§ Dr. Keith Hampson (Leeds, North-West)I welcome the opportunity to draw my hon. Friend the Minister's attention to issues in my constituency, notably those triggered by the proposal by the John Lewis Partnership for a large department store and Waitrose supermarket on the university halls of residence playing fields at Bodington.
Local councillors and action groups have for some time wanted me to raise the matter at the highest level that I could. Councillor Keith Loudon said:
This proposal to put a department store on Bodington field is opposed by virtually the whole community, from university students, who see their sporting facilities moved to an almost inaccessible location, to the elderly in Holt Park, who see their supermarket within walking distance threatened with closure, to users of the A660 and the ring road, who fear the traffic congestion.That is the view of the councillor for the area.The councillor in the adjoining seat, Ann Castle, said that a public meeting at St. Chad's showed the public dissatisfaction with the council about the future of Bodington. She drew attention to the fact that Leeds city council tried to
railroad planning permission through when it had an alleged interest but rejected permission when it does not.That she, understandably, regarded as "breathtaking duplicity".The leader of the Conservative group, Andrew Carter, summed up the underlying issue when he said that there was
a grave question mark hanging over the council's ability to neutrally administer planning applications".I am not sure whether that is the right English, but the proposal has certainly triggered important broader issues.The proposal has highlighted the unsatisfactory nature of the unitary development plan, or UDP, system. That process is going on now and has been for ever and a day. It has highlighted the double standards of the Labour group that controls Leeds in handling planning applications. Moreover—this is germane to my hon. Friend the Minister—what may happen in my constituency is in blatant disregard of the Government's planning guidelines.
The university vice-chancellor has stressed to me—this is the university's land and he clearly needs substantial development money—that there is no deal. He said:
There is absolutely no question of the city council receiving any money from the proposed sale of our Lawnswood land to John Lewis.I do not for one moment challenge that, but it does not address the real issue, which is that Leeds city council tried to enter a deal and wanted money from it. It wanted half the net profit that the university would have got from the sale of land. The vice-chancellor says that that deal was at a much earlier stage, but it was as late as 1993.I have a copy of the co-operative agreement that was drawn up and of the commentary on it by the chief development officer. In his commentary, dated 31 March 1993, he outlines the scale of the pay-off. It would have provided the city with £1.5 million if the net offer had been low as £3 million—that is 50 per cent. If the offer had been more than £12 million, it would have got 968 £4.5 million. It is hard to understand how, as the city council has such an interest in the site—even though it did not ultimately sign the deal—it can be objective and neutral. In fact, it backed off as soon as Tory councillors found out about it. They blew the whistle on this hole-in-the-corner deal and it was never signed.
Paragraph 2.4 of the chief development officer's document says that, in return for the money,
the council would accept specific limitations on the use of its own site"—the Lawnswood school site, on the other side of the ring road and—not submit a competing retail planning application; nor will it as landowner object to a superstore application on the university site.That is trying to create a Chinese wall, which is not how the Labour caucus works in Leeds. The vice-chancellor emphasised that he had been talking to the councilin its capacity as a landowner rather than as a planning authority.That is to regard the city council as a two-headed monster. It is a monster, but to believe that its planning decision will not be influenced by the fact that it is trying to get £4.5 million out of the site is perverse.The essence of my argument is that people perceive the decision as having been influenced. However good the scheme is—I met the John Lewis Partnership people so that I could know exactly what was being proposed, and in many ways, it is a sensitively designed scheme—if people believe that the city council has different standards for gauging different planning applications, the planning process is brought into discredit.
Nobody in my patch believes that the council can be objective or impartial about that development—or any development on the site. It is determined to develop it. If, as the council admitted in the 1993 document, it was not prepared to propose an alternative scheme or to object to an application for a superstore, the clear implication is that it was prepared to agree to such an application. As a result, local newspapers have carried headlines about the £4 million deal uproar. The widespread opposition triggered this debate.
In considering more closely how the city council handles its planning applications, I draw attention to another example on the edge of my constituency. The Government rightly set up the urban development corporation for the central part of Leeds and especially for the Kirkstall valley, where Headingley rugby football club needed to sell its playing fields to merge with Roundhay, to produce a more viable and effective Leeds rugby club. Over many years, its proposals for developing the site were objected to by the city council and by Labour councillors.
