SITE, SALTDEAN (Hansard, 9 February 1965)

§ Mr. Dennis Hobden (Brighton, Kemp town)
Taking an Adjournment debate at this time has some drawbacks, but it is imperative that this subject should be discussed in view of its importance to the people of my constituency. It is a thorny problem which has been a feature in the constituency for many years and concerns an eight-acre site in the village of Saltdean, which is one of the suburbs of Brighton.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Would hon. Members be so courteous as to make less noise? They will, in their turn, if they are fortunate, require a reasonable degree of silence during an Adjournment debate.

§ Mr. Hobden
This eight-acre site in the centre of Saltdean was originally part of a site of 16.3 acres which showed in the development plan for Brighton as being for compulsory acquisition by the local authority for the use of the people of Saltdean as a public open space. The development plan in which this showed was approved by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government as far back as 20th June, 1958. In 1960 the council revised the development plan and decided to reduce the 16-acre site to eight acres. It was agreed that the residue should be used for housing. The amendment to the development plan was agreed by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government on 24th May, 1960.
On 29th January, 1962, the Saltdean Estate Company, which owns this site, sought a certificate of alternative development for residential purposes under Section 17 of the Land Compensation Act, 1961. May I quote from the relevant document: On 23rd February 1962, the Council issued a certificate to the effect that in their opinion planning permission could not reasonably have been expected to be granted for any development of the said land other than the development which is proposed to be carried out by the Council by whom all interests in the land are proposed to be acquired. The reasons for issuing a certificate otherwise than for the class or classes of development specified in the application were that, in the opinion of the Council as the local planning authority, 344 planning permission could not reasonably have been expected to be granted for any development of the land other than as open space available to the public as playing fields for organised games, since this is the most suitable land at Saltdean for such purposes which are necessary in the interests of the community at Saltdean. On 24th April, 1962, the Saltdean Estate Company appealed against that decision and a public inquiry, held on 31st October, 1962, by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, upheld the claim of the company against the Brighton Corporation and granted a certificate of alternative development with a density of not more than 12 dwellings to the acre. As a result of this, and as a result of the amendment to the Labour Government's Town and Country Planning Act, the price of this site over the years has risen from £7,500 in the immediate post-war period to £100,000; and I am advised that it may be as high as £120,000. This has come about directly as a result of the amendment to the Labour Government's Town and Country Planning Act which was passed in the immediate post-war period.
The local authority felt that, because of the cost of the site and the eventual cost to the ratepayers of Brighton, it could not possibly purchase the site. It therefore negotiated for an alternative site, much more cheaply, of course, further north of this area, but for the community of Saltdean it is thoroughly unsatisfactory because it is too far north. In addition, it is not really good planning. As a consequence, a tremendous number of protests have been made in the area and in the constituency.
This is one of the issues which arose during the General Election last October. The corporation, in view of all the protests, decided that it would try to reach a compromise with the Saltdean Estate Company to see if it could meet the wishes of the people of Kemptown and of Saltdean. The company submitted a plan to the local planning department, and this provided for the development of practically eight acres of the site with a density of about 10 dwellings to the acre. The compromise that has come forward from the estate company is no compromise whatever. It would merely give one-third of an acre as a public open space to the people of Saltdean. I am pleased to report that today, when the 345 application came before it, the Brighton planning committee rejected it out of hand.
When the question arose from the certificate of alternative development that the company should be allowed to develop the land, the Minister decided to hold a public inquiry in Brighton at which, he said, he intended to make a decision on the outcome himself. It is interesting to recall the conclusions of the Minister's inspector concerning the problem. Paragraph 95 of the inspector's report states in the conclusions that The planned provision for recreational open space to serve the local community is below accepted standards. The land in question is urgently needed as playing space and, indeed, there would appear to be a valid case for the provision of further land for this purpose. Paragraph 96 goes on to say that Aside from the financial aspect, therefore there would appear to be no justification for permitting the present application, even if it was certain that the alternative proposal could be implemented. The crux of the matter comes in paragraph 97, when the inspector states that The issue in this case therefore is whether diminished planning standards should be accepted because of the likely cost of acquisition of the land in question. We therefore reach the situation that whereas Brighton Corporation could have bought the land in the early post-war years for £7,500 under the Town and Country Planning Act passed by the Labour Government, following the amendment of that Act by a Conservative Government shortly after their return to power in 1951 the land has shot up in price to a figure which is now reckoned to be about £120,000. The Minister over-rode the inspector's report and gave permission for the site to be developed for residential purposes.
There has been a great outcry in my constituency and in this suburb of Brighton. Examination of the map of Brighton and the layout of the area reveals that this eight-acre site at Saltdean Vale is eminently suitable for use as public open space. The town was of this opinion when it included the land for this purpose in its development plan. The Brighton planning committee has rejected the application temporarily because it represents no compromise what- 346 ever, and we are in the urgent situation that something should be done about this at Parliamentary level.
To give the local authority credit, its hands are practically tied by planning legislation, and I hope that as a result of this debate my hon. Friend the Minister can hold out some hope for us in the area. I impress upon him that if he does, he will have earned the heartfelt gratitude of the people of Kemptown and of the suburb.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. James MacColl)
I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Hobden). I know the detailed and intimate knowledge that he has of this problem and the active part that he has played in local government in Brighton. I know that he speaks for a great burden of local opinion which is surprised and upset about the whole position.
