NEW POWERS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES. (Hansard, 9 April 1968)

§ Mr. Peter M. Jackson
I beg to move, Amendment No. 14, in page 6, line 22, after 'shall', insert: 'first seek the consent of the "National Parks and Countryside Commission and" '. All right hon. and hon. Members will recognise and freely acknowledge that country parks should meet the needs of the wider community. I should like to cite the example of Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire, which covers an area of 3,784 acres and has a high usage. The information that I have from the National Trust land agent is that during the Bank Holiday of Easter, 1964, 106,740 people visited Clumber Park. Obviously my assertion that people came from a large radius to visit this park would not be contested. No questions were asked of the people who visited the park, but it is estimated that the average range of persons travelling there was between 20 and 30 miles.
The fact that the larger country parks serve the needs of a region is widely recognised, but there is some fear that the powers to set up country parks should not be restricted to county district authorities. Therefore, in Standing Committee, I put down an Amendment to exclude county district and urban district authorities from exercising powers concerning the setting up of such parks. In reply to the Amendment my hon. Friend assured me that the degree of co-ordination which I and other hon. Members sought would be taken care of by the fact that country district and urban district authorities would require planning permission. In other words, the county authority would provide a degree of coordination.
My hon. Friend also said: The Commission themselves, of course, are again bound to rationalise and bring their influence to bear with the county council and with the planning authorities, and this is one of the reasons we have the Commission."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A; Tuesday, 28th November, 1967, c. 349.] My Amendment seeks to require that any planning authority, be it a county planning authority, the urban district or the rural district, will first seek the consent of the Countryside Commission 1273 before going ahead with introducing a country park. I understand that this will not overlap the machinery of the Countryside Commission. I am told on good authority that it is reckoned that there will be no more than a hundred country parks set up, and it is not unreasonable to expect the Countryside Commission to scrutinise that number of applications. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will accept the terms of my Amendment.

§ Mr. MacDermot
What my hon. Friend seeks will be realised under the Bill as it stands. An Amendment of this character is not needed. Before embarking on the substantial capital expenditure involved in providing a country park, local authorities are bound to seek grant aid. My hon. Friend will remember from the provisions of Clause 29 that the Commission will have a vital rôle to play in determining to whom grant shall be payable. The Minister will have to seek its advice and will not be able to disregard it without entering into consultations with it. The effect is that authorities proposing to provide country parks will get in touch with the Commission and discuss their proposals with it at the earliest stage, because they will not want to waste time, money and staff effort on projects which are not likely to obtain support. That is the way in which the co-ordinating rôle of which I spoke in Committee will be achieved in practice.
Apart from that, in the case about which I know my hon. Friend is concerned, which is the power of county district councils to set up country parks, under the provisions of Clause 5 they will need to obtain the consent of the county council of the area, which will be the local planning authority, before being able to establish a country park. In the rare event of such an authority wanting, to set up a country park and not requiring grant aid, it would not be right to insist on its obtaining the consent of the Commission. But, as I have said, that is an unlikely eventuality.

§ Mr. Peter M. Jackson
In view of the terms of my hon. and learned Friend's reply, to beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Mr. Channon
I beg to move Amendment No. 15, in page 6, line 34, column 2, at beginning insert 'Where planning permission is required'.
This deals with the position of rural district councils, about which we had some discussion in Committee. A number of hon. Members argued that it was unreasonable to have a provision in the Bill whereby councils of county districts should have to obtain the consent of the county council before they could exercise any powers in acquiring land for the purposes of a country park.
We had a long discussion, towards the end of which I proposed a compromise solution. It was indicated by the Minister of State that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, it would be necessary for a rural district council, in any case, to have planning permission for any such proposal, in which case there would be control in any event. I suggested that, where planning permission was required, consent should not be necessary under the Bill, but that on the rare occasions where there was no need for planning permission, the district council would have to obtain the county council's consent. During the debate the Minister of State said that there were 1,500 authorities which would bombard the Com mission with applications. I have checked the figures since then, and I do not think there is anything like that number. There are 58 county councils, 83 county boroughs, 259 non-county boroughs, 470 rural districts, and 524 urban districts. I think that the number of urban districts with sufficient countryside in which to provide country parks must be very small.
The Minister of State said at Newcastle last September that country parks were likely to be situated in the green belt areas outside conurbations to syphon off the pressure on favoured areas such as Box Hill. Of the rural districts, some will be unlikely to provide parks because they are too near to towns, or have no suitable places. Others will be in National Parks, and more than 100 are maritime anyway, so the need is unlikely to arise because of the availability of beaches. It is unlikely that 1,500 authorities will rush to provide parks. About 150 might consider it, and it seems unlikely that they would all wish to do so. at any rate within a short period of time.
1275 It is unlikely that the administrative machine will be choked by a glut of applications, and I wonder whether it is possible to adopt a compromise solution along the lines I suggested in Committee, and which is reported in column 374. This seems a commonsense solution to the strong case which the rural district councils put forward, but which the Government were not prepared to accept at that stage. Perhaps the Minister will consider the compromise solution then suggested, and which I have tried to incorporate in the Amendment. If he is able to do anything to help the rural district councils, and to meet the point they have raised, even in this small way, I am sure that it will be appreciated.

§ Mr. MacDermot
I do not feel that I can advise the House to accept the Amendment, because I think that the basis on which it has been put forward is misconceived. The effect of the Amendment would be to relieve a county district council of the need to obtain the consent of the county council, except where it required planning permission. I repeat that I think that in almost every case the council of a county district will need to obtain planning permission for a country park project, because it is likely that it will normally involve some development for which it will need such permission. However, there could be cases in which a county district could set up a park without planning permission, establish it, and then later seek planning permission for the development that it wants to do.
The real point is that the consent provision in Clause 5 is directed to matters other than planning permission. As has been made clear throughout, starting from our White Paper, our intention is that country parks should serve more than local needs. It is for this reason that we think the prime agency in their provision should be the county councils. We have not made an absolute bar, as some have suggested we should, on their creation by subordinate authorities, but we think there must be some form of general strategic oversight if confusion and delay are not to occur, and, above all, if wasteful over-provision is to be avoided.
1276 If we were to leave consultation and consent until the stage of planning permission, I think that we would be inviting the wasteful deployment of scarce resources, which we want to avoid, and schemes which may prove to be too parochial in concept, or which duplicate or overlap others which were designed to cater for the same catchment area. It is for this reason, to get proper coordination and planning of the provision of country parks over a wide area, that we think it right to provide for this consent by the county councils. This is not intended as a derogation of the district councils. We think it right to place the main responsibility on the larger authority. Provided they obtain this consent they will, of course, be empowered to set up country parks, and if they think that consent has been unreasonably withheld they have power under the Clause to appeal to the Minister.

§ Mr. Channon
I am sorry the Minister of State is not prepared to look at the Amendment I put forward because I did think it presented a compromise which might be acceptable to the House.
In view of his attitude, however, I do not think I wish to press the Amendment at this stage, and therefore I would ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

§ Mrs. White
I beg to move Amendment No. 16, in page 7, line 18, at end insert: