HC Deb 10 July 1978 vol 953 cc1208-22

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

11.50 p.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley (Sheffield, Heeley)

I believe that one of the great Socialist achievements of the post-war Labour Government was the creation of the national parks. The Peak District national park is unique in two respects. First, it is like a nut in a nut cracker, the jaws of which are the great industrial conurbations of South Lancashire and South Yorkshire. Secondly, the Peak park planning board is both a national park authority and a planning authority. In this latter capacity it has recently produced a structure plan to determine developments for the future of the park into the 1990s, after meticulous consultation with interested bodies and the general public.

In this regard, I should like to quote a brief sentence from a recent Fabian pamphlet on national parks which records the view: On all counts the park that comes out by far the best is the Peak District…Its success in provision for the public and care for the land under its remit and in the initiatives it has taken and is taking in recreation is by any yardstick remarkable. The whole raison d'être of the national parks is to conserve and defend some part of our country from the kind of development that we are obliged to tolerate elsewhere as the price of an industrial society and to defend it also from the ravages caused by the indiscriminate pursuit of each and every form of recreation that ingenuity can devise and commerce profit from. The board endeavours to satisfy these two aims, but in no way ignores the reasonable demands for recreation, holiday caravans, homes, jobs and the national need for minerals.

The response of the Secretary of State to the board's recent proposals has alarmed and dismayed a great number of bodies and persons who are passionately concerned about the future of the park. These bodies include the Council for National Parks, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the National Trust, many private individuals and the National Farmers Union, which has made direct representations to me on this matter.

There are three main areas of serious concern: first, the extraction of minerals; secondly, the problems of recreation; thirdly, houses and jobs.

The question of mineral working is the crunch issue between the board and the Minister, and its eventual resolution will, in my view, determine just how far the Secretary of State is fully and truly committed to the concept of a national park.

The board forthrightly says: There will be a general presumption against new mineral workings or extensions of existing mineral working activities in the park. It then goes on to apply two clear firm tests for the determination of any future applications for mineral extraction. First, is it vital to the public interest? Secondly, is it clear beyond doubt that there are no practicable alternative sources of supply? Anyone who has seen the ghastly ravages of limestone quarrying already taking place in the park must endorse these two criteria.

The report of the national parks policy review committee—the Sandford report —itself emphasised that: a fundamental conflict exists between the purposes of national parks and large scale industrial development". It goes on to say: The presumption against development which would be out of accord with park purposes must be strong throughout the whole of the parks". The Secretary of State appears to reject both criteria on the grounds that: it would be impracticable to require applicants to prove that their proposals were vital in the public interest or that there were no practicable alternative sources of supply". of the mineral concerned.

I suggest that any competent geologist could give evidence on the second point and that it should not be such a very abstruse calculation to determine the economics of a particular application and the alternatives. As regards the public interest, the very creation and preservation of the national parks are themselves supremely acts in the public interest and ex hypothesi the onus should be placed on those who would tear it to pieces to prove that their proposals are no less vital to the public interest before being allowed to go ahead.

If the Secretary of State for the Environment is now going to throw all the weight and authority of his important office against the considered judgment of a unique national park planning board, which has a quarter of a century of experience in trying to cope with the vast economic power and vested interests of mining companies, the future outlook for national parks is bleak. The general presumption against, which is the planning board's policy, should stand.

However, with regard to minerals there are two particular problems. The board accepts the need for limestone working for chemical, steel, cement and some other industrial uses, but points out that these add up to only 47 per cent. of the rock extracted—chemical 22 per cent., steel, 10 per cent., cement and other uses, 15 per cent. The rest, more than half, is used as aggregate, especially for road building, and the board objects to this, proposing to limit planning permission to the need to supply industries requiring the unique properties of high purity limestone". The use of this valuable material for road building has been a national scandal for some time, especially as there are in the United Kingdom vast spoil heaps which could be made to yield up material for this purpose.

Various Government committees—the Stevens committee and the Verney committee—have looked into the question of sensible controlled mineral working and a national policy on aggregates supply. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State argues that it is not possible to regulate the end use of minerals by planning control. But he recently made a decision on mineral workings at Tunstead, near Buxton, which was entirely based on ICI's need for high purity limestone for use in the chemical industry. The need for aggregates was not upheld.

In these days, when conservation of raw materials, sources of supply, recycling and similar problems are coming more and more to the fore, the Secretary of State's curious abdication of effective planning control over mineral extraction is alarming, and the more robust approach of the planning board is much to be preferred.

The working of fluorspar is a more difficult problem than limestone, because 86 per cent. of United Kingdom deposits of this material are in the Peak park, and it is an important material for steel and aluminium production. It is also used in the petrol, chemical and ceramics industries.

