§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. McNulty.]
§ 10 pm
§ Mr. Gareth R. Thomas (Harrow, West)I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight two specific issues raised by the intention of the McDonald's chain of restaurants to open a takeaway restaurant on the site of a former public house in the west Harrow part of my constituency. The first issue is the use of the A3 classification in planning law, and the second the way in which social audits and social reporting could stimulate responsible companies to achieve effective dialogue with local communities about the siting of their business premises over and above what is currently required by planning law.
One week from today, McDonald's is expected to open a takeaway restaurant on the site of the former Hungry Horse public house at the junction of Shaftesbury avenue, Shaftesbury circle and Porlock avenue in my constituency, right next door to the excellent Whitmore high school. McDonald's has made it clear in local newspapers that it sees the restaurant attracting customers from beyond its immediate locality—according to its spokeswoman, it will be
a facility for everyone in south Harrow".Many local residents are, not surprisingly, worried that what is now a quiet and pleasant area will have to suffer extra traffic, extra disruption, increasing levels of pollution, new levels of noise and additional litter. They ask why no one has consulted them about whether a restaurant should be there at all.McDonald's has had to submit a planning application to the local authority for—crucially—only the external works to the restaurant, which would create a drive-through facility beside the sit-down restaurant. The use of sites as restaurants and public houses is covered by the same site designation in planning law—class A3, as laid down in the Town and County Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987. In essence, because McDonald's has chosen a site with an existing A3 designation for its restaurant, there is nothing the local community, or the council on its behalf, can do to require the same level of full and detailed scrutiny of the plans as would be required if the site were designated differently.
A site that had little impact on the next-door school when it was a quiet public house, in a pleasant residential area—albeit with a small shopping parade, but no industry or major shopping centre close by—is soon to see a brash new owner with inevitably more intensive usage and the resulting greater impact on the community. Because no distinction is made in planning law between restaurants and public houses, the local planning authority—Harrow council—much to the frustration of local councillors and planning officials, cannot properly explore the change of use.
Many of my constituents who live in the immediate area around the site have formed the Shaftesbury campaign against McDonald's—SCAM—to highlight the difficulties posed by the development. SCAM has worked closely and very effectively with local people and councillors, and has completed research into similar developments elsewhere. In addition, Councillors 406 Huw Davies, Norman Stillerman and Navin Shah, who is the chairman of Harrow council's development and planning committee, have all highlighted their concerns about the current wide range of the A3 designation.
My constituents have a number of concerns about locating such a large fast food takeaway restaurant in a residential area. The restaurant will inevitably have to attract a large volume of traffic to the site to be viable. There are already considerable traffic and parking problems in the area caused by the narrow roads and the fact that the majority of houses were built without garages. Approaching the site by car usually requires careful weaving in and out of parked cars. Inevitably, the concern is that the restaurant will result in busier roads, more congestion and increased danger to pedestrians, to cyclists and, especially, to the children who attend Whitmore high school next door. Because Whitmore is the borough's designated school for children with physical disabilities, there has been and remains heightened concern about the additional traffic flows that a restaurant will provoke to and from the site during the school day.
The site is serviced by bus routes, but the location of the restaurant is unlikely to help both Government and local council ambitions to reduce demand for car travel. Indeed, the additional traffic the restaurant will generate could potentially wipe out the benefits of the substantial investment that has been made to provide priority to 140 bus journeys along local routes.
It is also worrying that the proposed vehicle exit from the site, rejected by the planning committee, is next to a bus stop. That could make exit from the site by car dangerous for drivers, pedestrians and bus users. It is an issue of particular concern to the school.
Shaftesbury circle is already a busy roundabout with congestion problems in the rush hour. A quiet public house added little to the difficulties, but there is no doubt that a busy takeaway restaurant could cause further significant problems.
There is no doubt also that the amenity of my constituents in the area close to the site could suffer. They are worried about additional litter being generated, and about the extra nuisance from noise and light at night, as the site would clearly attract people away from nearby town-centre areas to this quiet residential district.
I am also especially worried that because of the wide range of the class A3 designation, the local planning authority has been unable to consider the impact of a restaurant on the amenity of the site's most immediate neighbour, Whitmore high school. Whitmore is recognised by Ofsted as a school of very high standards, with 95 per cent. of last year's GCSE students gaining eight GCSEs or more. More than 54 per cent. gained grades between A* and C, and the most successful 45 students gained 424 GCSEs between them.
