HC Deb 22 October 2003 vol 411 cc755-63

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

7.26 pm
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury)

I am grateful for the opportunity to draw to the attention of the House the concerns of a large number of my constituents in Aylesbury and surrounding villages about the proposals, announced in the Deputy Prime Minister's so-called communities plan, for large-scale additional housing developments in Buckinghamshire—and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire—between 2001 and 2031. Although I shall deal mostly with the issues as they concern my constituency, the Minister will know that the Government's Milton Keynes and south midlands study encompassed many different constituencies, and I am delighted to see my hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) in their places today. Both have constituents who will be seriously affected by these proposals.

I start by offering the Minister at least one slim olive twig, although there may not be too many in the course of the debate. I accept that there will be a need for some further development, both residential and commercial, in the Aylesbury area, and I will go so far as to agree that some of that development will have to take place on greenfield sites—I hope as little as possible, but some is inevitable. In addition, Aylesbury Vale district council's draft local plan does provide for some 8,600 new houses in the period up to 2011 and Buckinghamshire county council is working on plans for development beyond that date.

However, many of my constituents have serious concerns about the Government's most recent proposals. The Government target for Aylesbury Vale is that there should be 16,400 more homes by 2016, including more than 10,500 in and around Aylesbury itself. Further growth on a large scale is anticipated for the period between 2016 and 2031. Studies carried out by the South East England regional assembly project that as a minimum the same number—15,000 or 16,000—would be built in that period as are projected to be built in the period up to 2016, and that in the Aylesbury area we could be looking at as many as 30,000 additional houses in the second half of the Government's 30-year time frame.

My first criticism of the Government's approach is that it seems to me that the targets for new housebuilding for the whole of the Milton Keynes and south midlands area are not derived from projections of natural growth or local need—they are arbitrary. They are what the Council for the Protection of Rural England has described in its submission as a case of Predict and Provide' at its worst". In addition, the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Local Government and Planning, in its report published in April 2003, said that the Committee felt that the Government's plans overall were unlikely to have any impact in reducing house prices. The Committee was not convinced that the enlarged housebuilding programme could be accommodated in the south-east without seriously affecting the quality of the environment.

The Select Committee, with a Labour majority, felt that the Government's plans would not deliver the Government's declared objectives. There is an irony in the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister first announced his communities plan within two week's of his Department's own inspector entirely removing a major development area from the Aylesbury Vale draft local plan on the ground that such additional provision was not needed.

I have to tell the Minister that there is considerable resentment locally, not just about the substance of the plans, but about the lack of adequate public consultation. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a public meeting in the village of Stoke Mandeville—very close to Aylesbury—attended by more than 400 of my constituents. When SEERA published its report on 18 July, it allowed for a consultation period of 12 weeks, which, of course, encompassed the main holiday period of the year. During those 12 weeks, the assembly has done virtually nothing to explain directly to the local people who will be affected, what is being proposed and why it is being proposed. At that public meeting, there was probably even greater indignation about that lack of consultation than about what the proposals would involve.

I am willing to accept that that sort of fault is not unique to the present Government—it is perhaps endemic in Whitehall—but from the experience of this episode in my own patch, I can say that that failure to trust and consult the people affected erodes dramatically the trust and confidence that people feel in the Government as an institution and in the ability of the political system to respond to their democratically expressed wishes.

Andrew Selous (South-West Bedfordshire)

I completely agree with my hon. Friend's remarks. Does he agree that that is a shocking way to treat locally elected councillors? What does it say about local democracy, when those very important issues are taken out of the hands of local representatives?

Mr. Lidington

My hon. Friend is right. The responsibility for drawing up plans for future housing and commercial development should rest with local authorities, which can judge not just local opinion, but the future economic and domestic needs of the populations whom they are elected to serve and who can kick them out if they do not like the decisions that those councillors take on their behalf.

I wish to refer to my specific criticisms about the Government's proposals for the Aylesbury area. The plans published by SEERA are far too specific about the location of new developments. Even if one accepted the Government's overall figures and strategy—clearly, I do not—it should still be for local authorities to work out, after proper planning and consultation, how best to provide the housing demanded from them. Yet, to take the most pressing example in my area, there is a proposal for 3,000 additional houses on the last area of green fields that separates the Bedgrove estate in Aylesbury from the village of Stoke Mandeville. Such things should not be handed down from on high from an unaccountable regional office or a Whitehall Department; they should be the subject of local democratic debate and decision.

