HC Deb 06 December 1972 vol 847 cc1576-86

5.51 a.m.

Mr. James Allason (Hemel Hempstead)

I wish to raise the matter of the grant of a planning appeal by the Secretary of State for the Environment for 22 acres of land at Grange Farm. Bovingdon, in my constituency. The decision has not only horrified my constituents but is an attack on the green belt of Hertfordshire, which could collapse if the decision is taken as a precendent.

Bovingdon is a pleasant village on the ridge of the Chilterns with a still-rural character, although it has grown to a population of 3,000. There has been a great deal of ribbon development on the roads and lanes, but the essential charm of the village, with its village green, has not been lost. It comprises a conservation area. A feature of the village is a disused R.A.F. aerodrome built during the last war. It has hangars which provide valuable and extensive storage space for the Department of the Environment.

Surrounding it is lovely countryside, where it is difficult to imagine that one is only 25 miles from Charing Cross. Only a few miles away is the large new town of Hemel Hemstead and its presence makes the maintenance of the green belt round Bovingdon doubly important. It lies in an extension of the green belt and the countryside is therefore treated as green belt. It has hitherto been known as a listed village, but in "Hertfordshire 1981", the statement of planning ideals and objectives, it is described as an amenity village.

The policy of residential development in the rural areas is said in this document to be: The main aim of the County Council in the rural areas is to retain and protect the rural character of Hertfordshire". It goes on: A perimeter limit is defined closely encircling the existing limits of towns and major settlements excluded from the Belt. Elsewhere, and including the smaller setlements not so defined, new building will be permitted only in the most exceptional circumstances unless required for agriculture or a purpose related directly to the needs of the rural communities. Under "County Rural Policy" it says: In these rural areas, the County Council has accepted the principle that settlements should not be allowed to grow by the allocation of additional land for development at each Review of the Development Plan. In order to maintain the present character of towns, villages and countryside and retain the rural background of Hertfordshire, the County Council intend to continue the policy of concentrating new population in the towns and not allowing villages to expand". Coming to "Intermediate Villages" which is what Bovingdon is, the report says: For these villages, the County Council intend to continue the policy of accepting the principle of development on the listed ' sites defined in the submitted Written Statement to the First Review and on other acceptable infilling sites within the core of the village. The population growth aimed at in the document for the period between 1971 and 1981 is 600. The county thinks that that could be managed on nine acres of two disused RAF domestic sites, 8.5 acres available within the village, and 55 acres on the airfield, replacing the hangars. However, in September 1971 the Home Office decided that it wanted the 55-acre airfield hangar site for a prison. A public inquiry was held in April and May this year, two months before the public inquiry on the 22-acre site at Grange Farm. The inspector found in favour of the prison, and the Secretary of State confirmed his recommendation. The inspector recommended that in the lay-out the Chesham road should be cleared of the existing airfield huts and that the entrance into the village from the south should be clear on either side.

The Grange Farm site, which we are discussing, lies just on the other side of the Chesham road from the airfield, bound on the north by the core of the village and to the east by ribbon development. It is 22 acres of pasture land.

The inspector, naturally unaware of the future result of the airfield appeal, described it as surrounded to some extent on three sides by existing development. Hence, he deduced that housing on it would not represent intrusion into open countryside. It was submitted at the inquiry for the appellant that there were only 8½ acres of land available for housing in the village, and that therefore more land must be provided to meet the county's plan for a 600 population expansion. The inspector commented in his summing up that While the demand for more housing land may justify the release of some of the appeal site against a background of a positive approach to the present housing shortage in the Outer Metropolitan Area, I consider it would be wrong to release any part of the site for housing purposes until a decision has been reached on the use of the land (about 50 acres), at present part of the disused Bovingdon airfield which adjoins the north-western part of the village, and the nine acres of Government-owned land in Middle Lane and Long Lane. Evidently he thought that if the airfield site went for housing the appeal site should not be developed.

But surely the county allotted a 600 population increase to Bovingdon only because of the airfield site? It is entirely against the policy of the county for expansion to take place in green belt villages, save where there is already space.

