HC Deb 08 May 1964 vol 694 cc1699-710

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

4.3 p.m.

Mr. Dudley Smith (Brentford and Chiswick)

I am grateful for the opportunity of raising the subject of recent planning decisions made against residents' wishes in my constituency of Brentford and Chiswick. I want to make it clear from the outset that I do not intend this speech to be a personal attack on my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, for whom I have the highest regard. I feel, however, that it is necessary to underline this matter to the House owing to two recent planning decisions which I consider have been made very much against the interests of two large groups of my constituents.

My contention is that the decisions were taken without due regard to the sound representations made by my con- stituents in both cases. In view of the evidence and the very strong pleas that I put forward on their behalf, I felt certain that the Ministry would come down on their side. The result of these experiences has been to cause me to face the prospect of having to put forward future pleas on behalf of my constituents with a certain amount of apprehension.

The two cases are completely separate, although there is an interlinking theme. The first concerns the use of residential land in Popes Lane, Ealing, for electricity board purposes. Popes Lane is in two constituencies. The south side is in my constituency of Brentford and Chiswick, but the north side is in the division of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, South (Mr. Batsford).

At the present time the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Southern Electricity Board have a building on the North side of the road. It is not an unpleasant building. It rather resembles a school, or an assembly hall. However, the Board has other ideas about it and has applied to convert the area into a large storage site. Furthermore, it wants to knock down six perfectly good houses, semi-detached but in very sound condition, which it owns and which are adjacent to the present storage depôt.

My constituents, who live on the other side of the road, not unnaturally objected very strongly to this application and in due course it was referred to my right hon. Friend, who ordered a public inquiry. After the public inquiry, the inspector's report, much to everyone's surprise, was in favour of the six houses being pulled down. This was particularly surprising at a time of acute housing shortage in this area. The inspector gave it as his opinion that the application should be granted. The height of the proposed new depôt had been modified during the negotiations and the inspector said in his report that the present proposal would inevitably detract somewhat from the enjoyment of nearby dwellings. He said that it was in the public interest that the electricity depôt should be centrally located.

It is my firm contention that, with a little more effort and good will on the part of the Electricity Board, an equally suitable alternative site could have been found in another part of Ealing. It was all too easy for the Board, which owned the land, to take it over for use as a storage depôt. Surprisingly, the Minister upheld his inspector's decision even though the proposal involved a departure from the provisions of the area development plan, as well as the loss of the residential accommodation. The site of the six houses when pulled down will be used for car parking and for the added storage of materials such as cable. That is likely to be very unsightly, even though it is proposed as a gesture to erect a screen wall and plant trees along the frontage.

My constituents consider that the Minister's decision means that their properties—and practically all are owner-occupied—will be reduced in value, and I subscribe to that view myself. The new electricity site will be ugly, noisy and wholly out of keeping with the character of the district. Another minor point is that, as a result of electricity operations, television reception in the area is almost sure to be interfered with. This is not an isolated complaint from one or two affected householders. A petition of more than 50 signatures was submitted to the Minister and many people came to see me personally. Alas, the petition had no effect.

I turn now to the second case forming the subject of this debate. This concerns the appeal under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1962, of Auto Marine Services, (London) Limited against the decision of the Brentford and Chiswick Council to refuse planning permission to a change of use of one room at Strand Shipyard, Grove Park Road, Chiswick, to a non-residential proprietary club. Grove Park Road, Chiswick, is also a pleasant residential district. It lies beside a part of the Thames which is well known to many Londoners, just outside the famous Strand on the Green. Residents not unnaturally objected very strongly to the introduction of what they considered to be purely and simply a drinking club. The fact that this decision was made is no reflection whatever on the owners of the shipyard, who are perfectly reputable people, but it is obvious that such an introduction is not desired by the local residents whoever the sponsors may be.

This club is undoubtedly intended for the customers of the boatyard at that addresses and also for general Thames boating enthusiasts. But others may form part of the membership and have no connection with boating. I understand that the club will have a maximum membership of some 300, and the vast majority will come from outside the area of my constituency. It is not a club which will be generally used by residents. My hon. Friend was quite wrong when he implied in reply to a recent Question that quite a number of local residents wanted this club. All my inquiries showed that they were all very much against it. It is not as though there were not any facilities for alcoholic consumption in the area. There are two or three famous public houses literally only a stone's throw away from this area at Strand on the Green, so that there are plenty of opportunities for people who wish to take liquid refreshment.

Although at least 160 local residents objected to this proposal and although they were backed to the full by the borough council and their Member of Parliament, the inspector who conducted the inquiry which was arranged came down on the side of the club's sponsors. The Minister approved of his decision, but at least he imposed the three-year time limit, to see how things work out, to use his own words.

My experience is that once such an establishment is in being it is often very hard to get a change back again. While one hopes that this club will be properly conducted, even so one can imagine that there will still be a certain amount of nuisance caused to the local residents.

