Chatham Docks Basin 3 Redevelopment

Debate between Theresa Villiers and Matthew Pennycook

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Philip. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst) on securing this important debate. I know that a great many of her constituents value immensely the contribution that Chatham docks has made to Medway over many decades. I recognise that there is a general desire among them for greater clarity on the future of the site as a whole and the jobs linked to it, including, but not confined to, the 18-acre basin 3 plot that is the subject of this debate.

Constrained as I feel I am from delving into the fine detail of what is a live planning application, I will take a step back and place the debate in a wider context. As we all know, previously developed brownfield land is a finite resource and subject to competing demands when it comes to future use. The intense competition for such land in urban areas and the ever-present tension between economic and residential uses that results is precisely why a brownfield-first approach to development, which Government and Opposition agree on in principle, cannot mean a brownfield-only one, and it is why the current plot-by-plot approach to development will never be sufficient to meet total housing need across England. It is precisely because the Opposition recognise that the shortage of employment land is a growing concern that, although we are determined to improve on the Government’s lacklustre record when it comes to brownfield build-out rates, we intend to take a more strategic approach to planning in terms of both green-belt land release and planning for many more large-scale new communities, whether new towns or urban extensions, so that we are better able to sustain housing and employment growth across the country.

As things stand, the Government’s persistent failure to support local communities to accommodate housing growth strategically either by means of the development of major sites in their boundaries or through cross-boundary, strategic growth in co-operation with neighbouring authorities forces local planning authorities to wrestle with competing demands for employment and residential uses on the limited brownfield sites available to them.

[Theresa Villiers]

Many of my constituents are really worried about the statement by the Leader of the Opposition that he proposes to ignore the views of local communities in determining what gets built. Will the shadow Minister distance himself from those comments?

[Matthew Pennycook]

We certainly will not ignore the views of residents when it comes to planning proposals. However, it is fair to say—this is partly why I find the yimby/nimby debate incredibly reductive—that there is a core of people in the country who do not want development—

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that point. I did indeed write to her; it is a small number, but I have a few constituents who work at Chatham docks. As I said in opening my remarks, I very much recognise the existing concerns about the future of the sites and the jobs linked to them. To clarify what I said, I did not condemn nimbys in the debate: I said that we need to move beyond the incredibly reductive debate between yimbys and nimbys. There is a far more nuanced position out there. As I said, there are people who oppose development under any circumstances, and we are clear that we will take them on. There is a wider group of people who oppose bad development, and we must change the offer to them.

[Theresa Villiers]

May I respond to one final point?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I will give way one final time.

[Theresa Villiers]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. Does he acknowledge that the vast majority of people expressing views about development proposals accept that we need new housing, but we just need the right homes in the right places?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I take issue with the right hon. Lady on the idea—I think that phrase is used too often to obscure what I think is her real position, to be fair to her—that her local authority should be able to plan for less housing than the standard method that the target implies. We take the opposite view; we have a very legitimate difference of opinion here. We do not think that local authorities should be able to plan for under-housing need targets, and that is where the difference comes on the NPPF changes. It is not a question of whether there should be good development. Yes, we must change what the offer of development means, but it cannot be the case, as the right hon. Lady so often advocates, that no development takes place because of the characteristics of a local area or many other attributes that local authorities can now use as a result of the NPPF to come in under target. That is a clear difference of opinion between the Government and the Opposition.

I will return to the argument I was making. Like many other councils across England, Medway Council now confronts a dilemma with this brownfield site as a result of the nature of the housing and planning system over which the Government preside. First, through changes to national planning policy, Ministers have ensured that there is no effective mechanism for sub-regional strategic planning that might enable what is a relatively small unitary authority in Medway to meet housing need in a co-ordinated manner. That could have been done through a joint plan with neighbouring two-tier authorities in north Kent, as the historic south-east regional spatial strategy did with the Kent Thames Gateway.

Secondly, because central Government support has not been forthcoming, the number of viable potential sites within Medway Council’s own boundaries has narrowed. The most pertinent example is the Government’s decision to withdraw from the authority £170 million in housing infrastructure grant funding that would have facilitated the construction of 10,000 homes over 30 years on the Hoo peninsula, despite the Department seemingly not having spent £2.9 billion of the £4.2 billion allocated by the Treasury to that fund. As a result, Medway Council now must determine alone how it meets its housing targets across the sites that remain available and viable. As I said, we take the view that they must meet those targets.

The challenge I put to the right hon. Member for Rochester and Strood, leaving aside the considerations of investment required in the docks to bring it up to a viable operation in the future, is for those who take the position that it should remain a working port to identify the collection of sites across Medway that will ensure the authority can build 29,844 homes—the numbers have been slightly updated since the ones she cited were published—between now and 2040, because that is what it will take to meet housing need in that particular authority.