When the appeal came before the Minister the prison proposal had already been approved. If the Minister had looked at the prison decision and related it to the appeal site, he would have found that the site would no longer be surrounded on three sides by development. Consequently, the building on the site will be an undoubted intrusion into open countryside. He would also have found that while 55 acres planned by the county for residential development were no longer available, the future population of the village had risen by between 600 and 1,000, of whom 500 would be prisoners. In those circumstances, how can it possibly be sensible to grant planning permission on the Grange Farm site?

I have not so far commented on the prison decision. It is a bitter blow to the village, who agree with the county council's planning statement that development in the village should be severely restricted. The Grange Farm planning decisions means that the village will be absolutely swamped with new development, and the residents can only feel that the Minister cares nothing for the protection of the village or the green belt, or for the county's planning policy.

In the light of the prison decision, the Grange Farm decision can only be interpreted as a direct attack on the whole green belt principle. I realise that my right hon. Friend is under great pressure, not least from me personally, to release more land for building, but I urge him never to take genuine green belt land, such as Grange Farm. There are acres of land within the green belt which add nothing to its greenery or its enjoyment.

I must frankly say that I believe a most terrible mistake has been made. The inspector could never have been in any doubt that Grange Farm was clearly green belt land and that it was totally against the county's policy to grant planning permission. Then when it came to the Department, I believe that there was no attempt to relate the prison and Grange Farm inquiries.

The result is a tragedy for Bovingdon, and I ask my right hon. Friend to put things right. He should revoke the approval on the Grange Farm site. If he cannot do that, he should revoke the approval on the prison which could go instead to an equally suitable site in Hertfordshire, and leave the airfield site undeveloped. Will he please make it clear that the unhappy Grange Farm decision must not be taken as a precedent for nibbling away the green belt?

6.2 a.m.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page)

The rise in house prices"—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu)

Order. Does the Minister have the permission of the House to speak again?

Mr. Page

I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that I may have the leave of the House to reply to the debate. The rise in house prices has gone much too far and urgent action is needed. In a free society, if insufficient land is currently available more should be provided through the planning process, to compensate for those who do not, for whatever reason, wish their land to be developed. There should be a real determination in local planning authorities to find and to release additional land for buildings now. There is an acute shortage in the supply of land for residential development in the South-East. Those are not my words. That is a quotation from a recent publication by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) and two of his colleagues, entitled "Need House Prices Rise". This is one of the most acute and socially dangerous problems of our times, the price of a home, the part which land plays in that price and the part that scarcity plays in the cost of that land, and so when a planning appeal comes to the Secretary of State against the refusal by a local planning authority of permission to erect 600 houses that is an appeal of considerable significance.

When permission is sought to build 600 houses in the South East in one of the Home Counties, under circumstances where early development can be expected, in a region where the pressure for new houses is literally terrific, in the face of the daily clamour by the national Press, by the provincial Press, by the commercial and professional Press and, indeed, in this House, the Secretary of State must ask penetratingly why the permission was refused.

Fortunately, in this case we have the inspector who penetratingly investigated that question and who provides in his report the evidence taken before him during the appeal, a statement of his finding and a statement of his conclusion and recommendation to the Secretary of State.

Of course the Secretary of State is in no way bound to accept the recommendation of his inspector; the responsibility for a decision remains with the Secretary of State, and there are some occasions when he has to find against the recommendation. At the same time, in coming to his decision whether to accept the inspector's recommendation, he must abide by the evidence given at the inquiry. If he paid heed to other facts, he would have to reopen the inquiry for otherwise his decision might be upset in the High Court. That is one side of the picture.

