COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 1 July 1991)

§ Baroness Blatch

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 37. In doing so, I shall speak also to Commons Amendments Nos. 63, 65, 66, 67, 90, 129, 150, 153 to 156, 158 to 165, 169 to 171,176, 177, 178, 185, 198, 207, 211, 212, 214, 215, 222, 225, 229, 230, 234 to 236, 258, 260, 270, 271, 285, 288 and 289.

These amendments, together with Amendments Nos. 12 and 14 to 16, apply to England, Wales and 782 Scotland. I need to remind the House that with these amendments we shall discuss Amendments Nos. 37A and 37B.

During the earlier passage of the Bill in this House the noble Lord, Lord Ross, supported by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, proposed an amendment to include "demolition" in the definition of "building operations" and so bring all demolition within planning control. In a second proposed amendment the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, argued that demolition should be regarded as development; she suggested that a way forward would be to extend to all areas the application of the special demolition consent procedures currently required in conservation areas.

The obvious concern that lay behind both proposed amendments was to prevent those examples of speculative demolition that pressured a local planning authority into granting planning permission for an out-of-character development for which planning permission should be refused. This is a concern that the Government share.

In replying to those debates at that time I said that we believed that general legislative control over demolition would be too sweeping a response to what seemed a relatively limited problem. The consultation paper had not produced systematic evidence of a general and widespread problem. A great deal could be done, however, to tackle the problem by the inclusion of appropriate policies in local and unitary development plans and by issuing new policy guidance. At the same time we wished to consider the High Court's decision in January this year in the case of Cambridge City Council v. Secretary of State for the Environment and Milton Park Investment Ltd which held that the demolition of certain semi-detached houses was development.

We listened carefully to the arguments put and the concerns expressed in those and subsequent debates on demolition. We also considered the High Court's decision in the Cambridge case. We concluded that the time was right to introduce selective controls on demolition and therefore introduced these amendments in another place.

The amendments look complicated but represent the best way forward. Subsection (1) of the new clause brings the demolition of all buildings within the meaning of "building operations" and hence within the definition of "development". The new clause also provides a direction-making power which will enable the Secretary of State to direct that the demolition of any specified type of building does not involve development. Subject to consultation that power will be used to exclude from planning control the demolition of all buildings that do not contain a dwelling house or a flat. In such cases, as I have said, there is no evidence of a need to extend planning control.

We shall then propose amendments to the Town and Country Planning General Development Order 1988 to grant permitted development rights for the demolition of houses in most circumstances. This would reflect the fact that most demolition is uncontroversial. It would be possible to control the 783 most damaging cases by, for example, making an Article 4 direction that would require a developer to submit a planning application for the demolition of a dwelling house in a particular case.

Planning authorities will be able to use such directions to prevent the demolition of houses where they see a particular risk, or in areas they regard as vulnerable to damage from speculative demolition. Demolition within conservation areas is already subject to control but there may be other circumstances where greater planning control is desirable. While it would not normally be appropriate to control the whole of a district in this way we should be prepared to look sympathetically at Article 4 directions covering particular buildings or small areas where there was a clearly demonstrable case for extending control for more than six months.

The amendments to the general development order will be subject to public consultation and we expect to issue the consultation document within a month. I cannot say at this stage exactly what those amendments will be but our aim will be to ensure that the controls are selective and to implement this measure as soon as possible. The aim will be to allow local planning authorities to control the worst excesses of demolition of dwelling houses without imposing extra demands in the large majority of cases on either developers or local planning authorities.