Planning: South Somerset

Debate between Ian Liddell-Grainger and Marcus Fysh

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Fysh]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention; it would not be an Adjournment debate without a strong contribution from Northern Ireland. I agree that focusing on and intensifying development in town centres is one of the answers both to finding more housing and to getting more people living in town centres, which means they will be there for the businesses in those locations. Having more eyes on the street makes town centres safer and more people will want to visit them. He is absolutely right. I would love Yeovil to be that kind of town, and part of that virtuous circle.

Not so very long ago, the Conservative party manifesto included the idea of a community right of appeal. There is an understandable impetus not to make things too onerous for developers and to ensure that decisions can be made in a timely fashion. I support that, but it is also key that proper evidence is used to make these decisions in the right way. It is my opinion that, unfortunately, evidence in South Somerset has been cooked up for various outcomes—pre-cooked over decades to make certain things happen that, frankly, the Liberal Democrats have wanted to happen for one reason or another. The community has completely lost confidence in the Liberal Democrats’ ability to make the right decisions on its behalf.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

It is so nice to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend is making some very good points. I have been the MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset for 17 years, and I have never seen South Somerset in the mess that it is now in. The Liberals left us a terrible legacy that started with the noble Lord Ashdown and continued up until David Laws, who has now left the House. Does my hon. Friend agree that it has been a catalogue of disaster over that terrible period for south Somerset? Yeovil is a town that should be thriving—doing really well—but I am embarrassed to say, as a great supporter of my hon. Friend, who is doing a fantastic job, that it does not seem to be.

[Mr Fysh]

I thank my hon. Friend. He is certainly right that Yeovil has its challenges. Part of the problem has been sprawling development, and not particularly good development, that has been approved over the decades that I am talking about. We need to get a virtuous circle working in the other direction. The town has enormous potential and it has great industries in it. It needs a Conservative leadership in the district council next year to be able to achieve its potential and really contribute to the south-west’s growth.

I want to spend a little time going through some of the big saga that happened to the south of Yeovil. Essentially, at the back end of the ’80s, or very early in the ’90s, there was a graded asset near a farmhouse that was falling down. The district council, being responsible for such things, did not want to spend the money on it and got its friend who was a developer to buy it, in an area that was not scheduled to have development around it. Who knows what really happened, but I suspect very strongly that the council made commitments to him that they would get him planning permission and on that basis he would do the renovations to keep the building standing. That, I think, is the origin of the problem that is down there.

This area is a really, truly special part of the country with international and international heritage value. It has the village of East Coker, where T.S. Eliot is buried in the church. He wrote one of his most famous poems about the village and the landscape. There are ancient Roman ruins throughout. There are two of the closest together Roman villas, which is a very unusual archaeological configuration, apparently. Those two villas became the manors of East Coker and West Coker in later times. They have a tremendously rich and fertile soil and history.

William Dampier was born in the village. He was an extremely important person in botany, science and literature. He cut his teeth investigating why different plants grew in different parts of the Vale of Coker, which he was farm managing for various of his boss’s tenants. That is what got him thinking about why certain things grow differently in certain places. Then, when he did his second navigation of the world later in his life, he made all his drawings in his botanical notebooks and wrote about them. That was the inspiration that Charles Darwin took with him when he went around the world in the Beagle doing exactly the same thing, so there really is a very strong heritage in evidence there.

Yet the district council has never, ever ascribed any value to that whatsoever. When it did its landscape and heritage assessments of this area for development, it gave absolutely no value to the farm that was next to the graded asset or to the whole setting, including those Roman villas. There was no drawing together of the threads and the context. Frankly, that is a disgrace, because we are talking about proper national heritage. T.S. Eliot was the most famous poet of the 20th century. His words in that poem will live for as long as the English language lives. People absolutely should go and visit the church in East Coker to see where his memorial is, and to see the memorial to William Dampier. It is an extraordinary place.

