HC Deb 28 November 2000 vol 357 cc834-6 4.51 pm
Mr. Tony Baldry (Banbury)

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend section 31 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 so as to allow local planning authorities to determine themselves in the structure plan the amount of new housing, including figures for housing provision in each district.

In his introduction to the urban White Paper, the Deputy Prime Minister stated:

Our guiding principle is that people must come first. Our policies, programmes and structures of governance are based on engaging local people in partnerships for change with strong local leadership. This inclusive approach is at the heart of our work When he introduced the rural White Paper this afternoon, the right hon. Gentleman said that it was important for people to have a real say in what was happening locally. Clearly, it is a worthwhile principle, and one worthy of support, that local people and local leaders should make local decisions. The difficulty is that existing planning practice is the complete antithesis of any approach based on local people and local decisions.

Planning practice for new housing numbers is all top-down, with no local community say from the bottom up. Decisions are imposed from above, rather than taken locally. There is a confusing structure and a succession of regional planning conferences, county structure plans and local development plans. That confusion is compounded by the fact that those processes are often carried out simultaneously in relation to different survey periods, years, and time scales.

The result is that all too often, people suddenly wake up to discover a proposal to build huge amounts of new housing adjacent to where they live. When they object, the district council tells them, "We're terribly sorry. We know how you feel, but we have no choice. These housing numbers have been imposed on us by the structure plan. All we are doing is carrying out the structure plan's instructions."

It is hardly surprising that turnout in parliamentary elections and by-elections should be falling, and that participation in local elections is fading away, if local people feel disfranchised and alienated from some of the decisions that affect them most deeply. Not least among those decisions is how far and how fast their communities will grow.

My constituency contains two market towns, Banbury and Bicester, and a host of villages in surrounding Oxfordshire. Over the past 20 years or so, Banbury and Bicester have taken the lion's share of new housing development in Oxfordshire. In particular, Bicester has been for some time one of the fastest-growing communities in the country. Alas, local facilities do not always keep up with the increase in housing.

I suspect that the vast majority of people in Banbury and Bicester feel that the towns have grown to their natural geographical limits. Neighbouring villages feel that they are in danger of being caught up in ever increasing development that blurs town and village and destroys local distinctiveness. In Banbury High street and Bicester Sheep street I am not stopped by people saying that substantially more housing should be built in their

towns and villages. Rather, I am met with increasing numbers of people who feel disfranchised and powerless to prevent large developments that they do not want.

To planners and local government officials—those within the secret garden—the system of regional planning conferences, regional planning guidance, structure plans and local plans is entirely rational and understandable. But to those who matter—local people and local residents—it is not; it is an alienating system. Moreover, these matters are of increasing importance as the impact of development grows.

Increasingly, local authorities are expecting developers to meet infrastructure costs, such as the costs of new schools. In the new terminology of local government finance, Oxfordshire was "ceilinged" yesterday; there was a very tight local government settlement. Getting developers to build new schools is obviously attractive to local authorities, but to enable developers to do that, the new housing development must be substantial.

For example, it would appear that Cherwell district council is having to build 1,100 new houses on the outskirts of Banbury, most of which will be in the parish of Bodicote. It has taken Bodicote since the time of the Domesday book to grow to 1,000 or so homes; this development will double the size of that community almost overnight. How can that be called sustainable development? Other communities around Banbnry—Wroxton and Hanwell, for example—all made it clear that they did not want large volumes of extra new housing built on the edge of Banbury, adjoining their villages.

All this new housing, whether around Banbury or Bicester, will be built on greenfield sites. There is no question here of greenfield sites being last, as the Deputy Prime Minister said earlier. That statement is entirely meaningless. All the new building in Oxfordshire around Banbury and Bicester will be on greenfield sites.

What would my Bill do? I want to see more power devolved to local residents, with decisions moving closer to local people and further away from Whitehall and central Government offices. The decisions on how many houses should be built in a local area should be taken by local councils at the behest of local people and local electors. They should not be effectively imposed from above—top-down, a fait accompli. "More choice to local people" is what the Deputy Prime Minister said this afternoon. The real choice that local people want is the choice of the size of their own communities.

Regional planning bodies should be abolished. Many right hon. and hon. Members—particularly on this side of the House—believe that local councils are best placed to decide the appropriate level of new development in their areas. In his statement on the rural White Paper, the Deputy Prime Minister said that local communities should have a greater say in determining their futures. I listened carefully to his suggestion for how that would be carried out, and he said that there would be town and village plans. Great stuff, but what will those town and village plans do? Will they have an impact on housing numbers and the size of towns and villages? Absolutely not.

So far as the Government are concerned, all the plans will do is give local people the power to make comments on design standards. For the people in Banbury, Bicester and surrounding villages who are suddenly confronted by huge amounts of new housing developments to be told that they will be able to comment on design standards will hardly console them, or make them feel that they have a greater say.

Local people, must have a greater opportunity to contribute directly to the formulation of plans and planning discussions, and should receive information well in advance of planning applications. The time has come to restore a say to electors. The public should be allowed to contribute at committee meetings where planning applications are decided. Local objectors should be given time and space in the meetings to interact with applicants in properly organised sensible meetings in which local authorities and local people can reasonably express their concerns.

Town and parish councils should also be given a greater true role in planning decisions, not tokenism. It is true that local planning authorities have an obligation to take into account submissions from parish councils on planning applications, but parish councils are by no means always consulted during the formulation of development plans. So parish councils should be statutory consultees.

My overall proposals are very straightforward—a bottom-up approach to planning, the abolition of national and regional rigid planning diktats imposed for housebuilding, an end to regional planning guidance, scrutiny for planning gain agreements, greater participation in the decision-making process, proper warning for local residents about large-scale developments, a greater say for town and parish councils in planning decisions, a right of counter-appeal for local residents, greater scrutiny of local authorities giving themselves planning permission, and fairer compensation to local residents. That is what the Bill would seek to do.

I appreciate that introducing the Bill at the end of a parliamentary Session means that it has little prospect of making further progress. However, I hope that the House will give leave to introduce it as a signal that such matters will need to be addressed in the next Session of Parliament—and, indeed, in every Session, until local people are truly engaged and enfranchised in local planning and decisions about housing numbers.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Tony Baldry, Mr. Nick St. Aubyn, Mr. John Butterfill, Mr. Christopher Chope, Mr. Patrick Nicholls and Mr. Ian Taylor.