There is only one small point of fact on which I should like to correct him, otherwise I think that he has stated the issues perfectly clearly and quite accurately. The position is that when the local authority originally intended to acquire this land as an open space, the then law provided that it could obtain it for what was little more than existing use value. Had the local authority used some of its other powers to acquire the land then, or if it had acquired it after the approval of the development plan in 1958, but before the coming into operation of the Act of 1959—but, of course, it had no reason to anticipate a change in the law—it could have acquired this land at very much less than the price it would have to pay if it felt able to acquire it now. It would have had the benefit of an open space, where it is generally agreed it should be sited, at very much less cost to the ratepayers.
As my hon. Friend pertinently pointed out, the rules were changed in the middle of this operation, resulting in what is to the layman an extraordinary complicated calculation. When a local authority acquires open space for recreational purposes, it does not acquire it at a price which compensates the owner of the land at the price he paid for it. Nor does the local authority compensate him at the 347 price at which it is going to use it, because in this case, being an open space, the value of the land as an open space is very small. It is done on the basis of one of those extraordinary exercises that is undertaken from time to time in cases of compensation and valuation.
Somebody has to do a sum and say, "It is true that the use which the owner is at present getting out of the land is so much. It is true that the value of the use to which it is going to be put for the public is so much", but to get the compensation we have to say, "If it were not going to be used for the purpose for which it is going to be used, what would be the use to which it was going to be put?".
That exercise results in an astronomic increase in value, and I do not think that any criticism rests, so far as I can see, either on the inspector who conducted the first inquiry, or in the decision which was taken by the Minister. I think that within the law as it then was this sum was calculated quite accurately. I do now know how much the increase was. I suppose that it was at least 10 times, if not more, that would have to be paid. I think that that was a correct sum, and a correct calculation within the law as is was passed in the 1959 Act.
Therefore, once that was decided, that did not stop the corporation from buying the land. I think that my hon. Friend made that clear. If the corporation had said, "We want this land so much that we are going on", it would have gone on, and it could have acquired it. But the corporation decided that at that price it could not afford to acquire the land, and so it withdrew from the proceedings altogether.
The next stage was that the owners of the land applied for planning permission to develop in the way that had been used for notionally calculating the amount of compensation. An inquiry was held, and my hon. Friend has, curiously enough, just read out the three paragraphs from the inspector's report that I had marked to read out, because I think they are about the most unusual and remarkable paragraphs one could find in such a report. I have read a good many inspectors' reports in the last few months, and this, I thought, was one of the most 348 forthright statements I had come across. It was, I thought, what any normal and sensible person would feel about the situation.
Nevertheless, my hon. Friend was wrong to say that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) disagreed with the inspector's report. My hon. Friend did not quote the last sentence of paragraph 97, which states: As this appears to be a matter of policy I propose to make no recommendation. I find it hard to say that the right hon. Gentleman was wrong, or very far wrong, in what he then did, because the dilemma was that, the Corporation having withdrawn from the operation and made it perfectly clear that it did not want to have this land at that price as an open space, if planning permission had been refused a number of things could possibly have happened. A purchase notice might have been served on the local authority. It is unlikely that the developers would have left the land undeveloped, so there would have been rather a deadlock. It would hardly be reasonable to expect the Minister, at that stage, in the light of the previous decision, to have taken another or a much different decision. I do not think that any Minister could have taken any other decision.
It was still open to the Corporation to buy the land, had it wanted to; it could have acquired the land under compulsory purchase powers, subject to getting the approval of the then Minister. It is a matter of argument and local consideration to say whether or not the local authority took the right decision. The Brighton Corporation is fairly wealthy, and I think that the cost of acquiring the land would have amounted to about ⅛id. rate, which would not have brought the authority crippled to its knees. But that was a matter for the corporation to decide, and I find it hard to point the finger at the right hon. Gentleman and say that he was wrong.
When my hon. Friend asks for help, I am in a certain amount of difficulty, because under the existing law there is very little that my right hon. Friend can do about it. In the first place, the initiative would have to come, I think, from the local authority. It is the authority's problem and the authority's open space, and my right hon. Friend has no duties 349 —or powers—to go round taking any other action about the matter. Therefore, within the existing law the remedy does not lie in his hands. If my hon. Friend thinks that there is any way in which my right hon. Friend can help, I am sure that my right hon. Friend would want to help.
If I were to go into changes in the law, Mr. Speaker, I would probably very soon get outside the limits of your tolerance. I therefore do not think that I can expound on that at all. I again say that my own feeling is that once we accept the law as Parliament decided it should be, the rest of this rather sad story follows like a tragedy; it is very difficult to stop the remorseless trend towards what is, I agree, a very deplorable result.
Everyone agrees that there should be an open space for the residents in this suburb. The inspector thought it the best site, and the expert witnesses at the inquiry thought that the site should be used as open space. It is not a question of taking from the owners something for 350 which they paid. The owners would not lose money; they would simply lose whatever profits they would have obtained.
The local community have had to be put off with the provision of an open space which they feel to be a poor second after the one which they wanted. I appreciate my hon. Friend's desire to raise the matter, and it is fitting that it has been raised so that the position could be made clear, but on behalf of my right hon. Friend and myself I can only say that while we understand his feelings, it is difficult on the existing law to see what more we could do at this stage. It is possible that some arrangement of compromise could be made between the corporation and the owners, and I am certain that my hon. Friend, with his intimate local knowledge and great vigour and enterprise as a local Member of Parliament, is the very person to secure that arrangement.