The inspector said in this report that the club membership's effect on the parking situation locally, and the amenities enjoyed by the residents generally, were likely to be "only slight". My constituents considered this to be the classic under-statement of the year. It is hardly likely to be endorsed by anyone who has been unfortunate enough to live cheek by jowl with a drinking club, who remembers late-night, noisy scenes, and who recalls the revving up of engines, the slamming of car doors, and the boisterous merriment which often proceeds from people coming out of such a club.

More important still, in my view, is the fact that this area is very badly off for parking facilities. Strand on the Green is one of London's natural beauty spots and has many visitors, especially during the summer months. Like so many other suburban areas, it has too many cars parked there already. The problem is a serious one, which I and several other people locally have discussed, argued and campaigned about for a long time before this matter came to the fore. There are no real off-street parking facilities available at the present time in this area, and I should have thought that a club with a membership of some 300 is bound to add substantially to this difficulty.

In addition, there is a very dangerous bend not many yards away from this club and this would present a number of serious traffic hazards if cars were allowed to park there. It is my submission that in both these cases, which I have mentioned quite briefly, the Ministerial decisions which have been made were very much against the wishes and interests of the majority of the residents in Brentford and Chiswick, who are directly affected.

Having made his decisions, I cannot very well expect my right hon. Friend, or my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, to alter these decisions at this stage. That would be an unprecedented step, and it would shock me almost as much as the original decisions on these two cases shocked me. But I would be failing in my duty to those of my constituents who are affected if I did not express to the House my deep disappointment of what has actually happened, and say that apparently very scant notice indeed was taken of the very clear and very well-merited objections raised by the local residents.

I should like to express the hope that the Ministry will in future try to do what it can to help preserve the character and amenities of what is still an attractive London suburban area, and not allow expediency to override substantial local objections. I am sure that the Ministry did what it thought was right but it has caused deep offence to a large number of local people and I do not think that it has encouraged the area to retain some of its famous characteristics.

4.13 p.m.

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

I should like to preface my remarks to my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith) by saying that I am sure he will appreciate that in planning control, perhaps even more obviously than in any other Government activity, one cannot please all the people all the time. I would go so far as to say that, so far as the cases go which come before my right hon. Friend on appeal, a great majority of them are such that, whatever decision is taken, some body of people—I say body because obviously the appellant will be disappointed on refusal—or collection of people, apart from him, will almost certainly be offended.

By the nature of things the offended are more vociferous than those who are content, and that they should have an opportunity of voicing their discontent is a basic safeguard to our democratic society. I hope, however, that my hon. Friend will agree that if we are to have planning control at all, it can work only if there is some public realisation of the issues involved, and at least a recognition that the planning decision which is quite obviously wrong, or even quite obviously right, in the sense that the great majority of people would accept the decision, is, at any rate in cases which come on appeal, an exception rather than a rule.

Just as my hon. Friend is glad to have this opportunity to voice the views of his constituents, I welcome the opportunity to try to explain some of the issues, some of the problems and policies, and how we attempt to apply them. I say attempt because, even the wisdom of Solomon would be strained at times to reach a decision which would please all my hon. Friends.

I think that perhaps the first basic point which I should like to make is that the basis of planning control can only be the prevention of development where it is in the public interest to prevent it. Although a number of private interests obviously add up to a public interest—and it is not always easy to draw the line—we cannot operate a planning control system on the basis of neighbours having a veto simply because of a purely personal private interest.

Having said that, let me turn to the two cases in which my hon. Friend is interested. First, the Strand Shipyard site. I would remind my hon. Friend that apart from the planning aspects of this, a justice's licence is required, and was in fact granted, despite objections, in June, 1963. The police did not object to the licence. At the time of the inquiry there were, I think, 71 prospective members of the club, of whom 53 owned boats on the river.

I appreciate that a number of people who will use this club may well not come from the immediate area, but I suggest to my hon. Friend that if one happens to have the good fortune to live on a strip of the river, one cannot expect to keep the exclusive enjoyment of the river—and it is the river that brings these people in their boats—to the immediate neighbourhood.

My hon. Friend said that I was wrong in saying that there was no support for this. I did not say in my Answer that the supporters were necessarily residents. I have not checked whether they were or not, but there were a number of people who took the opposite view to that taken by my hon. Friend and by his constituents.

As regards the inquiry, the Brentford and Chiswick Borough Council, on behalf of the Middlesex County Council, refused permission on the ground of lack of parking facilities and loss of amenity caused by the increased noise and traffic. The inspector, who, after all, inspected the site, heard the evidence, and saw the witnesses, came to the conclusion that a club was an appropriate use of the appeal premises, and thought that its effect on the parking situation and the amenities enjoyed by local residents was likely to be only slight and that the amenities enjoyed by the more seriously affected occupants of Nos. 74 and 78, Grove Park Road could be adequately protected by imposing conditions. My hon. Friend has had a copy of the decision letter, in which it is made clear that conditions will be imposed, that a side window will have to be blocked up, an impervious screen provided, and proper provision made for parking in the forecourt.