No doubt placing a takeaway restaurant so close to a large school population is a powerfully attractive proposition to the owners of the restaurant chain, as the school could provide a very lucrative market. However, the restaurant could be the source of some disruption to the life of the school. The boundary of the site is extremely close to the location of key classrooms used for teaching music and drama, so the potential for lessons to be disrupted by noise is clearly a concern.
In addition, the restaurant's close proximity to the school will undoubtedly inhibit the current smooth arrangements for checking the dispersal of students at the 407 end of the day. Unless McDonald's can provide suitable assurances that the children will not be served at all during the school day, the restaurant will provide further potential distractions to the school population.
The opportunity to consider all these issues, and therefore the appropriateness of the Shaftesbury circle location for a takeaway restaurant, was denied because the site already had a class A3 designation. However, if the site had been designated differently, and if the full and proper level of scrutiny of this particular application had taken place, that would not necessarily have prevented problems in the future.
At the moment, when planning permission is being granted for a change of use to A3 designation, it is not even possible to impose conditions that mean that the site could be used only for a public house or a restaurant. Indeed, attempts to do so by planning authorities have been overturned on appeal, with costs awarded against the authorities.
I recognise that it is right that development must, on occasion, be facilitated. However, my constituents have been extremely concerned at the restriction placed on their local council's ability to consider this development and therefore to examine its impact on them, simply because no change in site designation is involved. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will be aware of previous representations on this issue—from my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound), from the London planning advisory committee, the Local Government Association and from Harrow council, as well as other concerned local authorities. I therefore urge my hon. Friend the Minister to give further thought to whether the current A3 classification is not drawn too wide.
Many of my constituents sense that McDonald's was well aware of the way in which planning laws would operate on this site. They ask why McDonald's chose not to consult them until after the planning application had been submitted. Local people—a key stakeholder group that is affected by McDonald's selection of this site for the restaurant—feel that they have been presented with a fait accompli and that they must expect to have to accept the inevitable. Where their views have been formally expressed, they are being ignored by the company, which is now hoping that a planning inspector will find in its favour over the drive-through element of the plans.
It is difficult not to have some sympathy with the view put to me by one constituent that the attitude and behaviour of McDonald's have amounted to little short of premeditated corporate arrogance. Certainly, the behaviour of McDonald's has not appeared to be that of a socially responsible business, nor that of a business keen to build relationships with local people.
Increasingly, the wider business world recognises that questionable social, environmental and ethical behaviour affects the bottom line and that ignoring the needs of stakeholders such as local people can bring with it damaging disruptive publicity. Companies as diverse as Shell, Monsanto and Nike have suffered poorer corporate performance because of high-profile negative publicity generated as they ignored important social dimensions to their business activity.
It is a truism that we live in the knowledge economy. Information flows are considerably greater than ever before and, increasingly, the reputation of a company 408 affects its financial performance. Information about social and environmental liabilities is increasingly sought by investors keen to minimise their risks. There is growing recognition that competitive advantage derives in part from a business's relationship with its stakeholders, including the communities in which it seeks to operate. Social auditing and reporting, like the parallel environmental reporting that my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment has rightly sought to promote, provide a framework for producing information beyond merely the financial headlines that is of value to shareholders and stakeholders alike.
The big accounting firms are developing new wings of their businesses to support companies through social audits. Organisations such as the excellent New Economics Foundation and the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability increasingly advise companies and provide auditing services that mirror the international work of, for example, the global reporting initiative. Initiatives such as the voluntary SA8000 scheme launched by the Council on Economic Priorities are already being used by Toys 'R' Us and several other European retailers. The AA1000 standard launched in Copenhagen on 15 November is being used by the Co-operative bank to audit its award-winning social report. Such initiatives are heightening awareness of the potential of social reporting.
According to Forum for the Future, around 30 big companies, including 20 of the FTSE top 100, are involved in substantive social reporting. The Body Shop's social report included sections covering social, environmental and animal-testing performance and has been widely praised as a model. Shell International's social report won praise from some as
a groundbreaking display of corporate soul-searching",with many of the company's critics acknowledging that a significant step forward had been taken.The Co-operative bank's partnership report was a key part of its business strategy, combining a financial report with an account of the bank's impacts on its key partners: its shareholders, customers, staff, suppliers, local communities and so on. That has undoubtedly been a factor in its profits tripling since 1994.