The council got the developer to buy that land and said that it would give him planning permission. When the A37 was being expanded to the south of Yeovil, it then gave him a roundabout that was contiguous with the land he had bought, in order to get access to the putative development that it had in mind. That was done entirely at the behest of the county councillor for the area at the time, who is now in the House of Lords—Baroness Bakewell. She suggested that roundabout, which was going to benefit the developer to a huge financial degree, and she made it happen through her friends in the county council. The leader of the district council at the time was having an affair with the chair of the environment committee in the county council.

There are wheels within wheels in South Somerset, and this has been going on for an awfully long time. There is the evidence of the roundabout. The developer made a contribution of £100,000 to the county council to get it done under a section 278 agreement—that is in black and white. Unsurprisingly, the community was more than upset and confused at how unusual that was when it found out.

The council has continued to give favours to this developer over time. It tried initially to promote a big logistics park on the site. That did not go forward because the community opposed it, but the council then came up with the idea of developing the site for housing. When it was assessing the site in the process leading up to the more recent local plan, it decided to give a zero rating on the community infrastructure levy, so that it would not have to pay anything to the community. The whole point of the Localism Act 2011 was that development in the community would give some benefit to the community, to spend in ways that it wanted. None of that will happen if this site gets developed, because of that CIL derogation, which benefits this developer substantially.

In the planning process, the council gamed the highways evidence. It gamed the housing demand evidence, to ensure that this site would be one of those that it had to consider. It gamed the landscape evidence, and then it gamed the historic environment assessment evidence by not taking account of the settings of all the graded assets. There is a higher concentration of graded assets in that valley than almost anywhere else in the country. It is so rich and has such a history; it is quite an extraordinary place.

The district council made a statement of common ground with the developer, and it was only on that basis that English Heritage allowed it to remove its objection from the local plan process for the whole site, and that was on the basis that it was going to be a reduced size and only up in the corner. The council said that it would not develop on a field that is adjacent to one of the scheduled ancient monuments—the Roman villa, which was on the at-risk register at the time because of development potential. On the basis of that statement of common ground, the council got English Heritage to remove it from the at-risk register.

Then the council got the planning inspector to change his final report on the local plan. I have copies of the documents. His original report was basically going to say that he was approving the local plan allocation for the whole site because it was not in proximity to the scheduled monument. However, I have in writing, too, the council saying to him that the field is in fact adjacent to the monument. That was taken out, which materially changes the meaning of the report.

I personally think that this closeness between councils and the Planning Inspectorate is a structural problem that the Ministry should look into. It is not appropriate for these sorts of things to go on behind closed doors. No information was released, even under the Freedom of Information Act, until after it was judicially reviewable, which is a disgrace. It is understandable that, in this context, the process does not smell right at all and I would support the community in saying that.

The council is now trying to get its friends on the county council—because it is all about politics from way back when—to shift the school site to the very field adjacent to the scheduled ancient monument. I am very pleased to say that Historic England has just submitted an objection to the planning application, on the basis that that is absolutely not what it agreed when it released all these things, given all the reliance placed on the statement of common ground that allowed the site to come forward in the first place.

Essentially, on a policy basis, we need to look at how communities can challenge the substance of some of this stuff, other than with the normal route of politics. Everyone says, “Well, just vote people out”, but that is not realistic in a place where there is a safe seat or a safe council. In these sort of incidents, it is only on a procedural basis—if there is something wrong with the actual process—that individuals can bring a judicial review. If the council has not divulged the information about the material way in which decisions were made by the decision maker, which it did not do, and we are out of time, what do we do?

Both because it is a nationally important heritage asset and because there are public policy grounds, including the very welcome new powers to protect heritage in the national planning policy framework––we should try to elucidate and clarify some of these things––this planning application is a very good candidate for calling in. I would like it to be called in and, to put my hon. Friend the Minister in the picture, I will be making an application to do so in the coming days. I have taken more time than I promised I would, but I thank hon. Members for listening.

Somerset County Council: Unitary Status

Debate between Ian Liddell-Grainger and Marcus Fysh

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Somerset County Council’s plans for unitary status.

