HC Deb 14 July 2004 vol 423 cc487-94WH

4 pm

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

I am extremely grateful to have been granted this debate on the Kent science part and its owners, LaSalle Investment Management, the pension fund for Mars UK Ltd.

I am a big fan of science and technology. I was a fellow of the Industry and Parliament Trust, working with Motorola. I spent 18 months looking into satellite technology, both here and in America, and I am due to visit Motorola in Chicago shortly. I was the only MP on the BT Vital Vision programme at Berkeley and Stanford, which looked into change management in systems, and I am one of the founders of the Oxford Internet Institute, with which I have helped to raise £15 million. So, I am a fan of science and technology; I want it, I like it and I think it is a great change.

I am worried about Kent science park on every single level, which is why I am raising the issue with the Minister. Almost a year ago, on 21 July 2003, Swale borough council's economic scrutiny panel minutes read:

In relation to the feasibility of the Southern Relief Road, the Chief Executive explained that Sittingbourne Research Centre … had been identified as an Enterprise Hub And had great potential to benefit the local economy. As a result, a submission had been made to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister … for funding for a feasibility study to be carried out on the implications of a proposed junction from the M2, which could serve the site and east and south Sittingbourne. From the fact that the chief executive of Swale borough council commented at that early stage, it follows that the chief executive, the leader of the council—Andrew Bowles—and the Conservative executive must have been in confidential talks for a considerable time with the South East England Development Agency, the Government office for the south-east, possibly the Thames gateway and the owners of the research centre.

As an aside, I would say that the local government reforms that we introduced at the end of the 1990s have not worked; they have led to greater secrecy and much less democracy.

First, I would like to ask the Minister when he first became aware of the plans for a southern ring road. LaSalle Investment Management bought Kent science park, or Sittingbourne research centre—Shell research centre, as it used to be called. The last thing Kent science park is is a science park.

Earlier this year, the Deputy Prime Minister had a photograph taken and made a statement at a trade fair in France. What he said has been widely interpreted by my constituents and the local media as meaning that the Government are 100 per cent. behind the plans. I hope that the Minister puts the record straight.

Science parks in the United Kingdom are inevitably attached to a university. Consider the evidence. On 27 April 2001, it was announced that Leeds university was to build a 110-hectare science park. On 18 May 2001, it was announced that Leicester university was to build a science park next to the National Space Centre. On 28 June 2001, it was announced that Bristol and Bath universities were to join forces to create an innovation centre for technology start-up businesses. On 14 February 2003, it was announced that Liverpool university and Liverpool John Moores university were to provide a science park paid for by the local regional development agency. On 1 August 2002, it was announced that London was to launch a centre for bioscience, and on 3 January 2004 that Nottingham university and Nottingham Trent university were to open the largest biomedical science park and incubation centre in the United Kingdom. Before then, there was a much older science park tradition with science parks at Surrey—the first—Cambridge and Oxford.

The Kent science park is only 80 per cent. occupied. That 80 per cent. is sub-divided 50:50 between concerns that involve science and those that do not. It is now clear from LaSalle's objections to the draft Swale borough council local plan that it already knows that a second park on greenfield land would not necessarily be driven exclusively by science. In effect, it wants an open-ended business park that may or may not involve any world-class science companies. That is not surprising.

I asked the UK Science Park Association how many parks have been built since 2000 that are not attached to a university. It confirmed in an e-mail that there is only one—the Colworth science park at Sharnbrook in Bedfordshire—but that happens to be owned by Unilever. That is rather like the Shell research centre that used to be in Sittingbourne. We have in Sittingbourne no university and no further education college, and there are no plans for either. Therefore, I suspect that a science park that is not a science park, and that will not be connected to the needs of local people, will fail. Can the Minister confirm that, on the existing Kent science park, there is still substantial room to refit the buildings or build new ones and that, therefore, a second park is not necessarily required? Is he aware that in 1992, when the park was known as the Shell research centre, more than 1,200 people worked there, whereas today some 800 do?