Other recent social reports have featured levels of employee satisfaction, information on health and safety records, levels of compensation that had to be paid out and the degree to which child labour was used. In the context of this debate, such reports can involve the degree of community involvement in selecting where to site parts of the business.
Social auditing and reporting is a young process, albeit one with growing heavyweight business support. The Government need to give the process a friendly steer to encourage business to consider more carefully its impact on all stakeholders, including local communities. Government must monitor the standards and processes being used by social auditors to ensure that, over time, they are credible and rigorous.
I hope that the Government will take the opportunity provided by the company law review to engage in a dialogue with business organisations about how to encourage greater transparency and reporting of companies' relationships with all their stakeholders.
BT produced its first social report this summer. Independently verified, it would not have been 100 per cent. comfortable reading for shareholders. However, 409 BT received a broadly favourable verdict, albeit with suggested improvements, from the verifiers. BT chairman Iain Vallance said:
There are those that believe that a concern with essential values or indeed the community at large is incompatible with the business aim of creating shareholder value and that managers should focus on making profits and steer clear of difficult compromises and trade-offs involved in trying to balance the interests of various constituencies. This is a misplaced belief.McDonald's will open its restaurant in west Harrow a week from today. The lack of consultation by the company, or through the planning system, has caused real frustration among my constituents. I hope that, to protect other communities from being similarly affected, my hon. Friend the Minister will now consider amending the A3 classification used under planning law and examine the opportunities to encourage effective social audit and reporting.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Ms Beverley Hughes)I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas) on his success in securing this debate and on raising an important aspect of the Government's planning policy. I know that he will understand that I cannot comment on the merits or otherwise of the specific local case that has prompted him to obtain the debate. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has a formal role and responsibility in the planning appeals process. However, I can set the case within the context of the general legislative and policy position, and I hope that I can make some comments in which my hon. Friend will find some comfort.
It may be helpful if I begin by clarifying the relevant legislation. The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987, which, for the sake of brevity, I will refer to as the use classes order, sets out classes of land use, as my hon. Friend will know. It sets out four classes of land use—A, B, C and D. Changes within each of the individual classes do not constitute development under the law at the moment and so do not require planning permission.
The use classes order is a well-established deregulatory measure within the town and country planning system. It was introduced on the grounds that the changes of use that it permits would each have a broadly similar impact, for instance, in terms of noise, traffic generation and appearance. That was an assumption made at the time the orders were introduced. The intention is to strike an appropriate balance between facilitating development and encouraging enterprise, and protecting local amenity and environment.
In general terms, across the country as a whole, the UCO plays an essential role in delivering a positive, proactive planning service that enables businesses and local communities to thrive. It removes from businesses and others the requirement to seek planning permission from the local planning authority for uses that are generally uncontroversial and do not adversely impact on local amenity. The UCO is kept under review so that problem areas can be addressed or particular matters clarified. Overall, it is considered to be working reasonably well. Since 1987, only five amendments have been made. That is the general context.
410 Class A3 is relevant to the case that my hon. Friend has raised. It comprises uses for the sale of food and drink for consumption on the premises and of hot food for consumption off the premises. So the class may include restaurants, cafes, wine bars, public houses and take-away establishments. The A3 class was introduced to reflect the loosening of the then traditional boundaries between different types of catering establishments. The aim was to enable the trade to adapt to changing trends and demands and, therefore, for the general public to have greater choice in their areas.
In general, across the country as a whole, the freedom to change use within the food and drink class has caused little difficulty. However, as my hon. Friend has said, my Department has received a number of representations, including correspondence from some of my hon. Friend's constituents, from the London planning advisory committee and from the Local Government Association as well as a number of London authorities. Their concern is that some of the changes of use within the A3 class—for example, to use as a themed pub or a super-pub or from a pub to a take-away—because of the way in which the different outlets have developed over time, can lead to new or more intensive activity and give rise to issues of parking, noise and public order that arguably ought to be examined through the planning system. The argument has been put that some specific changes, perhaps such as that described by my hon. Friend, raise substantially different issues within a locality that deserve examination.
Of course, there are other extensive controls outside the planning system that can be used by local authorities to remedy problems with matters such as parking, noise and public order. For example, local authorities have wide-ranging powers to prevent or abate noise under part III of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. In addition, they can issue street litter control notices and so on.