Thank you for calling me, Mr Hollobone. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) in his place, joining me today. This is an important subject to us, because it concerns the county of Somerset. A fortnight ago, the leader of the county council came to Westminster and threw an unexpected spanner in the works for all Somerset Members, who got no advance warning of the desperate plans to turn the whole county into a unitary. One by one, he spelled out his vision to us, and we were collectively gobsmacked—we had had no warning.

We knew that the county council was squeezed, and we understood the pressures of providing the most expensive public service with a small grant from Government. We also recognised that the writing had been on the same wall in Taunton for years. Funnily enough, it was back in 2006 that the idea of a Somerset unitary was originally conceived. I was there at that time; unfortunately my hon. Friend was not, but I believe that he was a county councillor.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

No.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

He says from a sedentary position that he was not, so that is me in the doghouse already.

The idea came from the dangerous mind of the chief executive, a tiny little man called Alan Jones—no surprises there. He was ruthless and he wanted a “lean, mean council”—his words. He went for the quick fix of getting rid of the district councils, and said the county could pocket—guess what?—£28 million. I will come back to that in a minute. Nobody ever knew quite how Jonesy arrived at £28 million, including me.

The present leader of the county council is still running with the idea 12 years later, and I am afraid that it is as wrong now as it was then. This is what rings alarm bells in my mind: Somerset County Council has never been good with money. I have looked at its books just to prove how bad it is. In 2007, it had only £11 million in the general reserve fund. Here we are, 11 years later, and it still has about £11 million—it is difficult to get a handle on it, but it is between £11 million and £18 million. That may sound like a lot in certain quarters, but it is chickenfeed when the overall budget runs into hundreds of millions. If an unexpected crisis happens—normally it does—there is nothing to fall back on, and unfortunately we have had that in Somerset. Occasionally, the place floods.

Alan Jones liked to pretend that everything was going well, but it was not then and it is not now. The county needed to borrow £376 million in 2007, so Napoleon Jones did a dodgy deal and signed his life away to IBM. He even persuaded his mates in Taunton Deane Borough Council to follow suit. Only two councils did so; the only other organisation to do so was the Avon and Somerset police force, known as the police farce. Together they created a thing called Southwest One, an overblown IT monster that it was boasted would save money faster than anyone could print it. The two councils apparently stood to gain £200 million in savings if everything went according to plan, but it never does—not in Taunton, anyway. Welcome to the south-west bubble: our proud county town—that is what it is—where backhanders are normal and nobody trusts the leaders. The two councils handed over a mass of public money to a multinational, and they wondered why it went belly-up.

If only little Jonesy had got away with creating a unitary, there would have been even more money for—guess who?—IBM. Many of us know of it. The plan was taken over by the districts, but it was doomed because the public did not buy it. When the county council refused to hold a referendum, we—me and the MPs at the time—organised it ourselves, along with the district councils who, regardless of political colour, all subscribed to it. Two hundred thousand people voted, and 84% of them said no.

By July 2007, the people had spoken and unitary Somerset was dead in the water. My hon. Friend the Minister might like to know this. He is the Member for Richmond—I helped on the by-election for his predecessor, Mr William Hague, only because I was in the Army and had a car—and North Yorkshire had also planned to become a unitary, but that plan was rejected by the Government at exactly the same time. There is historical precedent.

As for the Somerset IT monster, Southwest One had only two councils on its books, which made its own death inevitable. Then along came the international financial crisis, the credit crunch and the grim dawn of austerity, which we all remember with no great fondness. Austerity for everybody? Not in Taunton. Jones was sacked by the county in 2009, but it cost £300,000 to get rid of him. Down the road at Taunton Deane, the other IBM champion, Penny James and Shirlene Adam are still in the top jobs and, I am afraid, heading for another IT disaster. They say that donkey dung floats—we have incontinent donkeys galore in Taunton.

