David Ward
Main Page: David Ward (Liberal Democrat - Bradford East)Gypsy and Traveller Planning
David Ward Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Priti Patel
No, I am going to make some final points. My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) is right: with rights come responsibilities.
I address my final points to the Minister. Will he ensure that Government policies support councils in taking enforcement actions against unauthorised developments and that the planning system is genuinely fair to all parties? Action needs to be taken to end the practice of placing the rights of one group above those of others, and the powers of the Planning Inspectorate to interfere with decisions taken by democratically accountable councils should be limited. Finally, will he guarantee that local communities and councils are in control of future development in their areas and that they have their destinies in their own hands? That is very much at the heart of localism. I thank the Minister for his time today and for listening to me, and I look forward to other contributions from colleagues.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) on securing the debate and on her excellent speech. My constituents would want to be associated with many of her points. I declare an interest as a serving councillor on Kettering borough council.
I would like to tell hon. Members about a village called Braybrooke in my constituency. There are 22 villages in the parliamentary constituency of Kettering. Braybrooke is situated between the towns of Desborough and Market Harborough, right on the edge of my constituency and on the edge of the county of Northamptonshire. About 325 residents in Braybrooke are on the electoral roll, so it is a small village. However, it is unique in having the only primary school where the pupils are 100% Traveller children, and where the local settled community do not send their children at all. Such a situation exists because of the increase in settlements—pitches—from the Gypsy and Traveller community around the village.
The planning system’s failure to deal with the spread of unauthorised development means that the demographics of the village are being changed in an unacceptable way. I lay the blame for that on the circulars issued by the previous Government and the previous Deputy Prime Minister, which my hon. Friend the Member for Witham mentioned. However, the coalition Government have a chance to change that. My constituents in Kettering, the residents of Braybrooke and myself are looking to the Minister to do something about the matter. We have been in government for 15 months and a consultation is under way. We need to get a move on because my constituents’ hopes have been raised by initiatives such as the Localism Bill and the consultation. We want the Minister to introduce some appropriate policies to stop these unauthorised developments in the future.
Mr Hollobone
No. What I am saying is that local primary schools are comprehensive and they should attract children from the local area, regardless of their background. This is not an issue of race; it is an issue of behaviour. When I visited the school recently—it is an excellent school that provides good education—I discovered that one of the big problems was that, especially in the summer term, a lot of the Traveller children do not turn up because they are off travelling. A member of the settled community would be reluctant to send their child to a school with such a disruptive atmosphere. I am trying to approach the subject in a sensitive and thoughtful way without going down the route of saying that this is some kind of racial problem. It is an educational and behavioural problem, which needs to be addressed.