However, I realise that there are concerns as to the efficacy of existing controls, and I assure my hon. Friend that we are giving those concerns careful consideration. We are taking some actions that may go some way to reassure him that we are considering the issues that he has raised about change of use within the A3 class.
The White Paper on the future of transport contained a commitment to look for ways of improving the planning system's delivery of an integrated transport strategy. That included a review of the changes of use allowed under the UCO to establish their transport implications in relation to traffic generation and parking. I hope that my hon. Friend will be pleased to learn that, in commissioning a study into improvements to the planning systems delivery of an integrated strategy, we have included a comprehensive investigation of the impact of changes within the A3 class. That will form a specific strand of the study. It will consider not only the transport-related effects of such changes, but the impact on local amenity and the environment—for example, litter, noise and relationships with other land uses in the area.
My Department has just circulated a specification of the research to organisations that have expressed an interest in undertaking that work. Early next year, a tender for the whole study—including the elements that I outlined—will be let, and the report will be completed by next summer. We shall then consider the research findings and the recommendations alongside the representations that we have already received on the subject. That will allow us to come to a view on whether there are significant 411 problems, and their nature and extent. We shall then consider our response to the problems identified by the report. I hope that that offers my hon. Friend some comfort. We shall certainly consider the findings of the study as soon as possible.
The aim of the Government's planning policy for town centres is relevant to the debate. Our policy, as set out in planning policy guidance note 6, is to regenerate existing town centres and high streets. Sustaining town centres depends a great deal on the flexible use of floor space. It is widely acknowledged that vacant properties are a blight on town and district centres. The UCO helps business to respond quickly to changing demands. Keeping premises open and occupied can also have the effect of protecting other businesses in the area.
However, PPG6 acknowledges that problems can arise when changes of use—such as from shops to restaurants—create new concentrations of single uses, such as restaurants, bars or takeaway food outlets; there can be cumulative effects that cause local problems. Proposals for change of use in those circumstances should be assessed as to their contribution to diversification, and as to their cumulative effects on such matters as the loss of retail outlets, traffic and parking. Although I realise that town centres may not be the main issue in the debate, measures exist whereby local authorities can consider the impact of change of use on them.
My hon. Friend mentioned the value of social auditing. We are aware of work in that area, which, as my hon. Friend said, has the aim, at first instance, of improving the economies and environments of developing countries by setting out clearly the commitments and responsibilities of business and other stakeholders. I know that the Department for International Development works closely with all its development partners, including the United Nations, in supporting social auditing as a means of promoting socially responsible businesses which have positive impacts on all their stakeholders.
My hon. Friend requested that the Government give a friendly steer to the adaptation of that concept to the planning system in the UK. I can give him that reassurance. We fully endorse that type of partnership between central and local government, non-governmental organisations, businesses and the wider community, 412 whereby the commitments and responsibilities of all stakeholders across a range of policy areas are clearly set out.
In that context, my hon. Friend may be pleased to know that, following our planning concordat with the Local Government Association, that association is now working on a planning users concordat with the business and voluntary sectors. That will set out the roles, priorities and responsibilities of all three parties. It will highlight the essential contribution of the voluntary and business sectors to planning decisions, encourage positive engagement and promote effective collaboration, and it will provide a valuable framework for co-operation. When there are specific concerns about a particular local business, it is generally the case that socially responsible companies are happy to meet local residents and local authorities to seek ways in which their concerns may be addressed.
I fully recognise the examples of good practice that my hon. Friend cited in his speech. The planning users concordat is all about fostering good practice, and it is to be hoped that more businesses will opt into that mode of meeting concerns in the local community where they are considering developing.
The Government are aware that some aspects of the use classes order—particularly the operation of class A3—have caused concern in some locations and in some specific cases. Our forthcoming research has been expanded to investigate fully the issues and concerns raised during the debate. We would need evidence of widespread and significant problems throughout the country to justify amending the UCO, but we are not averse to amending it if we find that there are such problems.
The UCO, as it stands, offers some valuable freedoms and flexibilities, which enable business to respond to changing circumstances. Nevertheless, I can assure my hon. Friend that we want to continue to monitor the operation of the order and assure ourselves that the problems that he has described are not widespread. If they are widespread, we shall respond to that concern.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing these issues to our attention today.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Ten o'clock.