Neighbourhood Plans: Planning Decisions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) on securing this debate, which is incredibly important to our whole country, and certainly to my constituency.

Neighbourhood plans are a vital component of a fair, balanced and genuinely democratic planning system. They are a testament to the principle that local people should not simply be told how their community will look by central Government, but be empowered to shape the future of the places they call home. Neighbourhood plans should guarantee that development happens with the consent of those who live there, and is not forced on them by speculative developers or bureaucrats in Whitehall, who too often view our villages and market towns as blank canvases.

In Buckinghamshire, a clear framework is taking shape. The new Buckinghamshire plan is being developed right now to set out how many homes we need in the county and, broadly, where they should go, building on the local plans of the legacy councils before we went unitary in 2021. However, it is our neighbourhood plans that give meaning to that strategy on the ground. They provide certainty to my constituents in Mid Buckinghamshire. They reflect the unique character, constraints and aspirations of each parish, village and town. They tell developers, planners and councillors alike where development is acceptable and, just as importantly, where it is not acceptable.

In Mid Buckinghamshire, I have seen how the plans work when they are respected and, sadly, what happens when they are not. In Marsh Gibbon, for example, the parish’s neighbourhood plan, backed by a local referendum, capped the number of new homes in that small village at 25 until 2031, yet we now face an attempt by a speculative developer to push through 90 homes, all on farmland—nearly four times what the community had previously agreed to. Such proposals do not simply test the robustness of local policy; they erode trust in the entire planning system if they succeed.

We see similar disregard for local issues elsewhere. In Waddesdon, a proposal has come forward for more than 500 homes and a solar installation—far beyond what local people had planned for. In Stoke Mandeville, a 650-home scheme threatens to overwhelm local roads, schools, drainage and other infrastructure. In Longwick, the parish council produced a neighbourhood plan with the clear backing of the local community, yet despite that plan, and despite the village having nearly doubled in size already, Longwick continues to receive speculative applications for yet more housing. Sometimes we simply have to say enough is enough.

Labour’s stated aim to build, build, build, no matter the consequences or cumulative impact of development on our rural communities, in reality means destroy, destroy, destroy. Consent from constituents is crucial to protect the rural identity of communities throughout Mid Buckinghamshire and right across the country. Under the last Government, we rightly strengthened neighbourhood planning powers, because we recognised that development must be rooted in local consent. We wanted to see homes built where they were genuinely needed and wanted, while protecting the green fields, rural lanes and historic character that make our villages so special. We knew that communities are more likely to support plans when they have real control over scale and location, not when that is dictated from Westminster.

I am proud that in my constituency so many parish councils and volunteers in the villages I have mentioned—Marsh Gibbon, Waddesdon, Stoke Mandeville, Longwick and beyond—have done the hard graft of surveys, consultations and draft policies. They have balanced the need for new homes with the reality of local infrastructure and the natural environment and beauty. They have played their part in delivering homes, but on terms that respect the countryside and the unique Buckinghamshire character that makes these places attractive and worth living in.

Neighbourhood plans are not optional extras. They are not tick-box exercises. They carry legal weight and must be defended robustly by planning authorities, inspectors and Ministers, even if this Government have never quite grasped that concept or shown any interest in doing so. If we truly want to build the right homes in the right places, we must stand with our constituents, communities, hamlets, villages and towns. We must back local people, who have done the hard work of saying, “Yes, here, but not there.” If we do not, we risk not just bad development but a total breakdown in trust between residents and the system that is meant to serve them. That is what we in this place are meant to uphold.

Although the current Labour Government, particularly with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, want to ravage natural landscapes across our country, I will remain staunch in seeking to protect our neighbourhoods and my hamlets, villages and towns from this reckless agenda. I very much hope the Minister is able to give the Government’s commitment to neighbourhood plans and, as others have said, ensure that the funding can remain to produce them.