By 2012, Somerset Council’s borrowing was on course to hit £410 million, which means shelling out £100,000 every single day just to keep the loans going. All the while, the price of providing vital children’s services and social care was going up, and I say gently to my hon. Friend the Minister that Government grants were coming down.

There is plenty of evidence that the council cannot control what it spends and tackles big problems by taking even more ridiculous risks. The learning and disability service was outsourced, for example, which made financial sense only if the savings added up, but, just like with Southwest One, the real cost outweighed the benefit. Learning and disability burst its budget and then faced extra cuts.

There are ongoing problems in several parts of the council. A recent peer review found that only 65% of promised savings actually took place, so I am afraid the reserves are running out. They were dwindling three years ago when a budget freeze was imposed, but things have got worse. By September 2016, the cabinet talked about declaring the authority bankrupt. It did not happen then, but it is dangerously close to happening now.

I am indebted to the work of Kevin Nacey, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil knows well. He has been the head of finance at Somerset County Council for donkey’s years. He has done the accounts since 2006, but he has had enough: as the latest county calamity began, he announced an early exit. Mr Nacey is off to pastures new, and—dare I say it?—a big juicy carrot: he will soon be in charge of the books of the donkey sanctuary. Eeyore would say of all this, “How very appropriate.”

I have several direct questions for the Minister. We have to work through this; we cannot go on like this in local government. Last week, he and I had another debate on the future of Taunton and West Somerset, which—dare I say?—the Government managed to get through. I feel I was unfair in what I said at the time, but I gently say that I strongly believe that the Government are not playing fair with local government. Last week I was a little more profound, but I was more cross; this week I am more measured.

Local government does matter. The Minister’s constituency covers a vast geographical area—he has a seat bigger than mine, and I always think that Bridgwater and West Somerset is pretty large—and the problem for all of us is that the democratic deficit cannot be taken away without leaving a problem. Where unitary status has happened in very big counties, it has created enormous stresses, not least on the MPs in those areas. When councillors have to look after more and more, and deal with more and more, that deficit gets big. I ask him to pass this point on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State: please think about the future of local government. I do not wish to spend whatever time I have in this place getting up every time I can to say to Ministers, “Could you please defend local government?”

Reorganisations are never good. In 1974 the Government of the day created Avon, which my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil is aware of. They created North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset, which is now a unitary and is struggling because it is too small for a unitary. Maybe we as a county need to talk to Devon and to North Somerset.

[Mr Fysh]

My hon. Friend is making an interesting speech about the history of local government in Somerset. Does he not think, though, that to deal with the overhang of debt that the Liberal Democrats left the county with in 2009, it has been necessary to take a raft of difficult decisions? Is it not worth at least exploring ways of saving the taxpayers money? This proposal might be a solution, but like him, I would say it is imperative that we ensure no democratic deficit is created through the process.

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He was a county councillor, and so was fully aware of the situation—more so than any of us. I am delighted to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey), who I know had a pressing engagement, has made it here. He will recognise this point, because he wrote a devastatingly good article that follows on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil has said. My hon. Friend puts forward a good case that we must look at the debt, look at our options and look at our future. I will take that first point first, if I may.

My hon. Friend is right that it was the Liberals who created the debt—not the Conservatives, but the Liberals. We are now living with that legacy, but it has to be faced. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that it is our social services that are pulling us down. The problem we face is that we do not have enough money to take care of the neediest in our community.

The second point my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil makes, which I have made before and which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Wells agrees with, is that we should also look to our neighbours. My hon. Friend the Member for Wells wrote a good piece about looking toward BANES, and I mentioned looking toward Devon. We have no parameters—we could look at either of them—but we need democratic accountability. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that if we are going to go through with any form of unitary, we need to have a referendum. If we need to look to the people of BANES to split up the ghastly edifice that is Avon and get our old county back, we will do that.

