National Planning Policy Framework

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jason McCartney]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right— I know a lot about this, and sat through a whole day of the planning committee’s considerations. I spoke against the proposal. The committee came up with highways figures but, as a number of local residents rightly pointed out, those figures were out of date and they did not apply to peak times in the morning and evening. I attended the committee for many hours, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue, as he has helped to make a good point.

Concerned local people have read and heard about the draft NPPF with deep suspicion. While the aim of simplifying 1,000-plus pages to little more than 50 is laudable, residents in the beautiful countryside of the Colne and Holme valleys, as well as Lindley, fear the phrase,

“presumption in favour of sustainable development”.

Local people have interpreted that as a developers charter for more unwanted developments on their rapidly reducing countryside. There is confusion, too, about what sustainable development actually is, and there is a need for a clear definition, as we have heard in our debate.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I want to expand on the point that my hon. Friend made about residents’ fears. A planning appeal is under way in my constituency in which the developers are using the phrasing of the NPPF to try to push through, and argue for, wind turbines. We therefore need clarity on what is meant by sustainable development.

[Jason McCartney]

My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner on the issue of wind turbines in his constituency, and I know that he will continue to campaign. That was an excellent point.

I shall return to housing, which is the big issue in my constituency. The draft NPPF aims to give local people a real say via their local plan. As I have said, people in my patch have to suffer a Labour-run Kirklees council hellbent on development, whatever the cost to our countryside and environment. All of this suspicion, fear and rumour has led to numerous community groups getting together to have their say on the flawed local development framework and the NPPF. I have fully engaged with those groups, especially the Kirklees community action network. I have spoken at meetings in Slaithwaite and my home village of Honley, and will be doing so in Meltham in a fortnight.

Like many hon. Members, I have received numerous e-mails and letters and, as I said, I have met local action groups, which have copied me into their submissions to the consultation. They have spent many hours on their consultations, and they have made some excellent points, some of which I shall summarise. I urge Ministers to take note of them. First, we should change the main presumption statement to read: “presumption in favour of sustainable development on brownfield sites or those of lesser environmental impact.” Basically, we should adopt a brownfield-first policy.

Secondly—and Opposition Members will not like this—we should stop councils using the old top-down housing targets. I appreciate that the Government have tried to do so through the courts—they have been frustrated—but we should get this in the NPPF, because the problem, as I said, is that my Labour-run local council is sticking with the regional spatial strategy target of 28,000 homes even though no one has any idea where it got that figure from.

Thirdly, Kirklees council has more than 11,000 empty homes. It is madness to keep building on green fields when we have those empty homes. We should try to get as many of them back into use as possible, and there should be more mention of that in the NPPF.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt]

We were so happy when the former Secretary of State, the former Member for Suffolk Coastal, John Gummer, saw the light. I agreed not only with his “town centre first” plans, but with his plans for the regeneration of major stately home building, although that does not make me popular on the Labour Benches. Now, however, the “brownfield first” plan is gone; planning permission is to be granted where the plan is absent, silent, indeterminate or where relevant policies are out of date. That means developers can build where and when they like. What makes the English landscape so special—that rural/urban divide and the post-war planning settlement—threatens to be undermined. It is threatened because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central said, there is no economic growth. The Government’s growth strategy has collapsed, and they think that ripping up the planning process will solve the problem.

[Andrew Percy]

I spent 10 years as a city councillor under the previous Government’s planning system, and I am afraid that I do not recognise the nirvana that the hon. Gentleman is painting. Instead, we had central Government diktat telling us what to do and where to do it, deciding that communities that wanted to grow could not grow and making us put housing where local people did not want it. That was the reality under the previous Government’s planning policy.

[Tristram Hunt]

I know that Government Members do not believe in fact-based discussion, but the reality is that under the previous Government’s planning policy, we saw an increase in house building, increasing densification and growing numbers in Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Bristol—I do not know about the great urban centre of Tunbridge Wells, but perhaps there was an increase there as well. Weak planning does not deliver strong economic growth.

--- Later in debate ---

[Martin Vickers]

I entirely agree, but none of the measures for which I am arguing would take power away from local people. I spent most of my quarter of a century as a councillor bemoaning the fact that central Government were telling us to do this, that and the other, and not allowing us to note what local people were saying. I believe that the system that is evolving will feature widespread consultation from the bottom up, and—I hope—the making of final decisions by elected and accountable local authorities rather than distant planning inspectors. The more we are able to ensure that decisions are made locally, the more communities will be shaped in a manner of which local people approve.

On the importance of maintaining the vitality of town centres, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), shopping habits have changed and continue to change. It is a fact, regrettable in many ways, that we shall need fewer shop units in the coming years. Let me give an example from my constituency. The entrance to Cleethorpes, that beautiful seaside resort on the east coast, is to some extent blighted by a drive through an area containing parade after parade of shops, many of which are empty. Many others serve local needs, but the fact remains that we need fewer of them, and we certainly need policies that will allow those areas to regenerate themselves. I was pleased to note that the NPPF mentioned the need to remove “barriers to investment”. That is one of the key developments that I hope will result from the implementation of the Government’s plans.

Reference has been made to the need to speed up the system. Local plans and development frameworks take an age to proceed from A to Z. Reference has also been made to consultation. Yes, we need consultation, because we need that bottom-up feedback from local people, but we must recognise that plans need to be determined quickly. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who represents a neighbouring constituency, I have spent much time over the past year trying to overcome the barriers to a major development in our area, caused partly by the fact that the overall process does not recognise the commercial pressures on potential investors to meet needs in the face of competing areas and, in some instances, competing countries. Speed is also essential for those who oppose developments. A week or so ago we debated High Speed 2 and the possibility that areas could be blighted for many years while waiting for decisions to be taken. Both sides need urgency, therefore.

The transition period is a concern, and I hope the Minister will spell out how areas without local plans in place will be dealt with. Many Members have also asked about the definition of sustainable. It is one of those warm and cuddly words that we are all supposed to hug to ourselves, because none of us wants our local papers to report that we support unsustainable development or want an unsustainable economy. We do need a proper definition of sustainable, however, and I ask the Minister to supply one.

[Andrew Percy]

We should pay tribute to those councillors who are leading on sustainability and community-led plans. As my hon. Friend knows, in our area, North Lincolnshire council—the only council to pass from Labour control to Tory control in May—has already established proper mechanisms to get communities up and running and to get community plans written up so we have them in place for when this transition happens. We should pay tribute to our hard-working councillors.

[Martin Vickers]

My hon. Friend, who is rapidly becoming the intervener-in-chief on the Government Benches, makes a welcome contribution to the debate, and I heartily support what he says, of course.

Despite the few caveats I have mentioned, I wholeheartedly support what the Government are doing, and the sooner they get on with it, the better.