Looking to the future, I do not for a moment think that we can be content with the position we have reached, or assume that the system we have now will go on for ever. The number of appeals in 1953 were about 4,500. They reached a peak of just over 13,500 in 1961. Since then there has been a slight fall, but I am told that applications received in January this year are among the highest numbers for any month we have had, so we cannot rely on that fall-off being permanent. The inspectorate has increased. The average time for an appeal has risen to 31 weeks.

One of the main problems is delay in fixing the inquiry. That is partly due to shortage of staff, but it is also due to fitting in with the desires of the parties for a suitable date. It is not always local authorties who are difficult. Sometimes the applicants are difficult, and that means further delay.

Looking to the future, it may well be that we ought to say that at least some of these appeals should go to some tribunal. I certainly do not rule that out. But it raises difficult problems of categorisation a because there will be problems of a national character which Parliament will wish to have decided by a Minister responsible to Parliament. I believe that we could do this categorisation. We have not been idle; we have been thinking about this sort of thing and we believe that it could be done. It would raise certain difficult problems, but I think that there is no reason why a workable system should not be devised if that were acceptable to Parliament and to the public.

I think that we should not look at this question of appeals purely in isolation. There is coming forward as a result of the dramatic expansion of population and the change of pattern in the number of houses built per 1,000 people a much more complex problem of town development and central area redevelopment, with the Buchanan ideas, and so on. It will be perhaps an even more complex problem to speed up the approval of town maps. I think that individual interests are more affected in that way than perhaps they are in the individual applications.

We have to realise that it is 15 years since most of the original development plans were prepared. It is more than that since the general conception of the development plan was set out in the 1947 Act and it was assumed that certain things were essential. We have to look again at the whole idea of what is really necessary for a development plan or a town map, and consider whether we cannot produce, so to speak, a Mark II development plan system which will involve less delay.

The corollary may well be to leave more details of the final decisions to the local authorities, with less of the sort of operation where we have a town map coming one way, modifications going back and possibly another inquiry. These are matters that we have to think of comprehensively within the whole of the planning field of town maps and individual applications.

I can assure the House that much thought has been given to this question. It would obviously be right, in such a fundamental review, to look at the planning appeal system as part of the whole picture and not attempt to deal with it piecemeal. Although no one would suggest that the Government could bring forward a Bill of this magnitude in this Parliament, I can assure the House that the Government have proposals in mind if and when—and I have no doubt it is when—they are re-elected.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That his House, while appreciating the many difficulties in connection with planning appeals, urges Her Majesty's Government to examine what improvements can in equity be made to the machinery of planning appeals and to take the necessary action to effect improvements.