But however important nationally it may be as a matter of policy to make land available, there are restraints, again as a matter of policy. One of those restraints is the green belt policy. I will again use the words of my hon. Friend in his recent publication: People tend to want houses in the green belt and in pleasant semi-rural villages adjacent to employment areas. We could perhaps recommend a regular review with a principal objective of securing a genuine green belt round each of the conurbations and most significant towns at an early opportunity and an open mind about releasing the grey areas for development. That is similar in concept to the policy which we described in a Government statement of May 1971, when provisional green belt protection was given to the whole of Hertfordshire. There are already 83,000 acres of approved Green Belt in Hertfordshire. In its review the county council had proposed a permanent extension of the Green Belt to take in a further 177,000 acres. The Secretary of State at that time went further and announced that special green belt protection would be given on an interim basis to the whole of Hertfordshire not already allocated for development pending a final decision on the extension to the approved metropolitan green belt. It was pointed out that this was the most important modification to the first review of a county development plan which has received formal confirmation. I was reading from the Press notice which went out at the time, the notice which the public will have seen. It continues: The permanent extension of the approved Green Belt awaits the outcome of the examination of current regional strategies as proposed in the South-East Joint Planning Study. The review, which was the subject of two public inquiries, allocates for development sufficient land to cater for the estimated population up to the end of 1973. In the case of some of the proposals in the review, the pressing need for more housing land in the Outer Metropolitan Area has had to be balanced against amenity considerations. Prior to May 1971 Bovingdon was not in either the proposed green belt or the approved green belt. The fields which are the subject of the appeal to which my hon. Friend has referred were on white land, that is to say, not protected against development but prima facie to continue in the same use as pasture land. By the 1971 decision on the review of the Hertfordshire county development plan those fields received interim protection. So the land in question is not approved green belt.

But I do not complain about my hon. Friend describing this, even in his local newspaper, as green belt. However, I do complain when he says that this planning decision was an embarrassing blunder which may involve the Government in a £1 million scandal. Of course it was not a blunder, and it will not involve the Government in a £1 million scandal. The implication here is that the inquiry and the inspector's report were not properly considered. Indeed, in his statement in his local newspaper, my hon. Friend went on to say that I—he was referring to me—was misled by my advisers and made an error of judgment about development surrounding the land. I must refute that entirely; also what is contained later in the article, where he says that I was under an impression that there was development on three sides of the appeal site. For that is exactly the information given by the inspector.

Again I return to the point that the Secretary of State must take the evidence of his inspector. At that time the fields were surrounded to some extent on three sides by existing development. Those were the words of the inspector at the time.

Mr. Allason

The difficulty is that they had ceased to be surrounded on three sides by development in the light of the decision which had been taken, possibly not by my right hon. Friend but within the Department, the present decision which removed then one of the three sides allegedly built up.

Mr. Page

The position was that outline planning permission had been given for the prison and a number of houses on the basis of a plan put before the inspector at that time showing buildings at the other end of the airfield. At the time of the inquiry there were buildings, and I presume there are still buildings. The important point here is that this field, on which permission has now been given for development, is alongside the development of Bovingdon village, or small town—whichever one chooses to call it. It is an extension of that densely built up area, of that boundary of Bovingdon. On the other one side there is also an area which is built up.

I do not know whether one calls Bovingdon a large village or a small town. The population is about 3,500 at present. It lies between the outer boundary of the approved metropolitan green belt in an area extending to the county boundary, which for the time being is treated as if it were within the green belt. A final decision on the precise area to be added to the green belt will be taken when the structure plan is prepared for this part of the county. In the meantime, we apply green belt protection to this area.

The total area with which we were concerned in this appeal was some 50 acres of land at the south-western end of the built-up area of the village, and planning application for housing was made for that in September 1971 by the prospective purchasers of the land. They were refused planning permission by Hemel Hempstead Rural District Council. They then appealed and a local inquiry was held in June of this year.

There were two appeals, one relating to the entire 50 acres, which would have accomodated 600 houses, and the other relating to a lesser area, 22½, acres, forming part of the 50 acres, but on that 22½ acres 200 houses could be built. The larger area can be disposed of quite quickly. The inspector who held the local inquiry described the proposal in these words: The proposed development, by virtue of its size, would represent a marked intrusion of urban housing into a pleasant area of open countryside which contributes effectively to the purposes of the proposed green belt because of its openness, contour, and the park-land effect it provides on the western approach to the village. The inspector considered the proposal to develop the land against the background of the need for a positive approach to releasing more land for housing but concluded that the balance of advantage lay in keeping that area open. This view was accepted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and the appeal was dismissed.

