Concrete-crushing Plant (Upchurch) (Hansard, 2 February 2004)

§ Mr. Derek Wyatt (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)

During January, I was knocking on doors on the Isle of Sheppey. I have been involved in 500 interviews. The two matters that are at the forefront when I talk to people about their problems are council tax and planning. It is with some nervousness and apprehension that I raise a planning issue, because a Member entering into a planning issue knows that he is walking on glass. He knows that, generally, there are two sides to the matter.

In this instance, I am responding to the concerns of my constituents who live opposite Four Gun field, some of whom belong to the Four Gun field action group. I do so because they are constituents and because they feel frustrated. In a way, they feel unloved and uncared for. As their Member of Parliament, I am in some ways struggling to know how best to help and advise them.

I am conscious that my hon. Friend the Minister is also in a difficult position, and I do not expect her to be able to respond in massive detail. Indeed, this may be one of our shortest Adjournment debates.

In trying to find a resolution to the problem at the Four Gun field plant, I wonder whether my hon. Friend might be allowed to meet both with Swale borough council and the Four Gun field residents. Perhaps she could meet a small group. The implications of what might happen there over the next two or three months are extremely serious.

How would Members of this place feel if they were buying a brand new house? For a 23, 24 or 25-year old, that would be a first buy, whereas someone of 55 or in their 60s might be moving into a smaller house because they are looking to retire. Many of those who bought the 150 new homes opposite Four Gun field during 1997 to 1999 fall into those two categories.

I have met some of them, and they are either young parents or older people who wanted a home in which to enjoy their retirement. They bought those rather nice houses because they were opposite Four Gun field. It was an open field and had been in disuse, anecdotal evidence suggests, for 20 years or perhaps longer. That attracted many people, as the field was an open space that separated the urban sprawls of Rainham and Sittingbourne. If I were in their shoes I might well have made a similar decision. When their lawyers conducted searches, nothing came up on Four Gun field. They are nervous, because a house is the largest investment that anyone ever makes, about the resale value of their home, which they bought either as the first rung on the property ladder or as their retirement home.

This is a difficult problem. I shall give a little background from the information leaflet supplied by Councillors Gerry Lewin and John Wright. Four Gun field is the land between the Three Sisters and Canterbury Lane. It is located in my constituency and is within the bounds of Upchurch parish council. Historically, the leaflet says, it has been used for the storage and drying of bricks made in the brickworks on the opposite side of the road…on land now called Pear Tree Grove. In the 1980s and 90s the land, although owned by Redlands, was rarely used and was essentially open land grazed by horses and sometimes used by trial bikes. 598 Until the late 1990s, when houses were being built opposite the field, the land had no planning land use designation in any of Swale borough council's local plans. I am at a loss to explain why that was the case, but it has compounded the problem that has arisen. In the late 1990s, the land was eventually purchased from Redlands by Beckett Pension Trustees, whose local agents are Kingsley Smith & Company.

It has been difficult to get to the bottom of the problem of ownership, and I shall return to that later. The new owners of the land were granted a lawful development certificate in February 2000 for brickworks, open storage and related activities within class B2 for part of the site. That LDC was upheld in May 2001 after an appeal, registration APP/V2255/X/00/1052369. I should be grateful if the Minister would give more reasons for the upholding of that LDC, because it makes no sense to the house owners. The LDC clearly includes caveats about the site's use within class B2. I have tabled an oral question about that, and my constituents have tried to find out from the planning inspectorate what interpretation of the inspector's words was used on the LDC. However, we have been told that the file has been destroyed. That does not help my constituents, and certainly does not help their MP, better to understand how the use of the site was defined. Is that usual practice, and is there a copy of the file anywhere? My constituents believe that the landowner's agents have ignored the caveats in the LDC. They have now let the site so that a concrete crushing activity can operate permanently. I should be grateful for the Minister's opinion, and am happy to acknowledge that she may have to write to me.