Medway Council proposes—quite rightly, in our view—to make that determination in a considered manner through the local plan development process. I very much welcome the fact that the present leadership of the authority have restarted the process and are working at pace to complete it. The pattern of indecision and delay that characterised the approach of previous Conservative administrations to planning and development in Medway over two decades was lamentable as, it must be said, is the Government’s record on boosting local plan coverage across England more generally. It is frankly laughable that, despite the extensive range of powers to intervene that Ministers enjoy, the Government are presiding over a local plan-led planning system in which only a third of authorities—and falling—have a plan that is less than five years old, with the number of plans published, submitted and adopted last year the lowest for a decade.

The local plan-making process in Medway is now firmly underway, and I do not think it is for Members in this place to pre-empt its outcome, but it is worth remarking that Medway Council obviously cannot prohibit Peel Waters from submitting a proposal for mixed-use development on the wider Chatham docks site as part of the local plan preparation process, in the same way that the authority cannot force that developer to make the necessary investment that might sustain the docks as a working commercial port. Just as the contents of the developing draft local plan are ultimately a decision for Medway Council itself, considering not only how to meet housing need but how other economic, social and environmental priorities can be addressed, so is the determination of the basin 3 application submitted for the present industrial state to be redeveloped for employment facilities.

As such, while I certainly appreciate that concerns exist about the employment opportunities changing on the site in question, and whether all the sitting tenants will agree to be relocated or compensated, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the application, just as I know the Minister will not be able to discuss details of the proposal, given the quasi-judicial role of the Secretary of State in the planning system.

To conclude, the case of Chatham docks reinforces our strong belief that we need to make changes to the planning system to ensure that the Government take a more strategic approach to development across the country, thereby enabling local planning authorities to better balance competing priorities regarding brownfield regeneration. It also highlights the pressing need to do more to boost local plan coverage. An up-to-date local plan is the most effective means of influencing where and how development takes place in any given authority area for both the housing and jobs that communities need.

The situation is lamentable, and many of the problems we are discussing stem from the fact that the authority has not updated its plan since 2003. Much of the uncertainty that the constituents of the right hon. Member for Rochester and Strood are feeling about the future of Chatham docks would be significantly abated had previous Medway Council administrations prepared and adopted an up-to-date local plan with a robust and viable proposal for the site—the present administration finally doing so is to be commended. It is the elected members of that authority who are best placed through engagement and consultation with the local community to take decisions on local planning matters, including in due course the basin 3 application.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Theresa Villiers and Matthew Pennycook

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow that characteristically sensible speech from the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). I put on record our thanks for their lordships’ continued engagement on the Bill and all the work they have done on it over many months. After considering an extensive number of Lords amendments to the Bill last week, just two issues remain for us to debate again. The first is remote local government meetings.

Labour remains firmly of the view that while in-person council meetings should continue to predominate, there are circumstances in which virtual or hybrid local government meetings might be either useful or necessary. We also maintain that permitting their use in certain instances would have a number of additional benefits, not least in helping to reduce barriers to public engagement in the planning process, which is a goal shared across the House. As has been previously noted, an extremely broad range of organisations support change in this area, including the Local Government Association, Lawyers in Local Government, the Association of Democratic Services Officers, the Society of Local Council Clerks and the National Association of Local Councils. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) pointed out during last week’s debate, evidence from NALC suggests that support for it among local councils is overwhelming, with 90% of town and parish councils wanting the ability to hold virtual meetings in some form to widen participation.

As we just heard, it is not just those organisations and authorities and those on the Labour Benches who support greater local discretion in this area. In last weeks’ debate, the right hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and for North Somerset (Dr Fox) and the hon. Members for Buckingham, for Waveney and for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) all expressed support for a degree of flexibility so that councils could enable remote participation in meetings in certain circumstances. No one is arguing that we should require every local government meeting to be virtual or hybrid. Doing so would clearly undermine the principle that members of the public should have suitable opportunities to interact in-person with their local representatives. Instead, the case is being made for a degree of local discretion so that such meetings would be permitted in certain circumstances.

Lords amendment 22B addresses the Government’s understandable concern that permitting councils to hold wholly virtual meetings might have unintended and adverse consequences for local democracy. The amendment would allow Ministers to determine by regulations the range of circumstances in which hybrid meetings could take place. For example, they might choose to enable parish councillors in more remote parts of a given authority area to attend meetings virtually while ensuring that most are still required to be present in person. To take another example, they might choose to allow members of the public—say, people with mobility issues or those with children—to participate actively in planning committees, while councillors would still be required to attend in person. We believe that this is a reasonable and proportionate amendment, and we will support it.

The second issue concerns the planning system’s role in mitigating and adapting to global heating. The Government’s amendment in lieu is noticeably weaker than Lords amendment 45 as it applies only to national development management policies rather than all national policy, planning policy or advice relating to the development or use of land. It also excludes precise statutory definitions of what constitutes mitigation and adaptation. Nevertheless, we welcome that the Government have made a concession on this issue by tabling their amendment.