I do not think that I am giving away any secrets in saying that when the case came to me, before making my recommendation to my right hon. Friend I was doubtful whether one could really be sure that this club would not have a deleterious effect on parking conditions and that this really would be impossible to judge until the club had had a few years in operation. I accordingly suggested to my right hon. Friend that it would be right to put a time limit on this, for the precise reasons which my hon. Friend had put forward, to make it clear that if this turned out to be a damaging development from the point of view of amenities there would be an opportunity to review it.

That fact must produce a very much stronger incentive on the part of the proprietor to see that it does not create a nuisance, and there is the further safeguard that the justices' licence has to be renewed annually. There is an opportunity for my hon. Friend's constituents to resist the continuance of that licence if it should turn out that this club is either not contributing to the amenities or is producing so much traffic that the parking situation becomes seriously inconvenienced. I suggest to my hon. Friend that far from my right hon. Friend and myself ignoring the views of the residents, we were very anxious to ensure that if there should be difficulties there would be an opportunity for another decision to be taken in the light of the difficulties after the club had been in operation. I suggest that was the right thing to do and that it shows we paid very great regard to the representations made at the inquiry by the constituents of my hon. Friend.

I turn now to the second case which is the proposal of the Electricity Board for 130–140 Popes Lane, Ealing. The history of this is that the Southern Electricity Board has used this as a service depôt for Ealing, Acton, Brentford and Chiswick. Because of the increase in the demand for electricity in this area—I am sure my hon. Friend will not deny that a proper supply of electricity is as important to his constituents as any other—the Southern Electricity Board agreed to let the Central Electricity Generating Board build a transformer station with additional switchgear on part of this site. The building originally proposed would have been 71 feet high and planning permission was refused for that because the height was unacceptable in a residential area. This again underlines that the planning authority was very conscious of the need to subscribe to the interests of the local residents.

The building built eventually was only 43 feet high and, to hold the same amount of equipment, it covered a considerably larger area. As a result, not sufficient land was left for the depôt which was regarded by the Southern Electricity Board as essential for the service they could give to the people in the area covering the constituency of my hon. Friend and neighbouring, constituencies.

In this case, unlike the previous case, the application of the Electricity Board was supported by both the local authorities, that is, the Ealing Borough Council in whose area the site is, and by the Middlesex County Council as the local planning authority. It was referred to the Brentford and Chiswick Council because, as was described by my hon. Friend, this site is on the border between that borough and the Borough of Ealing.

At the inquiry the inspector concluded that although as my hon. Friend has said the proposal must inevitably detract in some ways from the amenities of the adjoining dwellings, physically the site formed an intrusion in the rectangular area otherwise entirely devoted to electricity purposes. The inspector felt that it was in the public interest that a depot of this kind should be centrally located and easily accessible to all parts of the district and he recommended that permission be granted.

As soon as this came up to Ministerial level we took the view that a decision involving the demolition of houses, or planning application involving the demolition of houses, could not be lightly taken in this day and age. Accordingly a further letter was sent after the inquiry—which is an unusual procedure—to the Electricity Board to make sure that it had really exhausted its search for an alternative site.

The reply came back with quite detailed comments on all the alternative sites suggested at the inquiry and discussion. It became quite clear that the Electricity Board had made a very careful search for an alternative site and had given very careful consideration to the possibility of splitting the depôt from the other services on this site. It also went on to say that it was part of the civil defence measures that the emergency headquarters for the district were set up in the basement of the switch house, that there were obvious advantages in having them next to the depôt and sub-station, and that it was intended to integrate the offices on the site. There were a number of other technical difficulties and to divorce the one from the other would involve very considerable public expenditure.

I think that the thing to emphasise is that the issues here were the effect on the housing needs and the effect on amenities of this development and the provision of a proper and efficient supply of electricity to the people in the area, including my hon. Friend's constituents. I would admit that this is a difficult problem particularly where the demolition of houses is involved. If it had not been for the demolition of houses, I do not think there would have been any real question that the needs of the Electricity Board in this case would probably have overridden the amenity objections in view of the fact that it was only an extension, and, according to the inspector, a logical extension, on the site already established.

Finally, I would remind my hon. Friend that under the planning Acts as they stand today no planning permission is required to demolish houses. Even if we had refused planning permission we could not have prevented the Electricity Board from demolishing the houses for some other purpose for which planning permission would not be required or could more easily be obtained. The only way that one can control the demolition of houses is by a building preservation order which is normally only used for houses of some architectural or historic merit.

I would conclude by emphasising to my hon. Friend that, of course, the fact that this planning application involved demolition of houses gave us very serious thought, and we would not even then have approved the application had we not been quite satisfied that in the public interest, the wider interest of the immediate amenity of those living very close, it was essential that the Electricity Board should efficiently be able to discharge its task of providing a satisfactory electricity service.

Therefore, I really must refuse my hon. Friend's suggestion that either of these planning decisions are good examples of the proper considerations having been flouted by my right hon. Friend in reaching his decision. I have looked at them again and again, and I remain more than ever convinced that these were the right decisions in the public interest, though not necessarily, of course, in the immediate interests of the people surrounding the area. This is something which I think we have to realise, that the main issue that faces us is to balance the public interest of a wider nature against the narrower public interest, and in these particular cases I am quite certain that we reached the right decision.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.