District Plans (Abolition) (Hansard, 19 May 1982)

§ Mr. Geoffrey Dickens (Huddersfield, West)

I beg to move That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prevent the preparation of district plans in advance of detailed consideration of planning applications and public inquiries. Immediately it becomes public knowledge that an area of land adjacent or close to one's home will or may be used for residential or industrial development, the disease of blight is contracted. It manifests itself in many ways. Those who have always been pleased to live on the edge of a green belt, and purchased their property for that very reason, are sickened by the knowledge that they will soon form part of an urban sprawl. When these residents contemplate moving home, they are advised that the proposed development has lowered the value of their property. As the standard conveyance searches reveal to the solicitors representing potential purchasers that nearby land will be the subject of development, purchasers drop out of the house sale rapidly. The urban market is a very different market from that of the green belt. Victims of blight then have to start their house sales all over again at lower prices.

Another symptom of blight is that published district plans are held up as the Holy Bible of local planning positively to refuse the development of many more suitable sites. History has shown that local government officers are not always right. Indeed, they prove often to be wrong.

I recognise that public participation, consultation and orderly planning is desirable, but there are great dangers. By focusing one's attention on new industrial sites, Iand provision for the expansion of existing companies is often neglected. Compensation for companies affected by this—another kind of blight—will have to be considered.

District plans can lead to massive corruption, because if, by such a prepared plan, "change of use" from green belt to residential or industrial land is influenced, a fortune is made overnight. The North-East of England produced an early structure plan, which was submitted in 1974, approved in 1977, and was doubtless under preparation a year or two in advance of publication in the early 1970s. Is it just coincidence that wide-scale corruption was revealed in the North-East over that period, leading to the downfall of hon. Members of this House, if only by association, and of North-East councillors, architects and civil servants? The Teesside plan was on the drawing board for seven years before it was approved, so there were seven years of blight in advance of approval and many areas in Cleveland are still unnecessarily blighted.

My Bill is restricted to the more local district plan, which follows the structure plan. Why should we allow the plunder of our green belt by local planning officers when they themselves spend most of their working lives refusing planning permission applications on the very ground that they are protecting the green belt policy?

My constituency of Huddersfield West, in West Yorkshire, is now reeling from the shock of the publication of a district plan, and petitions and public meetings are under way. Why are local planners allowed to sport with people's feelings in this way? Hon. Members will agree that probably the most important purchase that the majority of people make in their lifetime is that of the 369 houses in which they live. Huddersfield is now under the umbrella of the Kirklees metropolitan council which, like many local authorities, has miscalculated in the past and will doubtless do so again.

Councils with programmes of redevelopment which outstrip either available finance or political reality may find themselves owners of unoccupied property or land without the resources to develop. Some are continuing, even now, to purchase privately owned property without having the money to rehabilitate or demolish. The result is that properties lie empty, with their windows bricked or boarded up—a situation probably caused by two different departments, each not knowing what the other is up to; one purchasing the property and the other without the funds to repair or develop it.

Every planning application must be judged on its merits so that no home is blighted and every parcel of land is still worth consideration. My Bill provides for this.