The UDC took a more sympathetic view and planning permission was given to Morrisons. Since then, the city council and the Labour group have not accepted the procedures, and fought tooth and claw on every conceivable ground to delay the scheme. It is still being delayed by High Court actions. Another case is due in a fortnight or so. It is challenging part of the scheme involving land belonging to a charity, the Leeds Schools Sports Association, which desperately needs money. Its small playing field, which is attached to the main site, should be part of the scheme. Writs have been issued against the charity commissioners. Anything that can be challenged, such as this, or highways approvals— 969 a 278 highways agreement—is being challenged to delay the development. Yet within a mile of that site, on the site of the old Burton clothes factory—the Cardigan fields site—the city council raised no objections to an even bigger development than the Morrisons development on the Headingley rugby ground. I think that the reason for that is obvious: in the case of Cardigan fields, the council hoped to gain about £1.5 million.
Squeezed between the different approaches that could be described as double standards is a valuable charitable body, which does much good work in helping inner-city Leeds children to develop their sporting capabilities. Because of delays, the Leeds Schools Sports Association has already lost £500,000, and, if the project does not go ahead, it is likely to lose £1 million. Labour is very good at bleating about its capacity for care, concern and compassion, and its interest in the redevelopment of inner cities; but when it comes to the test, the party acts very differently.
Rumour is rife in the city, and the council's integrity in regard to planning matters has been damaged. Indeed, it is being said that planning approval is more probable if the council is likely to make money out of it. Will my hon. Friend the Minister give an indication—I doubt that he can do more—that, if and when the John Lewis Partnership makes a planning application for the Bodington fields site, he will be minded to call it in and take the decision out of the council's hands? I know that the matter is not of great regional significance, but it is very important to the city of Leeds. Given public opinion, I do not think that the council will be able to convince people that its view is impartial and neutral.
Let me deal with the broader issue. The unitary development plan may be a dream for planners and lawyers, but for the rest of us it is a nightmare. It is imposing huge costs and anxieties on individuals, parish councils and anyone who challenges proposals; it is a process that is going on and on. The inspector is assiduous; everyone speaks favourably of the way in which he is handling the matter, and everyone is allowed a say. This, however, must be the biggest single plan for a city in the history of planning. My hon. Friend the Minister may be able to confirm that no structure plan has been opposed by so many people, on the basis of so many features.
There is now a planning hiatus, and a serious risk of prolonged planning blight. Part of the reason for that relates to the council's UDP procedures. Is Leeds behaving in a way that is out of the ordinary, and should it have acted more expeditiously? Perhaps my hon. Friend can clarify that. Nothing can be decided in any part of the city until every aspect of the plan has been decided. When will the protracted agony end, and when will my constituents know what will happen to Bodington fields? I fear that we shall know nothing until well into 1998, and the problem will not be over: my constituents will have to deal with the same arguments again when John Lewis submits a formal planning application.
The John Lewis plan is very detailed. It shows all the greenery, raised areas for screening purposes, buildings and so forth. Why is a UDP inspector being given such a detailed plan? I have always understood that structural plans are about broad general use.
Let me be more specific. If the plan is approved on the basis of all that remorseless detail—traffic flow information, for instance—what will happen if 970 John Lewis pulls out, or wants to change its plans? Will the inspector be able to tie down the development so that it remains as he approves it? Alternatively, will John Lewis—or someone else—be able to submit yet another plan which, because the site was approved in the UDP for retail development, could produce a quite different planning application? Given that none of us trusts the city council to do other than pass a retail application for the site, my constituents might then be landed not with a relatively sensitively designed scheme but with something appalling, as happened in 1986.