Is access a problem? I confess that I have not received a single letter about that from either a constituent who lives on the route to the park or a single company on the park. A constituent has provided me with the following notes about objections to the Kent and Medway structure plan. The first is KMSP deposit consultation—policy NK3, dated 10 November 2003:

Name: Mr. Brian Lloyd (on behalf of Swale borough council). Consultee comment: Amend (e) to read 'expansion of the Sittingbourne Research Centre as a mixed science cluster supported by the provision of a southern Sittingbourne Relief Road linking the A2 to a new junction on the M2 motorway'. The second is KMSP deposit consultation—policy FP4, dated 10 November 2003: Name: Mr. Brian Lloyd. Consultee comment: Reference to Sittingbourne Research Centre to read 'Sittingbourne Research Centre, supported by the provision of a southern Sittingbourne Relief Road linking the A2 to a new junction on the M2 motorway'. My problem, on which I hope the Minister can shed some light, is this: how could Swale borough council put a request in November 2003 to the Kent and Medway structure plan that it wanted a significant change to the planning when it was, at the same time, launching a draft local plan over which it would be both judge and jury? That does not strike me as fair or democratic. It seems that the authority owns all the rights and its citizens have none.

Why is Swale borough council so keen to have a southern ring road when we are still struggling over the northern distributor road, which opened only earlier this year? Indeed, if funding for crossing the creek at Milton is not found, and the additional exit at Bapchild on to the A2 remains incomplete, there is a danger—as another constituent put it to me at the weekend—of the northern distributor road becoming the biggest cul-de-sac in Kent. I hope the Minister will allay those fears.

I understand that research commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on a traffic model shows that the northern distributor road will take 20 per cent. of through traffic away from Sittingbourne centre. That seems remarkably low. Why put upwards of £25 million into the northern distributor road if it is going to take away only 20 per cent. of through traffic? I am speculating, but I hope that the Minister says when the survey will be put in the public domain. I have to ask him whether the Thames gateway should have produced the model before agreeing the funding. Will he comment on that? Swale borough council has also introduced traffic calming at Bapchild and Tunstall, so I hope that has been factored into the modelling.

A new access road from the motorway would attract new companies to the Kent science park—either now or in future, if the extension is granted—and make it easier for employees to get to work. The cost of a single extension would be approximately £10 million. However, that would do nothing for my constituents, as none of the high-skill jobs would be filled by them. A new exit would have the unintended consequence of opening the south side of the motorway on to the spectacularly beautiful north weald of Kent. I think that various agencies would have serious objections to that idea. The Highways Agency is opposed to a new exit, as indicated in an e-mail dated 6 April 2004. Can the Minister confirm that it is for Kent county council to make the case for a new exit and for the ODPM to say yes or no?

The owners of the new Kent science park need to persuade my local borough council to allow them to build a second park with associated housing, which will help to pay for the extension. That will provide a new southern ring road. The council wants to exchange a science park that will not be a science park for some 5,000 to 6,500 brand new high-density houses on greenfield sites. Hon. Members might expect me to complain about that. However, I have been the local MP since 1997, and I have to say that the Labour Government have been incredibly generous to my community. We have had a £100 million bridge and a new hospital in Minster. Wards have been opened in a hospital built by a previous Conservative Administration, who could not afford to open them. We have had Sure Start in Sheerness, which is sensational; extensions to schools; computer suites; and the promise of a new Rushenden link road. We stopped an asylum centre at Coniston, and just recently the Allied Steel and Wire Sheerness occupational pensions campaign led to the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions giving us £400 million for failed pensions. Dare I say it—we have never had such Government investment and it has been worth waiting 18 years for it.

I will stop there because, in a sense, what happened next causes more concern. The ODPM has asked the south-east to build more homes; everyone recognises that it is the engine that is driving growth for the whole United Kingdom. Of course, we must build the roads. However, according to the draft Swale borough council plan, 9,000 new homes are to be anticipated between 2006 and 2016. That figure is approximate depending on whether we are talking about 2.4 people per house or 2.8. Whichever statistic is used, there will be somewhere between 22,000 and 30,000 extra people, who will all need doctors, schools, policing, water, electricity and other essential infrastructure. At every level, that will strain the community that I represent. The good thing is that 90 per cent. of the build will be on brownfield sites.

The southern ring road affects five parishes: Bredgar, Tunstall, Rodmersham, Milstead and Bapchild. I went to a meeting last week and I have to say that people there have lost complete faith in the local democratic process. They are having to raise their own funds to pay for their own representation. I have told them that, later in the year under information legislation, I will request telephone logs, e-mails and correspondence between the Conservative executive, its officers, LaSalle and the landowners, where applicable.