So the interim protection of the green belt won the day on that appeal in respect of the wider area against 600 houses being built there and, in the event, on the second part of the appeal, which was allowed, it cut down the developers' plans from 600 houses to 200. The smaller of the two sites—a site within a site—was said by the inspector to be surrounded to some extent on three sides by existing development". The important point is not so much the fact that it was surrounded but the extension of the built-up area of Bovingdon. Unlike the larger site, the inspector thought that building houses on the smaller site would not be an incursion of development into open country". His conclusion on balance was that the current demand for more housing land might justify releasing some part of the site, although this should not happen until the future of other sites capable of development in the village had been settled. Those other sites included the 50 acres at Bovingdon airfield then under consideration for use as a prison, with some staff housing.

The two important issues in the appeals were the application of green belt policy to the area, and the need to make immediate releases of housing land for development. When proposals are made for developing land to which green belt protection is given on an interim basis, the possibility always must be considered that an urgent need has arisen for the land which in the public interest cannot be left to be dealt with in the long-term planning of the area. The need to release at once more housing land in this part of the country is obvious to everyone. What had to be decided in dealing with the appeal was whether this need outweighed the green belt and other arguments put forward in evidence against the development of the land.

The inspector did not recommend in principle against development of the site but simply argued that the future of other sites in the village should he settled before any part of the land was released for housing. In considering planning appeals, the Secretary of State must decide whether the inspector has given the appropriate weight to the various issues before him. On the present occasion the Secretary of State could not agree with the inspector that the use of the appeal land should be dependent on the future of other sites in the village. If housing development could be contemplated on the site—and the inspector had said that it could—the current need for housing land cried out for its immediate release and not for delay for an indefinite period.

The future of the airfield site had been decided by the time the appeal decision was issued but the question of the two other sites to which the inspector referred was still undecided. The Green belt and local amenity issues were, nevertheless, serious obstacles to development and their strength was not underestimated. However, weighed against the need to find land on which to build homes, they were judged not to be strong enough to tip the scales against the appeal, and so it was allowed.

Consideration of what might happen to other neighbouring land would not have been a proper reason for delaying development of this land. In fact, as events turned out, if one had thought that it was a proper reason, the granting of permission on this land for development of 200 houses was justified, because 50 acres of Bovingdon airfield which might have been used for that housing is to be used for a prison with only a few staff houses on it.

I must emphasise that this was a decision taken in relation to a particular site. It does not follow that a precedent has been set which will be followed blindly. That is not the way in which appeals are dealt with. Each case is decided entirely on its merits and in the light of its own circumstances. There need be no fear that approval will automatically be forthcoming on other appeals which are superficially similar to the Bovingdon one.

I return to the Government's housing land and green belt policies, which were major considerations in deciding the two appeals. The Government's commitment to make more land available for housing, especially in the land pressure areas, in the South East and West Midlands, is, I am sure, well known by now. My hon. Friend will not need reminding of the details of the Government's drive: the issue of Circular 102/72, the £80 million allocation of loan money to enable land to be assembled for private development, the loan availability returns called for from local authorities, and further releases of land in the new towns. Government Departments and nationalised industries have also been involved.

But I must quote another paragraph of the Department's housing circular on housing land because it puts the other side of the picture. The circular states: Further releases must, however, be made with due regard to environmental considerations. The Government attach great importance to their policies of protecting the countryside from sporadic development, and safeguarding areas of natural beauty, areas of high landscape value, green belts and conservation areas. Those are not empty words. At the end of September the then Secretary of State for Environment announced that he was approving a major addition in Buckinghamshire to London's green belt, and that he would be safeguarding proposed green belt areas in Kent. At the end of October he announced proposals which would lead to the confirmation of 540 square miles of green belt in the West Midlands, and interim protection of a further 200 square miles.

These are not the actions of a Government who are preparing to abandon their environmental policies. It was green belt considerations that tipped the scales against the larger of the two appeals, and housing needs together with a more enclosed site that led to the smaller appeal being allowed.