However, a significant proportion of current fluorspar production from the Peak is exported overseas. The board argues with some cogency that the nation's interests might be better served by retaining known resources of this relatively rare mineral for future use rather than going for a short-term gain in export earnings, which have declined in each of the past three years, and amount to only about £1¼ million.

The Secretary of State seems to fall back on a vague phrase about proposals for working fluorspar being considered on their merits. He rejects suggested con- trols by the planning board to enforce the least damaging methods of operation. In my view, this would constitute a green light to the mining companies to go ahead with their plans and ignore environmental considerations.

I turn to the question of recreation. In any area designated as a national park there must of necessity arise some conflict between the almost infinite demands for recreation and the basic need to conserve the character of the park and its natural beauty. The planning board is not indifferent to the rising demand for recreation. The number of visitors over the past 10 years has trebled, to about 16 million each year, but the board takes the view that there must be some limits if the overriding duty to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of the park is to be discharged effectively.

The Secretary of State appears to think that recreational use should be pushed to the maximum compatible with natural beauty, and suggests that the scale of provision be increased to a level of use without significant detriment to its character and environment. These phrases would seem to me to imply that the demand for recreation takes priority over the principle of conservation of the park, and if this argument is accepted it would over a period of time undermine the whole purpose of the creation of the national parks.

The planning board makes a presumption against new sites for static caravans. The major objection to static caravans is that they constitute a permanent intrusion on the landscape even when not in use. Moreover, there is abundant scope for such sites outside the park but within easy access of it.

As regards touring caravans, the board wants firm control and discussions with surrounding local authorities to secure sites outside but within easy reach of the park. As the owner of a small touring caravan myself, I would be quite happy to use a site near, but outside, the park. By definition, people with touring caravans have cars to travel within the park if they wish.

The board stresses that the object of residential development, of new housing, will be to meet local need and safeguard the interests of local people, which seems sensible. The Secretary of State appears to be more concerned to cater for commuters, ignoring the problems which have already been created by the pressure of external demand on the housing stock in the park, to the detriment of local people. This is not a problem peculiar to the Peak park. People in parts of Wales have complained bitterly that cottages and bungalows have been bought up as country residences at prices way beyond the pockets of Welsh people who would have liked to buy them. Providing housing for the commuter may be a normal feature of life in the south-east. It is not an appropriate policy for a national park. I referred earlier to the Fabian pamphlet on the subject of the parks. This stresses that Local unemployment can only really be solved by the introduction of long-term smaller industries suited to the locality. The board for its part makes it explicit that it is not opposed to industrial development but wishes to ensure that it is on a form and scale appropriate to the needs of particular parts of the park to offset the decline in jobs offered by mineral working and agriculture.

The Secretary of State seems to me to delete the careful safeguards spelt out by the board and to substitute a dangerously loose phrase about employment opportunities that could be accommodated with significant detriment to the character of the locality. This could just be a matter of wording, but in that case I prefer the more precise phraseology of the board to the vaguer terms suggested by Whitehall.

The strength of the structure plan as drawn up by the planning board is that it seeks to build firm, strong defences against developments that, may be blatantly, may be insidiously, erode the character and beauty of the park For this reason, the board is against additional static caravans, against the maximum exploitation of the park for recreation, opposed to new mineral working, and concerned to keep very tight control on industrial and residential development. The Secretary of State appears to want no hard lines, vague criteria and everything considered on its merits. In my judgment, since we are dealing with so unique and irreplaceable an entity as the Peak District national park, a great national asset, the planning board's approach is right and the Secre tary of State's attitude, as evidenced so far in his comments on the plan, is dangerous and unsound.

12.2 a.m.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop (South Shields)

I want to stress my great anxiety about possible developments in the Peak District national park. Indeed, this anxiety is shown by my being here at all at this hour of the night.

I am concerned because it is clear from the representations that I have had that this is a matter that concerns the whole of the national park planning authorities. They are deeply concerned lest a change in attitude by the Government is taking place, surreptitiously almost, in this way, and many are saying that an attitude that they understood was being maintained by the Government is now being altered.

This is a matter that concerns many of us very deeply. The National Trust has made clear to me its anxiety, too. It believes that the proposals that come from the Minister have clouded rather than made clear the intentions of the Government. Indeed, many of us are particularly anxious lest we are now getting some change in the attitude of the Government towards the national parks. The overwhelming desire of most of us is to ensure that in these areas in particular we shall give priority to conservation, as the Sandford report recommended.

We fear that this very laudable desire and effort is being eroded, and we hope to hear from the Minister at least that that is not so. But we also want to take the opportunity that clearly is not available in the short time at our disposal tonight to press the matter further, because it does raise in our view some matters of very deep concern.

