National Planning Policy Framework

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Harris]

I absolutely agree. I very much want decisions to be much more locally based. That inspector’s demand would have resulted in a crazy oversupply of land and it caused uproar in the local community, and I am indebted to my local councillors for the withdrawal. It seems that the inspector had been very much persuaded by the counsel of the large-unit developers that the council had failed to provide enough deliverable land in the first years of its plan, despite the fact that it had allocated a good quantity of land on previously developed sites to meet its current targets.

The existing system in this country requires councils to allocate sites for which they have evidence that the building can take place within the first five years and then within the second five years. After that, there is up to a decade or so of supply of more safeguarded land. However, I have watched the processes at first hand and it strikes me that what counts as evidence in planning circles is often simply argument—often that of the large-unit builders.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head in relation to planning inquiries: Swindon has had similar experiences of this, as have I. Does she agree that it is essential that in the new policy framework the concept of deliverability is construed in a way that allows local authorities to argue before planning inspectors that economic realities often mean that although on paper it may not look as though they have a five-year land supply, they in fact do. That is particularly relevant to Swindon.

[Rebecca Harris]

I very much take that point. It is often much easier to argue that a very attractive, leafy, virgin greenfield or green-belt site can be brought forward in the early stages of the plan and it is always easier to argue that the previously developed or the brownfield sites, possibly in multiple ownership—