That proposal has some problems. Aylesbury is already a net exporter of commuters. It seems likely that a big development to the south side of the town will be very attractive to people who travel to London to work or to the high housing cost areas of south Buckinghamshire. It has been decided that Aylesbury and Stoke Mandeville should, in effect, coalesce, but that decision was taken without accountability to local people although it will dramatically affect their community. That is plainly wrong.

My mistrust of the regional assembly's abilities is only reinforced when I read paragraph 2.10 of its consultation document, which states: Opportunities to develop higher density mixed-use developments around public transport nodes like Stoke Mandeville station should be fully exploited. I do not expect the Minister has visited Stoke Mandeville station, but I have done so many times. That paragraph of the assembly's document could not sensibly have been written by anybody who had visited the place about which they were writing.

Secondly, the Government need to be much more open about the extent of their future ambitions. They published a consultation document, which only takes us up to 2016, which provides for only about 45 per cent. of the overall published housing targets in the communities plan. Tucked away in paragraph 2.13 on page 41, we have a statement that, after 2016, building should be between existing urban area and the proposed southern distribution road and south of Stoke Mandeville". The implication of that for my constituency is stark. It would mean that a decision has been taken in Whitehall that Aylesbury, a large town, should grow to coalesce with the nearby villages—separate, distinct communities—of Stoke Mandeville, Weston Turville, Aston Clinton, Wendover and Halton. They would be swallowed up as suburbs of a greater Aylesbury stretching from the existing town right to the edge of the green belt. Nobody has explained that to local people or bothered to ask their views.

If those plans go ahead, some practical consequences must be faced, which the local authorities, confronted with those edicts from central Government, must consider now. How will new transport be provided for all those additional people? On rail, I welcome the statement that the east-west orbital route scheme would go ahead. The Strategic Rail Authority, however, has previously rejected it. Is it going to he built? Is the money going to be forthcoming, given the pressures on the SRA's budgets? The SEERA document contains a discussion of a spur line from Aylesbury to Bletchley, which I would support, but the SRA's proposals for the west coast main line envisage not an increase but a reduction in service levels at Bletchley. There seems to be a lack of joined-up government in the proposal.

On roads, I have already mentioned the southern distributor road. What will be the scale of that road? It is causing worry locally. How will it be financed? It is unrealistic to expect developer contributions to be enough. How will the enhanced quality bus corridors be provided as promised when all the main feeder roads into Aylesbury—the A41 Tring road, the A4010 Lower road and the A413 Wendover road—are too narrow for bus lanes unless severe restrictions are imposed on access by cars and lorries?

There is a lack of strategic thinking about what a development on that scale will mean for roads. The A418 Aylesbury-Wing road will be upgraded but not, we are told, until after the houses have been built. There would then be two major roads—the A418 and the A41—linking Aylesbury to the trunk road network, both of which would disgorge their traffic at the end of the town with no link between them. The county council says that the logical consequence of all that is that a major new road link will be needed going around Aylesbury and linking it to the economic centres of the Thames valley to the south. That has a dramatic consequence for the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty and for either the A41 or the A418. It is not even mentioned, however, in the document published by the regional assembly.

I could make comparable points about the other public services. SEERA's estimate is that other public services would require spending of some £214 million for the Aylesbury area alone if these schemes come to pass, and there is no guarantee from the Government yet that that money, or anything like it, will be forthcoming. On health, Stoke Mandeville hospital is closing wards, not opening new beds, and children in the Aylesbury Vale primary care trust area face a 14-month wait for speech therapy. On police, I received a letter from the chief constable today saying that he has fewer officers per head of population than any other force in the country bar one. As for the fire service locally, the chief fire officer believes that the Integrated Risk Management Plan will…show areas of unacceptable risk even before the anticipated growth in population".

What about the environment? We have had no strategic environmental assessment of these plans and no reference to biodiversity action plans in the regional consultation document. Higher density housing is proposed and that means a greater demand for open space. Altogether, the plan will mean a need for 250,000 more people to live cheek by jowl with the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty. I would welcome a proposed linear park around the edge of Aylesbury, but the site for the linear park is the same as the site for proposed future expansion and building after 2016. It just does not add up.

I am not so inexperienced in this place as to expect the Minister to announce that she has seen the light and that she will reverse all the Deputy Prime Minister's previous statements and proposals on this matter, so I ask for just two things. First, I ask for an undertaking that the consultation now taking place and the examination in public next year will be more than just a bit of spin before the Government's original plans are rubber-stamped and pushed through. I want to be able to tell my constituents that they will be able to influence the shape and scale of the Government's proposals.

Secondly, if the Government are making these plans, I ask that they will guarantee that the money will be provided so that we do not simply get the houses, but have good quality public services to care for the needs of the people who will live in them and their neighbours who are already my constituents.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)

rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)

Order. Has the hon. Gentleman the permission of the hon. Member who introduced the debate and the Minister?

