Asked by: Mark Jenkinson (Conservative - Workington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he will take to ensure that new GP and school places are delivered ahead of people moving into new housing developments in Workington.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
The provision of the right infrastructure at the right time is very important to new and existing communities.
To this end, the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill provides powers to introduce an Infrastructure Levy largely to replace the complex and discretionary Section 106 regime and the Community Infrastructure Levy. The new Levy will be a mandatory, non-negotiable charge, set and collected locally. It will give a greater say to local councils on what their infrastructure priorities are and give greater transparency to local people about how funds will be spent.
Local authorities will be able to borrow against their infrastructure levy receipts to ensure that infrastructure is provided when it is needed.
To strengthen infrastructure delivery further, the Bill introduces a requirement for local authorities to prepare infrastructure delivery strategies. These will set out a strategy for delivering local infrastructure, including education and GP surgeries, and spending infrastructure levy proceeds.
Asked by: Mark Jenkinson (Conservative - Workington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he expects 8 November 2022 to remain the latest date for the decision on West Cumbria Mining’s planning application.
Answered by Lucy Frazer
Planning Ministers require more time to consider this case. A decision will now be issued on or before 8 December.
Asked by: Mark Jenkinson (Conservative - Workington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will publish the Planning Inspector’s report for the West Cumbria mining planning application.
Answered by Paul Scully
The case remains under consideration and the Inspector's report will be published alongside the final decision, as is the case for all substantive planning decisions made by Ministers.
Asked by: Mark Jenkinson (Conservative - Workington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make it his policy to rollout the Voluntary Right to Buy Scheme nationally.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
This Government remains committed to the Right to Buy and to spreading the dream of home ownership to even more people. The Midlands pilot of the Voluntary Right to Buy scheme completed this year and an independent evaluation of the pilot was published in Feb 2021. The Government is looking at the evaluation's findings, which will be used to inform future policy, and we will announce further details on the Voluntary Right to Buy.
Asked by: Mark Jenkinson (Conservative - Workington)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans he has to set targets for Homes England to process applications for the Housing Infrastructure Fund; and what steps he plans to take to speed up the processing of current applications.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
All applications for funding from the Housing Infrastructure Fund were processed by 11 March 2020. 126 of the 127 projects within the programme are in contract. The remaining project is in the final stages of contracting.