Quality in the Built Environment

John McNally Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) on securing the debate. She made some excellent and knowledgeable points.

As we all know, anyone who wants to change the world has to get busy in their own little corner—and where better than in their own home? There is no better way of improving quality of life and changing the world we live in, particularly for our communities that we represent, than by improving the quality of the built environment that we spend most of our daily lives in.

The quality of the built environment is intrinsically linked to the wellbeing of the local community. Land is a finite resource, and we should all recognise that the modern day built environment must be multifunctional, meeting society’s cultural, aesthetic and community health needs, as well as contributing to a vibrant local community. Access to green-space opportunities for biodiversity to flourish and sustainable urban design to manage environmental risks are no longer nice-to-haves—they are absolutely essential elements of our towns, villages and cities.

Achieving a high quality built environment requires good planning, imaginative design and, importantly, forward-thinking investment. However, it also requires a policy framework that not only encourages but expects local authorities and developers to take proper account of those essential elements in building for the future, in construction, design, management and planning.

All have the highest responsibility to deliver a quality built environment for communities. Our communities must be involved in planning and what affects their wellbeing. Community empowerment is a great vision, and it should mean just that. Empowerment is to have a say in the decision-making process—for communities to be their own architects of choice. In my own area of Falkirk, the communities of Denny and Dunipace were deeply involved in the decision-making process for a new town centre investment when I was a councillor in that community.

There were many difficult conversations, but we had them, and I think that our participation, as well as that of many other Scottish communities, helped the Scottish Government to introduce the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. That came into force this year and will benefit local organisations across Scotland to the tune of some £8.6 million of funding this year. That investment says everything about our values and our inspiration, and it means that communities are active—and developers now know that. That is extremely important.

Providing everyday access to the natural environment and working with natural features to manage risk, such as flooding or poor air quality, should be a requirement, not a choice. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on flood prevention and have undertaken visits to various places—one as a member of the Environmental Audit Committee and four to other villages and towns around the UK. Following the storms of December 2015 and January 2016, we spoke with community leaders and residents affected by flooding and reported the challenges that their communities faced and how those challenges were being tackled.

Differences between Scotland and England emerged during those visits. For example, it is worth highlighting that the Scottish planning system severely restricts development on floodplains, while the English system is more permissive. English planners often have little choice, as many of the country’s larger population centres are located on floodplains. If planning permission is granted for a development that later floods, local authorities in Scotland are legally accountable, while English ones are not. That is quite a staggering discovery.

Sustainable urban drainage systems—SUDS—are mandatory in Scotland. It should be remembered every time housing provision is considered that one in six homes is at risk of flooding, and up to £1 billion of flood damage is incurred every single year. Flooding, water quality, access to green space and biodiversity are all affected by the way homes and communities are planned and delivered. There is extensive evidence that demonstrates how healthy local environments drive healthier economies and healthier people, so in aspiring to solve one crisis, we have an opportunity to solve many more and deliver multiple benefits to communities, for little or no additional cost.

We have found that well-designed SUDS can be built affordably and without delay in nearly all kinds of developments, and can be retrofitted in established developments. Arguments for not developing SUDS on the basis of site constraints may be overstated; the range of options available means it is nearly always possible to incorporate some measures. SUDS are a cost-effective alternative to conventional drainage when included early in the planning process; the failure to consider SUDS from the very start of a development’s design is a significant barrier to their efficient delivery.

SUDS are enablers of climate resilience and support healthy and economically vibrant communities. The value of those benefits is considerable. However, because the benefits accrue to local communities and are not valued by conventional markets—as I think the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds was referring to earlier—with costs initially borne by one party, typically the developer, they require effective policies to correct the market externalities involved.

Our analysis, underpinned by the findings from a survey, provided some clear indications. First, at the majority of sites, the costs and, particularly, the benefits of implementing SUDS are not being assessed. Secondly, physical site constraints are frequently cited as reasons to opt out of delivering SUDS in new housing and commercial developments, when the range of options available means that that is commonly unjustified. Thirdly planning authorities in many areas do not have the capacity to properly judge the merits of applications, leading to more opt-outs than necessary on the grounds of price and practicality, as many go unchallenged. Fourthly, when SUDS have been delivered, they often miss opportunities to provide multiple benefits, as they follow the very narrow and non-statutory standards that presently exist. Fifthly, the adoption and future maintenance of SUDS are the greatest barriers to be resolved.

Scottish Water, Scotland’s sole water company, is legally required to adopt and maintain SUDS, and it has the legal right to block planning permission for developments if the local water supply or sewerage system is inadequate. As a statutory corporation, it can borrow money off the Scottish Government at lower interest rates than it would receive from commercial lenders. The water framework directive and the habitats directive have been transposed into Scots law, subject to sustainable flood management requirements; water bodies can be dredged or altered to manage flood risk. In England, those directives can prevent flood management work from being carried out.

Under the Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009, flood risk is managed at a catchment scale. Co-operation is facilitated between local authorities, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Water and other stakeholders. Failure to consider the catchment-level flood risk impacts of new developments or flood risk management work was a hot topic in north Yorkshire when I visited earlier this year. Information sharing between organisations carrying out flood defence work and flood-related repairs to critical infrastructure was also criticised.

I sincerely hope that this debate will improve the quality of life and peace of mind that our communities deserve, with a high-quality built environment for them to live and work in. I hope the Minister takes into consideration the need for a SUDS appraisal to be made compulsory in delivering a quality built environment. I look forward to his reply.