Localism in Planning

Lord Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone. I have cut my speech accordingly. It is safe to say, and let it ring from every single rooftop tonight, “Localism is dead!”, and the Conservative party admits it. We have heard an excellent speech, demonstrating the absolute betrayal of the Conservative party manifesto and of local communities, and a shift to the centre by the Government, the Minister and, in particular, his predecessor, who is now the chairman of the Conservative party. That is in spite of the warnings of people such as myself about the national planning guidelines.

I have a few questions for the Minister—he will need his pen—which I am sure he will want to answer. Will he endorse my early-day motion 428, tabled today, on UK Coal? UK Coal is the largest landowner of brownfield sites throughout the country. I would be happy to have 10,000 houses on the site of Harworth colliery—destroyed by the regional spatial strategy and the inability to have flexibility. Will he endorse that approach?

Is it possible, where the regional spatial strategy has imposed housing targets on a local district council’s core strategy, for a local council now to reduce those targets? Is it possible for a local district council with targets set—even if it kept them—to redistribute those targets between different communities, in order to shift more to the brownfield sites and away from the greenfield and green belt sites?

A wind farm application was defeated unanimously in recent months in the local council, because it was opposed by all local residents—I declare a vested interest, I am one of those residents—but it was resubmitted this week. What will happen when the council turns it down again? Will the developer win on appeal, after a second unanimous decision by a local authority backing its local population?

The community infrastructure levy is a tax on development—will the Minister remove this tax on self-build housing and on tiny developments to allow economic regeneration at the micro-level by small builders, family builders and young couples? The affordable housing levy means a tax in Hertfordshire of £186,000 per property for new properties. Will the Minister remove this new taxation for single developments and, I suggest, small developments of perhaps three to five? The tax was brought in by the national planning guidance and did not exist before—

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order.