In 1986, when the university and the developers submitted a scheme, the city council was on the residents' side, and opposed it. There has been a remarkable U-turn. In its appeal, the council then said:
There is…a clear and unavoidable conclusion that the development of the appeal proposals would seriously threaten the attempts of the City Council to maintain and enhance its city, town and district centres … Such development would undoubtedly conflict with the strong and unequal guidance from Central Government which seeks to prevent development which would undermine the vitality and viability of existing centres.The council also attacked the traffic impact. One of the key factors in the dismissal of the appeal was the impact on traffic patterns. I cannot envisage a lessening of that problem in 10 years. Although a new road across the site, linking the ring road and Otley road, will ease the pressure on the roundabout, the traffic-light junction is likely to cause more congestion on the ring road. There is a lot of wishful thinking about the park-and-ride facilities: it is hoped that they will stop people from driving into the city centre. It is said that the Harvey Nichols store will act as a city-centre magnet, encouraging people to go into the centre. On the other hand, they will supposedly be attracted to the John Lewis store outside the centre; is it conceivable that they will then travel further in on a bus, to do more shopping? In fact, people will not behave like that.The supertram is also cited, but, at the current rate, it may not operate in my lifetime. If people are going to visit the store, they will travel by car, and if they are going to go on they will go round the ring road to Marks and Spencer: they will not go into the city centre.
The development will, however, draw from a huge area. Even John Lewis's planning proposals show that it aims to tap a huge arc of prosperous satellites north of the city, running quite a long way into North Yorkshire; and why should we imagine that the development will not appeal to the south of the city? The Ikea superstore is one of many huge developments in the south, and it draws many people—including me—from the north. Those who travel through the city will add to traffic flows and pollution. In 1986, the city council used all those arguments in opposing development on the site, but it is ignoring them now and claiming that traffic problems will be eased.
Local councils are supposed to take the Government's planning policy guidance into account in designing their development plans. Remarkably quickly, we have received a revised version of the last definitive guidance. Note 6 was put out for consultation in July last year—I believe that the consultation ended in October. When will it be implemented? It is clearly central to the current debate in Leeds. Has Leeds followed the guidance? It has not even followed its guidance to itself in many respects. In its own "Leeds Countryside Strategy" document, it describes the playing fields as part of a
network of urban green corridors"—971 the lungs of the city. It now ignores the evidence that it gave in 1986–87 and it has ignored its policy documents in other areas, but, more important, is it ignoring the Government's guidance, which it must heed?The consultation document clearly reinforces the Government's determination to revive and create more vital town centres and to protect neighbourhood centres. Rather than harming town centres by putting large-scale out-of-town developments in place, the document is concerned with promoting strategies for improving town centres and the retail developments in them. It does not preclude out-of-town developments, but it spells out certain important criteria against which they should be assessed: for example, the
impact on existing centres; their accessibility by a choice of means of transport; and their impact on the overall amount of car travel.In other words, it is trying to reduce reliance on the private car.The document's central aim is to sustain and enhance the viability of town centres and to
support local and neighbourhood centres.Leeds city council cannot show that the Bodington scheme matches any of the criteria. Evidence that the city gave in 1986–87 showed that town centres in my constituency, in Otley, which is nearby, in Holt Park, which is closer still to the development, in Headingley, on the other side of the ring road, in Horsforth, which is down the ring road, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Sir G. Shaw), and in Moor Allerton, which is across in north-east Leeds, will be severely damaged. It is absurd.Turnover could be diverted in Holt Park by about 42 per cent., in Headingley by 36 per cent., in Otley by 12 per cent. and in Horsforth by 38 per cent. Those towns are already struggling to maintain viable town centres. Many shops in the centre of Otley have closed; many more have been turned into charity shops. The Asda supermarket at Holt Park—the linchpin of the development of Holt Park—is a smaller, older supermarket, but Asda would invest much more money in it if there were no development on the ring road at Bodington. If Bodington were developed, it would have a terrible knock-on effect at Holt Park and the store would close.
There is no case, in terms of the situation that we faced in 1986–87 or the developments since, which should lead the city council to make such a horrendous U-turn. One really cannot trust Labour in Leeds. It proclaims how much it cares, but when it comes to the crunch, dogma prevails. It makes a song and dance of listening to residents in Labour wards, but ignores the strong feelings of residents in Conservative wards. Understandably, there is a great sense of outrage in my constituency.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford)I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) for raising the issue of out-of-town retail parks. He described in graphic detail—given time, he could have added to the detail—the difficulties that some Labour planning authorities impose on local residents.
972 He asked many questions and I shall answer as many as I can, but I shall have to write to him; otherwise I will have only about 30 seconds to answer each one, and some of the answers are more complicated than the questions.