When Councillor Fothergill came to the House—he was very courteous; it was a very courteous meeting—I asked him directly about a referendum. He said, “I will hold negotiations or conversations with our stakeholders.” To me and to my hon. Friends the Members for Yeovil and for Wells, the stakeholders are our constituents. They are our stakeholders, not the Avon and Somerset police farce, based in Bristol, or the ambulance service, now based in Exeter, I believe, or the fire service, based wherever the heck it has got to now. We, the people of Somerset, are the stakeholders. That is who we represent.

I would like the Minister, if possible, to say a referendum should be held. We did not hold one in West Somerset. When I had to put my views gently to the Minister last week, I said that the majority of people who took part in what can only be described as a pretty desultory consultation were against that proposal, but they were ignored. I hope that will not be the format for the future.

I say to the Minister, please do not underestimate the ability of Somerset to fight back. We have done it once, and we will do it again. The last time was the battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, which happened in my constituency, very close to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wells. We marched on London. This time we are coming by train, so we will not get it wrong, and I assure the Minister that we will do what we have to in order to overturn this decision. I therefore urge him to think constructively about a great county such as Somerset. We have had our traumas, but we have a team that is blue throughout, and we want to keep that.

Strategic Road Network: South West

Debate between Ian Liddell-Grainger and Marcus Fysh

Wednesday 19th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is quite correct to highlight such situations. His constituents suffer in the same way as those of my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil on those inadequate roads. We need a policy that covers A roads and motorways. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester has done a noble job for his constituents, and I am glad he has raised that point.

Highways England had a brief to create an alternative route to the far south-west using the A303 and the A358, even if it effectively bypassed Taunton. As my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil is aware, it would have made much more sense to upgrade the A303 and carry on over the Blackdown hills with improvements to the A30. Devon County Council wanted that option, and my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who unfortunately cannot be in his place today, argued for it. It would be a much shorter route, and cheaper too.

The most cost-effective solution is just to improve the M5 and widen it. It would save a fortune—problem solved. That would be it sorted. The trouble is that Highways England did not get the choice. It was lumbered with the A303 and A358, and it came up with a series of wildly expensive plans. Surprise, surprise, it picked the cheapest option, although it makes no strategic sense whatever. The result has been a storm of protest. Highways England has totally cheesed off Somerset County Council, which thinks the plan nuts. Highways England stupidly cancelled the public consultation meetings during the May general election campaign. Why? It has made so many blunders that the Campaign to Protect Rural England is threatening to take it to court for a judicial review—ridiculous.

Worst of all, Highways England will be using something called a development consent order to secure the right to build the road. It does not matter how many people protest or what the local council says, because development consent orders were designed to put time limits on all objections. Basically, unless the Secretary of State intervenes, a development consent order can be a legal bulldozer. I should add that the long list of objectors to the proposal includes Taunton Deane Council, bizarrely, which desperately wants a new road but would much prefer a link with one of its plum building projects called Nexus 25.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the key issues with the A358 is that we must ensure that we have a north-south link between our parts of Somerset, which would enable the Somerset economy to grow to its full potential?

[Mr Liddell-Grainger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has been a champion for the A303 and A358 since he stood as a candidate. He has done a remarkable job in ensuring that the Government are fully aware of the feelings of the people of Yeovil. Yeovil and Bridgwater are the only two industrial towns in Somerset. This issue matters enormously given that the railway station for Yeovil is outside the town, so we have double strategic problems.

Nexus is a rosy apple in the eye of Tumbleweed Town’s Wyatt Earp, Councillor John Williams. Quick on the draw as he is, Wyatt Twerp intends to make sure it happens. Anyone who objects could end up on Boot Hill with an overdose of lead poisoning. Nexus is a plan for a giant business park on green fields next to junction 25, off the M5. Wyatt Twerp’s builder pals from Summerfield bought the plot cheap a few years ago. Taunton Deane now intends to use a local development order to force it through. Local development orders were designed for one purpose: to enable the development of brownfield sites, but Nexus is greenfield, and Wyatt Twerp is on the fiddle again with legal trickery to stifle objections. Local development orders, like development consent orders, make a mockery of consultation, but in lawless Tumbleweed Town that’s the way they do things. Wyatt Twerp wants to win, which is why he complained so strongly about the plans of Sir Tim Smit, the architect of the world-famous Eden Project, which we have all been to and know so well. Sir Tim Smit wants to build an extensive complex at junction 27 on the M5. It is a well-engineered proposal from a team with excellent form. Sir Tim Smit understands consultation. He actually attends all public meetings in person, which is impressive.