Mr. Lidington

indicated assent.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper)

indicated assent.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

Very good. I call the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).

7.41 pm
Mr. Bercow

I am very grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I can briefly echo the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) so eloquently expressed.

I am not opposed to all development. We cannot live in a museum-piece economy. There is a widespread recognition that there is a big demand for additional housing and that that demand will, in part at least, have to be met. My constituency will doubtless have to make a contribution to the process. My concern, based on the historical record, is that unless we receive cast-iron assurances to the contrary, we shall get the development without the accompanying infrastructure that is necessary for that development to be sustainable.

In case the Minister wonders why I have this concern, I inform her that I raised the matter with the Deputy Prime Minister when he appeared before the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister: Housing, Planning and Local Government earlier this year. He expressed confidence that the infrastructure would be forthcoming. I challenged him whether, in the light of that confidence, he would confirm that the go-ahead for the development would not be given unless and until there were written undertakings about the infrastructure. He laughed and said that he was sure that I would like such a commitment, but that he did not intend to go down that road. I hope that the Minister will understand why I, on behalf of my constituents, am so concerned.

We do not want the additional air pollution, the greater traffic congestion, the increased pressure on hospital places and the problems in terms of inadequate school provision. We want to ensure that there are sustainable communities, a principle to which the Government are already signed up.

My hon. Friend dwelt in some detail on the important issues. I just want to reiterate the following. First, we need commitments on expenditure and on guarantees that the infrastructure will be delivered at the same time as the housing gets under way. Secondly, we want to be assured that if we are co-operative in the process, as Aylesbury Vale district council fully intends to be, we will be granted local autonomy in deciding which sites are most suitable for the additional development. Thirdly, we have to be sure that historic infrastructure deficits are addressed, notably in the insufficiency of beds at Stoke Mandeville hospital, but in a number of other respects too.

I underline to the Minister that there is a certain absurdity in generalised talk about plans for the east-west rail link phase beyond 2011 when very specific plans for large-scale housing that might get under way substantially sooner are being confirmed and championed by the Government. We need plans for the east-west rail link and a link between the A41 Aston Clinton road to the east of Aylesbury and the A418 from Milton Keynes because, after all, that is a spoke in the regional transport strategy. We also need many other commitments from the Government.

My hon. Friends and I are not taking a dogmatic view or engaging in ritualistic opposition, but trying to stand up for the legitimate interests of our constituents. I hope that the hon. Lady is sympathetic to that position and that she can offer some assurances in her reply.

7.45 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Yvette Cooper)

I congratulate the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) on securing the debate and choosing to discuss a subject that is so important to his constituents. I shall briefly set out the background to the current situation before addressing the points that he and the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) made.

The Milton Keynes and south midlands study was an independent study that was commissioned by regional and local partners in 2001 to examine the potential for growth in the area. The large study area covered all of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, Milton Keynes and Luton unitary authorities and Aylesbury Vale district council in Buckinghamshire. The study recognised that stakeholder engagement was critical when reaching its conclusions, and representatives from 147 organisations were invited to a series of meetings. The study concluded that there was considerable potential for further growth in the area, but that that should be concentrated on urban areas.

Further independent and individual studies were then undertaken at all the key towns in the Milton Keynes and south midlands study area, including Aylesbury. The studies endorsed the growth agenda required to continue the economic success of the area and also identified broad strategic areas for further growth and the infrastructure required for their delivery. There has been a detailed study, so the hon. Member for Aylesbury was wrong to say that the figures had been somehow plucked out of thin air. Extensive work and study has been done on the need for growth as a result of local and regional demands.

In February 2003, the Deputy Prime Minister announced a programme of action—the sustainable communities plan—which made it clear that a step change was essential to tackle the challenges of a rapidly changing population, the needs of the economy and the serious housing shortages in London and the south-east. The action programme set out the policy, resources and partnerships required to achieve that change. It also set out the need for key growth areas such as the Milton Keynes and south midlands area, which was already demonstrating a dramatic capacity for economic success.

The progress report that was published in July identified the Milton Keynes and south midlands growth area as a key link between the midlands and the south-east. It also made it clear that regional and local partners have launched proposals for public consultation on total growth, which would provide 134,000 new homes by 2016 in the main growth locations throughout the sub-region—and thus generate an additional 44,000 homes by 2016 above current planning targets.

Andrew Selous

Will the Minister kindly tell the House what is wrong with having a much larger number of smaller-scale developments integrated organically into existing communities rather than four massive areas around London, which will come with a whole host of social problems?