I am aware—one cannot help but be aware—of the local concern and controversy about retail parks that are proposed for the north-west of Leeds, and I note the worries about the possible development of land at Bodington fields. As my hon. Friend is aware, there has been a history of interest in retail development of the area, and in 1989 proposals for a shopping and leisure development were turned down on the recommendation of one of the Secretary of State's inspectors. That in itself raises a question.
More recently, in 1993, Leeds city council made proposals in the draft Leeds unitary development plan. It proposed a range of policies for shopping and retail development in the city. Among those, I have identified locations where the council—I emphasise the word "council"—thinks that there is potential for major convenience goods retailing. One of the locations is West Park and the Westwood area of north-west Leeds. The council takes the view that there is a deficiency in facilities for selling convenience goods, which might be remedied by developing part of the Leeds university playing fields at Bodington Hall. On that basis, the council made a proposal in the unitary plan for such a development at Bodington fields.
As my hon. Friend knows, we attach considerable importance, for good reason, to settling local planning policy through preparing development plans, such as the Leeds unitary plan. That process allows for widespread consultation about the plan and its proposals for development on particular sites. It is an important opportunity for local residents to put their views. It allows the public to comment on the plan and to make formal objections, which are then considered by an independent inspector at a public local inquiry.
If the matter was straightforward and was moving with the grain of local residents, one would not expect much of a necessity for consultation. One would expect the unitary development plan to proceed, as it has in many areas, with simplicity and without taking too much time, but in this case some 19,000 objections were made to the Leeds UDP. Only one other council, which, I suspect, is notable for a similar attitude, managed to beat that record—Bradford. It is worth emphasising that the system works where the plan goes with the grain. Where it is imaginative, local residents will go along with it and understand, but in this case there were some 19,000 objections.
Some 200 or 300 of my hon. Friend's constituents have already taken advantage of their rights and objected to the proposal for Bodington fields. The public local inquiry into objections about the Leeds unitary plan has been under way for some months. I understand that the inquiry inspector will consider all objections to the city council's intentions for the retail development later this month. During the inquiry, the inspector will consider objections about a number of retail sites and consider options that have been suggested by constituents and, perhaps, by prospective developers. One such proposal might be at Woodside quarries in north-west Leeds, and there is controversy about that, too.
973 My hon. Friend asked about the reaction of the UDP inspector to the specific and minute details of the scheme submitted by John Lewis. As he is aware, the inspector deals only with broad issues; he does not approve anything. The John Lewis application is not before him. The inspector makes broad recommendations.
The inquiry inspector has a duty to look carefully at all the objections—all 19,000 of them in the case of the Leeds UDP. In due course—it will be some time away, because of the length of the inquiry into the Leeds plan—he will make recommendations to the council. The council must then decide the final form of the plan after considering the objections and recommendations. That is to ensure protection for the people of the area. That is why the process has taken so long in this case. The procedures then allow for another round of public consultation about any modifications that the council might propose, including a right of objection.
I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise that the plans provide a distinct safeguard to ensure that major decisions about development are not taken without a full hearing and an appreciation of all the points of view. Obviously, it would be wrong for me to predict the outcome of the inspector's consideration and the view that the council might eventually take, but our national guidance on retail policy will be a major consideration in any of the decisions.
The Government's key objectives for town centres and retail developments are to sustain and enhance the viability and vitality of town centres; to focus retail development in locations where the proximity of competing businesses facilitates competition from which all consumers can benefit; to ensure the availability of a wide range of shops, services and facilities to which people may have easy access; to maximise the opportunity for shoppers and other town centre users to use a means of transport other than the car; and to maintain an efficient and innovative retail sector. All those objectives must be taken into account in the Leeds unitary development plan and in the two cases that my hon. Friend mentioned.
As everyone is abundantly aware, there has been considerable concern about the development at Bodington fields. There is nothing to prevent a planning application being submitted and, as my hon. Friend says, such an application has been made. The matter might eventually require a decision by the Secretary of State either because the city council refers it to him or, in the event of refusal, because there is an appeal. As my hon. Friend is aware, for that reason I cannot specifically comment.
The city council will receive any planning application for a retail park in Leeds, and it will be expected to have regard to the current development plan and to the emergent plan, although there may be uncertainties about the planning status of the site. If its status is not firmly established in an adopted plan, which is a plan that has passed through all the stages of preparation, objection, inquiry—
§ Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes)Order. We must move on.