Wyatt Twerp sees any rival development, even in neighbouring counties, as a dreadful threat. Right now, he is getting his posse together to ride out and lynch the man—bizarre, I know. Imagine: Sir Tim Smit’s plans might lure people away from the invisible attractions of Tumbleweed Town.

My hon. Friend the Minister will be aware of another crazy caper dreamed up by Wyatt Twerp to merge West Somerset Council, which is in my constituency, with Taunton Deane. That could result in a new authority, no doubt to be called Greater Tumbleweed. West Somerset would end up without a single local office, and with no staff and few elected councillors. Wyatt Twerp organised a consultation process, which, as hon. Members would expect, was shallow, shabby, inaccurate and so badly drafted that few people took part. It was not worth the paper it was written on.

Once again, Wyatt Twerp is on the fiddle. His bid to merge has been submitted to the Secretary of State using a piece of law that gets around the need to consult anybody. Needless to say, my constituents are crying foul play. When they finally rumble his bent regime and boot him out, he would be very well qualified—dare I say it to the Minister?—to join Highways England as a consultant.

That brings me back to the A358 and the road that Highways England wants to build with no links to Nexus 25. I have a suspicious mind. I have already discovered that Summerfield Developments has bought another large plot of agricultural land, which happens to be remarkably close to all of Highways England’s route options for the A358. At present, Summerfield would not get permission to erect a garden shed on it, but if the A358 becomes a dual carriageway, nearby land will become ripe for new homes and Summerfield will be quids in. I wonder how much more land it has an option on already. I wonder which well-known land agents are scouting on its behalf, and who else has invested in that beautiful green-belt corner of Somerset.

Perhaps Wyatt Twerp himself will come clean and tell us why he bought a 30-acre plot close to Stoke St Mary parish church all those years ago. He might claim that it was because of his love of rural scenery or his abiding affection for the great crested newt, which we have all come across. Perhaps it was because of his desire to safeguard a precious plot for posterity. Or was it an early bid for a garden town—“Williamsville”, for instance, which is a great name—which my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil has championed? We know that there are fairies at the bottom of his garden and pink pigs flying above them, but the leader of Taunton Deane Council is a greedy builder at heart, and he must have known that 300 houses would fit on 30 acres. Wyatt Twerp bagged a bargain when he bought that land.

The point is this: if the A358 is turned into a highway, there will be huge building opportunities. Highways England understands Wyatt Twerp’s ambitions. Taunton Deane Council has been involved in secret talks with Highways England for months, but it took a freedom of information request from a gentleman called Dave Orr, who is not one of my constituents, to prove it. Two weeks ago, he obtained a memo from Highways England’s global consultants. Those experts recognised Taunton Deane’s extraordinary plan to build 17,000 houses and advised that 3,460 could be built on the land near the motorway junction. As far as I can make out, Mr Orr is a fair man. He decided to alert officers of Taunton Deane Council and Somerset County Council in case they had not seen the document. Nobody reacted, so Mr Orr called the press. It was a story—it was all true—but Wyatt Twerp went bananas and ordered his deputies to threaten the local paper for publishing “fake news”. Wyatt had a nasty attack of the Trumps.

That is a revealing episode in a very sad saga. I believe that this is the wrong strategic route for the south-west. We now know for certain that any road developments around this green part of Taunton will bring extra houses by the thousand, which will affect my hon. Friends the Members for Wells and for Yeovil. No wonder so many people are angry. No wonder there is growing distrust of the system and growing contempt for the local politicians—my hon. Friends excluded—who have conspired to allow this to happen. On that point, I rest my case.