Last July, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Paul Clark), on whose constituency the land borders, and I went with Mr. Skinner, an MEP, to a public meeting w it h Swale borough council. There was a consensus that we would do our very best to try to resolve what has become a difficult problem. As the Minister will understand, a concrete crusher crushing concrete for a minimum of seven to eight hours a day does not just create a din but affects air quality, impacting on people with asthma and so on. Fortunately, Swale borough council has opposed the licence on the ground of noise, but the residents are concerned that there will be an appeal against that decision. I am worried that when the appeal is heard, the agents will argue that they are using the most up-to-date and effective equipment in an effort to justify the fact that they will return to the site and operate a concrete crusher barely a hundred metres from people's front doors. My constituents are naturally concerned about that.

My constituents want to know how they can influence the decision and whether the LDC is set in stone—or perhaps concrete. They want to know, first, whether there is any chance of the decision being revisited and, secondly, who owns the land now. I have spent a considerable time trying to get to grips with that problem. I wish that I could name the trustees. My constituents are familiar with my forensic interest in ownership, as I found out who owned the Coniston hotel when there was an attempt to put an asylum centre on my patch. I have been trying to find out who owns Four Gun field. Originally, it was owned by Beckett Pension Trustees London Ltd., but it changed its name 599 on 27 August 2002 to IPM SIPP Ltd, which seems to have an interest in IPM SIPP Administration Ltd. I could show the Minister various charts that demonstrate that one of those companies is dormant. The various IPM companies may be administering self-invested personal pensions. I am not familiar with SIPPs, but I assume that IPM administers a large number of them. Those SIPPs would not be individually constituted as companies, but would be classified as trusts under the control of IPM for the benefit of the individual. There seems to be reference to individual SIPPs in some of the charges against IPM SIPP Ltd.

IPM SIPP Ltd is the same legal entity as Beckett Pension Trustees (London) Ltd, despite the name change, and is shown on the land register as the owner of Four Gun field. While companies are legal entities, trust interests are not, but any trust interest, perhaps from a SIPP administered by IPM, would probably be disclosed on the land register separately to protect the interest of any beneficial, as opposed to legal, owner. I accept that that is a complicated arrangement, but we must get to the bottom of it if we are to find out who owns Four Gun field. My constituents are worried that a deal has been stitched up—the concrete crusher will not arrive but, lo and behold, in the local plan for 2006 a deal is struck to build houses on the field because people do not want the crusher. That would be the end of the open space. If we understood the trust implications of ownership, that would help us to ask the owners to rethink their decision or approach it differently. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister would convene a meeting.

Promises were made at the public meeting last July that Andrew Bowles, the leader of Swale borough council, would hold regular meetings. If he could not do so, he would make sure that officers met the action group regularly. However, there has been some friction, and I hope that that can be rectified, as it is important that the community as a whole speak with one voice on the issue. Some of my constituents are also concerned that the person chairing the 2006 local plan is also chairman of Upchurch parish council. I think that they are wrong, but I nevertheless raise that issue on their behalf.

I wonder whether there is any way of overturning the lawful development certificate, and whether it is possible to bring the local plan policy forward to the current time, so that the ruling could be adopted in respect of the field itself.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) on securing the Adjournment debate, and on getting back to the Chamber in time; I know he had a hasty journey. My hon. Friend is a keen advocate for Swale and his constituency. He has before brought a series of constituency matters to the attention of the House, and on this occasion, too, he made a strong case on behalf of his constituents. I am interested in many of his points. As he said, complex issues are involved. I will respond as best I can this evening, and will write to him further.

My hon. Friend raised various questions relating to Four Gun field. The site was used in connection with the local brickmaking industry from Victorian times. The 600 western section was the brickmaking factory and the eastern section was used for the storage of bricks and materials. The brick factory ceased operations almost 50 years ago, but the land used for storage has continued to be used to store materials for brickmaking in the area. In 1999 the owners applied for a lawful development certificate, and because of the history of the site, that was granted by the local authority. In May 2001, following an appeal, the inspector granted a further certificate for a slightly enlarged area.