12.4 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Mr. Denis Howell)

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) for initiating this debate, and to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) for supporting him. It gives me the opportunity to correct some of the misunderstandings that have arisen as a result of misinformed press reports.

I can well understand and appreciate the concern of my hon. Friend and other Members of this House who have written to the Secretary of State on the same matter when I read, as I am sure they have done, in sections of the press that the Secretary of State has insisted that controls over mineral working and development should be relaxed, and that the park will be destroyed by major Government changes in its policies, and that the draft modifications proposed by the Secretary of State represent a complete reversal of the aims of the park to put preservation before recreation as defined when the park was originally designated.

This is so far from the truth as to be unrecognisable. We have had a massive public participation exercise which I am sure everybody would welcome. We had the structure plan submitted in August 1976 by the park board. We had the examination in public in February 1977 by a panel, appointed by the Secretary of State, of three most distinguished gentlemen. They reported in September 1977, and now the Secretary of State has published his modifications on 8th June 1978.

After the Secretary of State's publication, six weeks were allowed for objections. I want to announce to the House immediately that, following representations from the board, who thought that that period was perhaps inadequate for its purpose, I am prepared to give a four week extension. That will make 10 weeks in all in which people can object to the Secretary of State's proposals, up to 18th August. Only after that whole process will the Secretary of State take his decisions, and he will certainly take into consideration what my two hon. Friends have said this evening, and any other representations which are made to us.

During the examination, which extended over a period of two weeks, participants in the discussion of the different issues included representatives of a large number of bodies. I will give the list in order to show how extensive was the public participation exercise. The participants included the Countryside Commission, the Nature Conservancy Council, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, the Conservation Society, the Friends of the Earth, the Ramblers Association, the National Farmers Union, the Automobile Associa- tion, the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland, six county councils, nine district councils, mining and quarrying interests, local chambers of commerce, trades unions and trades councils, and many other bodies with an interest in the use of the land and the provision to be made for recreational activities in the park.

Having taken account of all that those bodies had to say, it is quite ridiculous to expect the Secretary of State for confirm a plan totally unamended in any form at all. That would be unreasonable. The published draft modifications to the Peak park structure plans do not, I repeat, represent any change in Government policy towards the Peak park, nor any weakening at all in the Government's support for the general aims and objectives of the Peak park joint planning board.

I want to quote our circular 4/76, paragraph 35, which we authorised—I spent a lot of time on it myself—some two years ago. It reads: The Secretaries of State share the view underlying the Committee's recommendations that these applications"— particularly in regard to minerals should be subject to the most rigorous examination because of the serious impact of mineral workings on the natural beauty of the parks". That remains our policy.

There is a great dilemma, of course, at any planning inquiry for minerals, and that is how to supply the inquiry with information about alternatives. The evaluation of mineral deposits is an extremely expensive process, added to which there is the very difficult technical point that, even when alternative supplies are located, a judgment has to be made about the feasibility of mining the mineral.

The conflict is particularly acute in the Peak park. Clearly, we wish if possible to keep the park free of intrusive or alien development, but we cannot preserve it completely intact, and the hard fact is that there are important minerals in the park.

The board recognised this and tried to strike a balance in its policies, but it is the way it did it that we have to consider. My hon. Friend has drawn atten- tion to some of the words used in the policies. The board proposes a general presumption against mineral working", and then proposes policies which imply that subject to certain criteria some mineral development will be allowed. If, therefore, the general presumption does not mean that it proposes to refuse all applications for mineral working, it must mean that it will apply tough criteria and permit development only if it is satisfied that those criteria are met.

Then there is the question of proof that proposals are vital in the public interest and that there is no alternative source. We do not see how this can be "proved", to use the terms of the board's submission.

The next point is that of regulating the end use of minerals. The plain fact is that the statutes simply do not enable a planning authority to say for what use a mineral shall be sold, any more than a factory's products can be controlled unless a change of use is involved.

Then there is the question of the board's wish to be satisfied that the least damaging methods of operation are to be used for fluorspar working. We do not disagree with this, and this brings me to the policy proposed by the Secretary of State which would, I believe, enable the board to satisfy itself on this matter —and that is the important, indeed, the critical factor. The planning board should be able to satisfy itself. That is what the policy of the Secretary of State seeks to provide. I will read it to the House: Proposals for mineral working will be subject to the most rigorous examination. The Board will consider each proposal on its merits in relation to the following criteria:

  1. (a) the national and local interest;
  2. (b) the availability of practical alternative sources of supply;
  3. (c) the extent to which the proposed development might be materially damaging to the environment or character of the Park;
  4. (d) the effect of the traffic likely to be generated by the proposals on the safety and the character of the Park."
I ask the House to note three aspects of our response. The first is that it echoes the words used by this Government in their 1976 response to the report of the Sandford committee. We are confirming in practice what we said two years ago. Secondly, it extends it. It adds the very important consideration of the effects of traffic to the others proposed by the board. The board had not proposed that. We are adding traffic considerations to these others. Thirdly, it will be for the board to decide how the criteria should be balanced and how it should exercise development control. I think that we all agree that at the end of the day it is a question of balance in most of these matters.