LaSalle hopes that the executive at Swale borough council will fall for a new science park that is only a glorified business park. It wants a new southern ring road paid for by a section 106 order, which will increase the number of people involved by between 12,000 and 18,000, on top of the 22,000 to 30,000. In other words, over the next 10 years we would be asked to cater for perhaps 34,000 people, but possibly as many as 48,000. That is absurd and it flies in the face of what Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, the leader of Kent county council, said in a letter to me: In my view, a development of anything like 6,000 homes would be totally unacceptable. Kent science park will not create new jobs for my constituents and it will not attract a university or further education college. It will make us a vast dormitory town and make two landowners very rich.

In relation to Monday's three-year spending review announcement, I draw the Minister's attention to the publication on the science and innovation investment framework—sponsored by the Treasury, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department for Education and Skills—of the document relating to 2004 to 2014. Among many excellent things, it draws attention to the fact i that the Government announced that it will build the Higher Education Innovation Fund as a permanent third stream of funding for universities in England to further build the capacity in the university sector for knowledge transfer. It continues:

The Government will develop this policy as part of its ten-year investment framework for science and innovation. Nowhere in the document is there anything about individual science parks that are commercial entities and not attached to universities. If we could have a university, I would rethink the whole issue.

This is what I want for my community: Sure Start for Eastchurch, Rushenden, Milton and Murston; improvements in relation to primary schools; one system of secondary schools, especially on the Isle of Sheppey; a further education college; and a sixth-form college or academy. I would love a postgraduate university department. I would like to bed down the northern distributor road before we start on a southern distributor road, and I would like a bypass for Newington and work to start on the Rushenden link road. I would like more job opportunities on the island and greater sporting and cultural entities. None of those things will happen if the Kent science park is built.

If we, the Labour Government practise what we preach, let the Learning and Skills Council propose a plan to build a further education college for Sittingbourne. Let the Department for Education and Skills give university status to Imperial college and ask it to merge with Kent university at Canterbury. Let the new world-class university open a graduate science department on the Kent science site. Let us move the 40 per cent. of people on the existing site who have no science base to space on the Eurolink estate in Sittingbourne. That is a win-win-win situation. That is what we need now, not this seriously flawed plan from a pension fund representing Mars UK Ltd. that wants to rape our countryside for its own ends.

4.15 pm
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Keith Hill)

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Mr. Wyatt) on securing the debate. He is well known as a keen advocate of his constituency and for bringing constituency issues to the attention of the House.

Before I address the matter that my hon. Friend has so eloquently put before us, I remind the House of my Department's commitment to Swale. As part of the Thames gateway growth area, Swale submitted bids for funding from the sustainable communities plan. In July 2003, the Deputy Prime Minister announced that four projects would receive funding in the next three years. Those projects included: £10.4 million to the Sittingbourne northern relief road to support mixed-use development to the north of Sittingbourne; £3.6 million for improvements to Sittingbourne town centre; and £7 million for a mixed-use redevelopment scheme in Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey. In addition, a number of education, environmental and community regeneration schemes approved for north Kent will directly benefit the residents of Swale.

Also included in the package was a £1.3 million grant for the Kent science park, formerly known as the Sittingbourne research centre. The science park houses 80 businesses, providing 1,000 jobs with a focus on life sciences. It has been designated by the South East England Development Agency as one of a network of enterprise hubs across the south-east. As an enterprise hub, the site provides units for small science-based businesses to start up. That has been successful and £1 million from my Department is going towards a project to renovate a building on the science park to provide space for those businesses to expand when they outgrow the innovation buildings.

Both Kent county council and Swale borough council support the expansion of the site as a science park. Policies encouraging the further development of the site as an innovation hub are included ill both the draft Kent and Medway structure plan and the draft Swale borough local plan. However, it is recognised that any major expansion of the site will raise a number of planning issues, not least that of providing better road access. For that reason, the Government have approved a grant of £300,000 for a feasibility study into the possible provision of a new junction on the M2, as well as other options. The study is nearing completion. Any major changes to the highway network would take several years to complete. As Swale borough council does not want to stifle the further development of science-based industries on the site, a policy has been included in the draft local plan allowing limited expansion if measures are taken to minimise the generation of extra traffic on existing roads.

