§ Mr. BlizzardTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what measures his Department proposes to meet the Government's pledge to stop the loss of school playing fields. [64387]
§ Mr. CabornWe have published The Town and Country Planning (Playing Fields)(England) Direction 1998 which is one of the key measures in a co-ordinated approach between my Department, the Department of Education and Employment, and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to stop the loss of playing fields. The Direction requires local planning authorities to notify my Department of planning applications where they wish to grant planning permission, but where the English Sports Council advises against the development, because there is, or the development would result in, a deficiency in playing field provision for schools or the wider community in the area.
This Direction applies to local authority-owned playing fields and all others which are currently used, or which have been used in the past five years, by educational institutions. The effect of the Direction will be to give the Secretary of State the opportunity to decide whether to call-in a notified planning applications for his own determination, or leave the matter for the local planning authority to decide. Taken together with measures by the Department for Education and Employment to limit the sale of playing fields, these new controls will help to ensure that playing fields which schools and local communities need are not lost for ever.