§ 33. Mr. Kenneth Clarkeasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will ask the Nottingham City Council to cease all work of preparing the proposed refuse tip on the Broxtowe Colliery site near Nuthall in Nottinghamshire until the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration has completed 1332 his inquiries into the circumstances in which his Department failed to intervene in the granting of planning permission for this tip.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine)My right hon. Friend does not wish to intervene in planning decisions of purely local significance, which are properly the responsibility of local planning authorities. The city council's decision in this case accorded with the approved development plan, and my right hon. Friend did not consider that the planning issues required his intervention. It would be equally inappropriate for him to intervene now in the way suggested by my hon. Friend.
§ Mr. ClarkeWhile thanking my lion. Friend for that reply and appreciating his difficulties, may I ask him whether he does not consider it disgraceful that this authority is this week beginning to tip refuse on the site at a time when the Parliamentary Commissioner is investigating allegations against his Department to the effect that public objections to this proposed site were not given a proper airing and that there was no public inquiry which his Department could have ordered? As his Department is under investigation in this way, cannot the hon. Gentleman at least request the local authority to stop facing the Parliamentary Commissioner and everyone else with a fait accompli, which it is clearly anxious to do?
§ Mr. HeseltineMy hon. Friend will appreciate that this is essentially a matter for the responsible local authority. I remind him that the use to which this land is being put was confirmed within the development plan.