The decision on lawful development certificates depends on the evidence of past use in an individual case. This was carefully considered by Swale council and again by the inspector at public inquiry. My hon. Friend mentioned the planning appeal file. Planning appeal files are destroyed a year after the final decision, unless the decision has been challenged in the High Court. Once a decision on an appeal has been made, the Secretary of State cannot reconsider the case, nor can he or his inspector interpret the terms of the decision. That is a matter for the courts.

My hon. Friend raised some interesting issues about the nature of lawful development certificates, how they operate and the consequences where the use has changed for a considerable period in the interim. He also expressed his concerns about what happens when lawyers doing standard searches for homebuyers do not reflect the potential for lawful development certificates. I am interested in looking into those matters further and will respond to him in due course.

On my hon. Friend's point about planning permission for the use of the concrete crusher, that use falls within the category of general industrial use in Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Orders. That means that any other general industrial activity can take place on the site without the need for planning permission. In June last year, complaints were made against KKB Plant Hire because noise levels from the operation of a mobile concrete crusher were above those allowed under the provisions of the Environment Protection Act 1990.

An abatement notice was subsequently served on KKB Plant Hire, prohibiting the recurrence of noise amounting to a statutory nuisance at the site resulting from the use of crushing equipment. The operator appealed against the abatement notice, but the appeal was dismissed following a court hearing in November last year. As my hon. Friend knows, no concrete crushing has taken place on the site since 5 June, and if that activity were to resume and cause a further statutory noise nuisance to the local community, the local authority would be obliged to take enforcement action against the operator. However, if future noise levels were within the regulations, the local authority would not have the power to act, as the lawful development certificate allows KKB to use the site for general industrial purposes.

My hon. Friend raised questions about the circumstances under which particular arguments might apply in order to justify the use of the site and whether best practice could be taken into account, and, if I may, I will write to him on that point as well. He raised questions about the ownership of the land, which again I am not able to answer this evening, and again I am happy to look into that further.

601 My hon. Friend dealt with the issue of future plans for the site. Swale's emerging local plan gives special mention to the site and states that it considers it unsuitable for industrial uses that have the potential to cause nuisance to the adjoining residents. The local authority considers Four Gun field to be inappropriate for both housing and employment use and contrary to its local plan policies. Swale's emerging local plan states: In this location the Council considers that both employment and housing development is inappropriate", and that in addition, and to minimise the impact on the strategic and countryside gaps, any proposal should involve a minimum amount of built development, with the majority of the site being retained as open land, and restored to a natural state". However, the local authority, in order to secure a more acceptable future for the site, has said that it is prepared to consider alternative community or leisure uses, and has stated that any such proposal should be aimed at meeting the needs of the local community.

The process of adopting a new plan allows for objections to policies to be submitted, and for alternatives to be put forward for change of use, including housing. Both my hon. Friend and the local residents affected by the current use of this site have the opportunity to object to the emerging prospects for Four Gun field. However, it must be recognised that a change of use cannot be forced on the owners should 602 they wish to continue to use the land for general industrial activities while they have a lawful development certificate.

My hon. Friend asked whether I would meet him and some of his constituents. I am happy in principle to have such a meeting, but I will need to take advice. My hon. Friend will know that a series of restrictions applies to any cases that involve planning and to cases where future planning decisions may come to the Secretary of State for appeal of final determination. Because of the quasi-judicial role of the Secretary of State in those circumstances, it may not be possible to have such a meeting, but if it Is possible, I will happily do so. If not, I shall do my best to respond in writing to the detailed points that my hon. Friend has raised to ensure that he has some response to his concerns.

I know that this is an issue about which my hon. Friend's constituents feel strongly, and he has worked hard to raise their concerns and to resolve them. As he rightly says, in planning cases complex issues are often at stake, involving different sides of the argument and different interests. I am happy to respond to his concerns and to attempt to provide more detail than I have been able to do this evening.

Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising his constituents' concerns and standing up for their interests in the House.