HC Deb 21 November 2000 vol 357 cc114-5W
Mr. Beith

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what consideration he gave to calling in the planning application made by Northumberland County Council to itself for the relocation of the Lyneburn travellers site, Lynemouth, Northumberland, to Lyneburn Cottage, Lynemouth; and what plans he has to seek the revocation of planning permission for this development. [138818]

Mr. Raynsford

The Northumberland County Council's Planning and Regulation Committee have determined an application by their Environment Directorate on 5 September 2000 for the development of an 11 pitch gypsy site at Lyneburn Cottage, Lynemouth. However, the application and local concerns about it did not come to the attention of the Government Office for the North East until shortly after that date. It was thus too late for the Secretary of State to consider whether or not to intervene by calling-in the application for his own determination.

The Government Office has since had correspondence with three local parish councils on the subject. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is in general reluctant to intervene in matters for which a local planning authority is properly responsible, unless they raise issues of more than local importance. His policy continues to be very selective about the applications he would call-in for his determination. My predecessor gave examples of such cases to the House in a written answer on 16 June 1999, Official Report, column 138W, which is now included as Annex 5 to the recent DETR Circular 5/2000.

As the right hon. Member is aware from a previous case, with which I know he is very familiar, the Secretary of State would also not wish to intervene once a local decision has been taken unless the issues raised were of national importance. An example would be where the authority's decision appeared to be grossly wrong. Although I understand some local concerns about cases where a local planning authority is determining a planning application from another part of the council, this is common practice and is subject to strict regulations and rules of propriety. From the information currently available, this case does not appear to be one in which the Secretary of State should be seeking revocation of the planning permission that the county council has granted.