My hon. Friend wrote to me earlier this year about his concerns regarding the future expansion of the Kent science park. He emphasised the need for a strong link between the science park and research-based universities and expressed his view that the feasibility study on access should be put back until the Sittingbourne northern relief road had been completed. In my reply, I stated that, due to the long run-in times for delivering new roads, to wait for the new northern relief road to be completed before carrying out the study might leave developing the site too late to support the regeneration of Sittingbourne as a whole. The feasibility study will, at this time, inform not only the future development of the science park, but take into account the other redevelopment works in Sittingbourne. To delay the study would therefore be counter-productive and leave a large part of the regeneration of Sittingbourne uncertain.

The reasons for the absence of a research-based university in the Kent science park are largely historical. The science park has been developed during the last 10 years on the site of the former Shell research facility and is one of the few privately owned science parks in the country. One of the purposes of the enterprise hub is to strengthen links with academic establishments. Many links have been developed between firms on the site and the universities of Greenwich, Kent at Canterbury and London. For example, one firm is developing a shared lab facility with the university of Kent, and an employees training unit to be launched later this month will involve the Kent new technology institute.

The Kent science park was identified as the location for one of a small number of flagship centres for technology and business development in work undertaken for the Thames gateway innovation subgroup. The consultants identified as a prerequisite for a viable flagship the need to secure a suitable anchor member. The businesses on the science park are a good nucleus on which to build. The site represents the largest single concentration of laboratories to let in the UK, with buildings suitable for biological and chemical sciences, pilot-scale production and clean and constant temperature activities. Existing tenants include major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, of which Pfizer is one, as well as technology-based business in environmental technology, electronics diagnostics instrumentation and information technology. I understand my hon. Friend's concern about the present make-up of the park, but I understand that the trend is towards mixed business parks. Good office accommodation as well as on-site conference facilities will also be required.

My hon. Friend also raised the issue of housing on the site. Under Highways Agency rules, a new motorway junction cannot serve a single site but must link into the wider highway network. For that reason, the feasibility study will also examine a link between the M2 and the A2. Clearly, such a road could open up land to the south of Sittingbourne and raise the possibility of land being released in future to help to meet Swale's housing needs. Furthermore, the sustainable communities plan supports developments where mixed use would contribute to reducing commuter and business travel, thus easing congestion. That is of particular relevance on the A2 and M2, which are not only the main trunk roads between Sittingbourne and its neighbours, but major links between the ports of Dover and Folkestone and the rest of the UK. My hon. Friend asked when the Government first became aware of the southern link road plans. The answer is: when a bid for sustainable communities fund money was made in 2003 by the Thames gateway Kent partnership.

The site owner recently proposed a scheme for a major expansion of the site, including 72 hectares of employment land and 150 hectares of housing and community facilities, together with the provision of the M2-A2 link. That would entail the development of some 5,000 houses, which the site owner believes are necessary to fund the whole package. I emphasise that that figure has not emerged from the feasibility study and has not yet been subjected to any testing through the planning system. Such a major proposal raises wider issues relating to the long-term housing and employment needs of the area, and it will need to be fully debated at the public examination of the draft Kent and Medway structure plan in September. By then, the feasibility study on the road access will have been completed. It will indicate the practicability of a new junction and link road, and the cost that would be involved. The funding mechanism for the infrastructure will have to be considered carefully before any further proposals for the science park or new housing in that part of Sittingbourne can be properly evaluated.

I emphasise that the Government have made no decisions about the expansion of the science park, the proposed link road or the housing. The public examination will be the first stage of evaluating the proposal. It might lead to proposals being advanced in the Swale local plan, which will go to public inquiry next year. I emphasise that there will be full opportunities for public consultation before any decisions are made. The House will understand that I cannot pre-empt the results of the public examination or the local planning inquiry. The aim must be to encourage the development of the science park as a centre for innovation and high-quality employment in a sustainable way that brings the maximum benefit to the area as a whole.

Complex issues are involved and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting them in this debate. It goes without saying that I sympathise with his vision for improving education in his constituency. However, he and the House will understand that such matters fall outside my responsibilities as Minister for Housing and Planning.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly, at twenty-three minutes past Four o'clock.