Yvette Cooper

The hon. Gentleman is right that we need new developments with different kinds of housing and mixed developments whenever possible. We have strongly promoted such developments on brownfield sites in existing communities—that is the direction in which we are moving. Additionally, we have identified key growth areas where detailed local studies have shown that substantial further expansion can be supported and, indeed, where such expansion is required because of the extent of the need for additional local housing that is coming from London and the south-east and the genuine pressures that we must all recognise. That means that Aylesbury Vale district council's existing regional planning guidance allocation of 11,400 extra homes by 2016 will increase to 16,400 extra homes, and the three regional assemblies are formally taking that proposal forward through the planning process. The regional assemblies include local councillors. When completed, the planning proposals will alter existing regional planning guidance.

The planning consultation for the area was published in July, with the 12-week initial consultation period ending on 13 October. During that time, two public consultation events were held at Aylesbury in August. Given the understandable insistence on the need for consultation, I assure hon. Members that that stage was the first part of an extensive round of public participation undertaken before finalising the regional planning guidance towards the end of next year.

Before the proposals are finalised, there will be a public examination, run by an independent panel; that will be held in March 2004. It will scrutinise all the proposals, including those for Aylesbury. Further public consultation on the proposed changes will be undertaken later in 2004 before the alterations are finalised. We are still some way off the end of the consultation process. Once regional planning guidance is finalised, local development documents will cover the area and will involve consultation arrangements for the locality.

I stress that the proposals are draft proposals by the regional assemblies. They will continue through the process of public consultation for some time. The regional planning documents are not intended to be site specific, but to give a broad strategic view of the way forward. It may reassure hon. Members to know that the Government's response to the current consultation is that the draft proposals are too site specific and that more strategic criteria are required to allow local communities to determine where and how the additional development is provided.

The proposals present considerable opportunities to Aylesbury Vale district council and Aylesbury itself in terms of the role and functions it may develop. It might be possible to utilise the growth to deliver urban renaissance, especially in the town centre, and to attract higher-value inward investment. Opportunities are likely to be sought to promote urban intensification of existing residential areas and, through the redevelopment of redundant employment land, to minimise development on greenfield land. We should recognise that many of those areas have relatively low density of housing compared with other regions.

Hon. Members mentioned infrastructure. That is extremely important. The communities plan sets out that growth areas must not be dormitories; they must be communities. That also depends on providing good quality community infrastructure.

I recognise the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Buckingham about the historical record. New developments have taken place without the necessary infrastructure being in place. The purpose of the communities plan is to indicate a substantial change in that approach and to recognise the importance of infrastructure.

We have already provided additional Government funds of £11.4 million to pump-prime the delivery of growth in Milton Keynes and Aylesbury, showing our commitment to the area. Aylesbury Vale district council prepared a number of bids from the additional money. Its bid for specialist advice and a strategy action plan, together with a study for promoting and unlocking opportunities and areas for mixed development, were successful. We are considering the Kingsbury project, which would help to regenerate Kingsbury town centre. In addition, we are also funding studies covering the whole growth area, including one relating to health and hospital provision.

We are also considering transport infrastructure. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced on 9 July a package of improvements worth £2.2 billion across the growth areas. That will support links from Milton Keynes to Aylesbury and public transport improvements that are being worked up in Aylesbury itself.

Mr. Bercow

rose—

Yvette Cooper

I cannot give way because I am short of time. I am, however, happy to discuss the issue with hon. Members after the debate.

We are at the beginning of the process. Many infrastructure issues will need to be dealt with over the coming period. That is why we are funding a local delivery vehicle for Aylesbury to involve local partners and to anticipate what the infrastructure needs might be. At the Milton Keynes and south midlands level, we are establishing an inter-regional board to be chaired by my noble Friend Lord Rooker. It will bring together representatives from the delivery agencies at the highest possible level to focus on the areas where high-level executive intervention is necessary to achieve the delivery of the sub-regional infrastructure. The board will start by establishing infrastructure priorities and core needs to deliver the growth area proposals. Much of that work still needs to be done, and will include infrastructure and services such as highways, education, health services, environmental requirements, utilities and community facilities, as well as other infrastructure such as public transport, emergency services, community support and social services. All the key organisations need to be involved.

We recognise that infrastructure is critical to ensure that the growth areas are successful. There are considerable opportunities for Aylesbury Vale district council to take advantage of, both in new inward investment and opportunities for growth, and I hope that the local partners will work together to make the most of them. The Government are keen to support the developing opportunities to build the Aylesbury communities so that they can prosper in future.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at four minutes to Eight o'clock.