Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to promote the refurbishment of empty and vacant homes.
Answered by Lord Sharma
The number of empty homes in England is at its lowest since records began in 2004. In May 2010 over 300,000 homes in England had been standing empty for longer than 6 months. As of October 2016 the number of long-term empty properties had fallen to 200,145. Local authorities have powers and strong incentives to tackle empty homes.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent meetings he has had with (a) local authority leaders and (b) charity and voluntary sector representatives to discuss homelessness.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Ministers in my department visit a variety of projects, and meet with representatives of local authorities, voluntary and charity sector organisations, policy experts and other partners on a regular basis to discuss a range of issues including homelessness.
The Government publishes a list of all ministerial meetings with external bodies on departmental business on a quarterly basis. This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dclg-ministerial-data
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent representations he has received on the (a) size and (b) condition of the homeless population.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The department publishes regular statistics on rough sleeping, statutory homelessness and homelessness prevention and relief. The latest statistics can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/homelessness-statistics.
Homelessness charities regularly publish research and information on the homeless population. Ministers in the department visit a variety of projects and regularly meet with key partners to discuss homelessness issues.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what funding streams are available to communities that require remediation of contaminated land.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Funding for local authorities to fulfil their duties to identify and remediate contaminated land is provided through the local government finance settlement. The provisional settlement was announced on 15 December; this is the second year of a four year settlement where local authority core spending power is set to increase from £44.5 billion in 2015-16 to £44.7 billion in 2019-20.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to incentivise housebuilders to develop brownfield sites.
Answered by Lord Barwell
This Government has intensified its drive to increase the take-up of brownfield sites for development, especially new homes. National policy and guidance expect local authorities to prioritise brownfield land for development wherever practicable, and adopt Local Plan policies that support this effort. We want 90 per cent of suitable brownfield sites to have permissions for new homes in place by 2020. As well as accelerating disposal of public sector brownfield for new homes and widening the scope of permitted development to help bring thousands of redundant buildings into residential use, we recently launched our £3 billion Home Building Fund. This will provide loans for smaller building firms, custom builders, offsite construction and essential infrastructure, and help to make more land, much of it brownfield, available for new homes. An additional £1.2 billion will enable starter homes to be created on brownfield land. Housebuilders will be better informed about suitable sites by the new Brownfield Registers, and Permission in principle will give them certainty and greater confidence that their housing schemes can go ahead.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his policy is on removing from local authorities powers to veto planning applications for fracking.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
Mineral planning authorities have a responsibility to consider planning applications for shale gas exploration under the Town and Country Planning regime. Planning law requires that applications for planning permission must be determined in accordance with the development plan for the local authority area, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The Government has taken steps to ensure this locally led regime is effective, as set out in Written Ministerial Statements of 16 September, HCWS201 and HCWS202. This includes making available £1.2 million to ensure mineral planning authorities have adequate resource to reach timely decisions.
Community involvement in planning applications and people’s safety and the environment will remain paramount. No decision has been made to take shale gas exploration out of this local authority led process.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the average expenditure was per head of local authorities in (a) Bolton and (b) Greater Manchester in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The average revenue expenditure per head for the financial year 2014-15, the latest available, was £1,675.33 per person for Bolton Council and the average for all local authorities in Greater Manchester was £1,896.10 per person.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the length of time that vacant shops in town centres remain empty.
Answered by Marcus Jones
The Government has taken significant steps to tackle the blight of vacant shops. An important step has been to offer a temporary 50% discount to new occupants of shops that have been vacant for a year or more, thereby incentivising enterprising individuals to try out new business ideas on the high street.
We have also relaxed planning rules to support entrepreneurship so, for instance, we have worked with local authorities to promote using shops for short-term “meanwhile use”, or as pop-up shops. This means that owners can take advantage of a temporary change of use to make their underused or empty premises available for businesses looking for an opportunity to try out new ideas, while ensuring vacant premises are occupied and contributing to the wider health of the high street.
The Government has also taken steps to make planning use classes more flexible to allow local authorities and businesses to better respond to the needs of their communities. For instance this has allowed certain retail spaces to be converted to residential units, providing much needed homes.
We have also championed the innovative use of vacant shops through the Great British High Street Competition. A number of the entrants set out the innovative ways that they are tackling empty shops on the high streets and we have promoted their examples on the Great British High Street Portal and through documents such as Celebrating the Great British High Street.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much was spent by local authorities in the North West on sports and leisure in each of the last five financial years.
Answered by Marcus Jones
Figures for net current expenditure on Recreation and Sport by local authorities are published online in the Revenue Outturn Cultural, Environmental, Regulatory and Planning Services (RO5), which are available at the following link:
http://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-revenue-expenditure-and-financing
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to encourage the protection of green spaces in town centres.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The National Planning Policy Framework makes clear that local planning authorities should pursue policies to support the viability and vitality of town centres.
The Framework also provides strong protection for open space. It makes clear that existing open space should not be built on unless an assessment has been undertaken which has clearly shown it to be surplus to requirements, or the loss resulting from the proposed development would be replaced by equivalent or better provision in terms of quantity and quality in a suitable location. The Framework enables local communities to identify green areas of particular importance to them for special protection by designating them as Local Green Space, through the preparation of local and neighbourhood plans.