I turn now to the specific questions and say a word or two about them. If my hon. Friend wants more detailed answers, I shall be happy to write to him.

The first of them is housing. There is really little between us here. The difference between the number of new houses for which the draft modifications provide and the board's top target figures, after allowing for existing planning permission and the board's revised estimate of housing need in Bakewell, is about 40 houses, or a population of about 100 over the period up to 1991. That means 40 houses over a period of 15 years.

One important factor to bear in mind is that the submitted structure plan seeks to restrict permission for new housing development to applicants who can show that they live locally or have local connections. Not only is such a policy unacceptable in planning law, but it would be in conflict with the aims and objectives of the board in seeking to arrest the decline in the population of the park area and to maintain the settlements in the remote areas of the park as viable communities. The average age of the population of the park is already very high, and it is increasing as the years go by. The only hope for renewal lies in an inward movement of younger people, albeit on a limited scale. The draft modifications to the provision for residential development are intended to allow for this.

The next issue is that of jobs. We understand what the board is trying to achieve, and we are seeking to support it. But this cannot be done just by endorsing the language of the board's structure plan. It has said, for example: The Board will consider sympathetically, and in some instances may encourage development providing employment opportunities suitable for farms, farmers and their families. That simply will not do when judging a planning application. It is not possible to single out farmers and their wives.

We believe, therefore, that the draft modifications will better serve the board's purpose. I quote them: The Board will consider favourably any proposals for industrial development which would be accommodated within the Park without significant detriment to the character of the locality and without creating problems of excess traffic or unacceptable nuisance or disturbance. I turn now to the question of recreation. This is again a matter of balance. It is wrong to suggest that we do not accept that where the duty to promote the public enjoyment of the park cannot be reconciled with the duty to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of the area, the latter should prevail. This is a vital principle and should be adhered to at all times. It was recognised by the joint planning board, that given the increase in leisure time which can be expected in the future as a result of a shorter working week and improved holidays, the use of the national parks for recreational activities is bound to continue to grow.

As the published statement of reasons indicates, the draft modifications to the recreational policies of the structure plan are intended to enable the board to make land use provision for the increase in the use of the park for recreational purposes, which the joint planning board expects to take place, within the framework of policies calculated to ensure that the scale and form of this provision can be accommodated without endangering the conservation of the natural beauty and the character of the environment of the park.

I come now to caravaning and camping. We really must be realistic. There has been an enormous growth in camping and caravaning. This growth is still continuing at a rate of 10 per cent. per year. The plain fact is that if these activities are not reasonably provided for in places which the park board thinks to be appropriate people will solve their own problems in a way which is more detrimental to the park. That is the sensible policy which the Secretary of State is seeking to sustain.

On the subject of holiday caravans, the proposed policies of the submitted structure plan relating to seasonal caravan sites would mean the removal of most, if not all, of such accommodation from the park. This is not on. The Sandford committee recognised that seasonal holiday caravans provide relatively inexpensive holidays for many people who might otherwise be unable to enjoy the national parks.

Circular 4/76 stated our conclusion that the concentration of caravan and camping sites outside the periphery of a national park would, in general, be undesirable as it would only create more planning problems outside the park than it would solve within it and it would not meet the requirements of many of the visitors to the park. It would lead to a greater volume of traffic on the roads of the park and into the park. In short it would be unworkable.

We have received a number of representations from individuals and organisations which support this general policy line. We have to cater for this growth, and have tried to do so. We want the sites to be in sensible places agreed by the board, protecting all the main environmental priorities which the board seeks to support and sustain. It is not our job to keep people out of a national park nor do I think that we should seek to give that impression. We have a duty, as has the board, to provide for the public enjoyment of national parks.

I conclude by saying that we recognise that the Peak park is a splendid achievement, that the work carried out by the board in managing the different activities taking place in the park is continually worthy of praise and is a great national asset both to the residents of the park and the many millions of people who visit the area each year. It is our expectation that, armed with an approved structure plan and with its own national park plan, the board will be able to control and manage the different uses of land and the varying activities for which the park provides such admirable facilities and to continue to preserve and enhance the natural beauty and character of the park as an amenity for many generations to come.

That is the policy of the Government and those are the criteria upon which we base it. It is against that background that we ask to be judged. If there are difficulties at any time we shall be pleased to receive deputations in an attempt to obtain maximum agreement, because, as I hope I have proved to the House, we are absolutely united in principle, with little between us in practice.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Twelve o'clock.