However, while we welcome the fact that the Government’s amendment in lieu would ensure consideration of climate mitigation and adaptation in the preparation or modification of NDMPs, it would not achieve what Lords amendment 45 would: namely, to establish genuine coherence between the planning system and our country’s climate commitments, not least by requiring local planning authorities to have regard to climate when making decisions on individual planning applications. The planning system in its current form is manifestly failing to play its full part in addressing the climate emergency. Indeed, one might go so far as to argue that it is actively hindering our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change in myriad different ways.

The Bill is a missed opportunity to fully align the planning system with our climate mitigation and adaptation goals and ensure that new development produces resilient and climate-proofed places. The provisions in the Bill that require local plans to be designed in such a way as to contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change are welcome, but they are transposed from existing legislation introduced 15 years ago, and, alone, they are not sufficient. The promised related update to the national planning policy framework to ensure that it contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation as fully as possible is vital, but it will not take place until well after the Bill has received Royal Assent if it materialises at all during what remains of this Parliament.

As we have argued consistently throughout the passage of the Bill, there is a pressing need for clear and unambiguous national policy guidance on climate change, a purposeful statutory framework to align every aspect of the planning system with net zero, and an overarching duty on the Secretary of State, local planning authorities and those involved in neighbourhood plan making to achieve climate change mitigation and adaptation when preparing plans and policies or exercising their planning decision-making functions.

The Climate Change Committee recommended in its 2022 progress report that

“Net zero and climate resilience should be embedded within the planning reforms”

contained in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

As things stand, they have not been. In this week—of all weeks—when we have seen once again the impact on communities across the country of the more frequent extreme weather events that climate change is driving, we should look to improve how the planning system responds to the climate emergency. The Government amendment in lieu is welcome, but it does not go far enough. For that reason, we will support Lords amendment 45.

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

I would like to start by thanking the Minister for her involvement in the very long saga that is the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which, finally may be drawing to a close. It is good to see the areas of difference between the two Houses reduced.

I appreciate that Lords amendment 22 on councils meeting virtually is a significant issue, as it could set a precedent for other parts of the public sector. I understand the Government’s concerns and why they have resisted it up to now, but I hope there is room for further compromise and at least some flexibility to allow councils to deploy hybrid meetings. If the amendment still goes too far, I hope that Ministers can come up with something, perhaps specifically in the planning context or in at least some circumstances, to make the life of our local councillors a little easier. We must remember that they do a difficult job; they work hard and many are trying to hold down day jobs at the same time. A bit more flexibility for virtual meetings could help to enhance democratic participation.

An amendment that we did not get back from their lordships was on NDMPs. I have a certain amount of regret about that, because I continue to believe that the replacement of local development management policies with a single centralised diktat is the wrong approach. However, I welcome the fact that, thanks to the Government’s amendments in lieu, we now see in the Bill a commitment to consult on NDMPs. That was an important part of the compromise announced last December by the Secretary of State to tackle problems outlined in the amendments package headed by new clause 21, which I tabled. It resulted from concerns felt by many on the Government Benches about problems leading to massive pressure for blocks of flats in the suburbs and housing estates on greenfield and agricultural land in rural areas. Now, we need to see the remainder of that package delivered by the national planning policy framework. Once again, I encourage and urge Ministers to get that published.

We also need to see the new set of planning policy guidance—another document that will be crucial to ensuring that the reforms promised in the planning system deliver real change. Concern remains among Back Benchers about the rush for volume of units at all costs. We all accept the need for new homes and want more homes built, but they need to be the right homes in the right places. I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, strongly agree with that.

With that in mind, I can understand the rationale of Lords amendment 45 on climate change mitigation and adaptation. We need to do more to ensure that the developments that come forward for approval are consistent with our net zero goals. I am not necessarily saying that Lords amendment 45 is the right vehicle to deliver that, but if we are to make that huge transition to carbon neutrality, construction and development has an enormous part to play, and significant change needs to be delivered. I hope that the Government will make every effort to ensure that the new NPPF reflects our climate goals, in terms of both mitigation and adaptation.

In particular, as we have heard many times during the debate on the Bill, we must take care in relation to areas prone to flooding since, even if we deliver net zero on time, the climate has already changed to make such episodes more serious and more frequent. I would like to take this opportunity to put on record my great sympathy to anyone who has been affected by the floods of recent days. I hope they are back in their homes soon. I truly understand what a miserable experience it is to be subjected to these climatic episodes.

Returning lastly and briefly to the December compromise announced on Report by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), I reiterate what I have said a number of times in this House: we need the compromise to be implemented. The issues raised in new clause 21 on excessive targets have not gone away. Back-Bench concern has not gone away. We are all determined to defend our constituencies from overdevelopment. We believe it is vital to shift the focus of home building to big urban city sites like Old Oak Common, Beckton and central Manchester. The Docklands 2.0 approach outlined by the Secretary of State in his July speech and in his long-term plan for housing reflects our climate commitments by situating people close to jobs, services and public transport systems. It helps to take the pressure off suburban and rural areas, protecting green spaces and the green belt, and supports our ambitions for nature recovery. So, please, let us make sure that that change really happens.