Neighbourhood Planning Bill

Stuart Andrew Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons
Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate because planning has certainly affected my constituency for a good number of years. I was going to touch on the five-year land supply issue, but that has been ably covered by a number of colleagues.

My constituency is part of Leeds. It has enjoyed a great deal of prosperity and growth, but if I look at just one of the wards in my constituency, it has seen more than 1,000 homes built in it during the past few years, with very little infrastructure to support it. There is therefore a growing sense of frustration when people cannot get to work because the roads are congested, when their children cannot get into the school or when they struggle to get a doctor’s appointment. As a consequence, when neighbourhood planning was first introduced, it was seen as an opportunity for communities such as mine.

I must say, however, that in our instance there was concern right from the very outset. In its core strategy, the city council decided to build 70,000 homes during the plan period. That is an ambitious target—it will mean a considerable number of houses have to be built each year—but the problem is that that target, we believe, was based on outdated information. It was based on the 2008 population projections, which said that the number of people across the city would go up to 765,000 by 2011. The census showed us that that was wrong, with a 14,000 difference.

I am raising this matter because the city council obviously has to find sites on which to build these houses. In my constituency, all the mills and factories have gone, and we have done the right thing by building houses to regenerate those sites. However, all we have left now is the green belt. The neighbourhood plans in my areas have to conform to the strategic approach of the city council, which says that we have to build 70,000 houses. My areas have to adhere to that in the neighbourhood plans, and are therefore being forced to look at green-belt sites. They do not want to do that—of course they do not want to—and they are actively trying to stop that happening. I see a real problem because if my areas put forward such green-belt sites in a referendum, there is absolutely no way that that would get through, and we would not therefore have a neighbourhood plan.

I have asked questions time and again. I welcome my hon. Friend to his post. He will be hearing a lot from me, I am sure, over the coming months.

[Gavin Barwell]

I already have.

[Stuart Andrew]

Indeed. I extend to my hon. Friend a warm invitation to visit my constituency so that he can see the issues that we face at first hand.

Time and again, in questions and letters, I have asked about the exceptional circumstance in which the green belt can be developed and, time and again, we have been told that housing targets cannot be considered as an exceptional circumstance. However, in the neighbouring authority of Bradford—it abuts my constituency—the inspector recently said that such houses can be built because the figure is aspirational and the employment criteria allow it to happen. There is now even more concern in my constituency that when this goes to the inspector, he will say, because the figure of 70,000 has been agreed, that we can build on the green belt. That would have a terrible effect on my constituency. The green belt is there to stop urban sprawl. We do not want to be just a part of the big city of Leeds. The identifiable towns of Guiseley, Yeadon, Rawdon, Horsforth, Calverley, Farsley and Pudsey all have their own identity.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

And Rodley.

[Stuart Andrew]

Yes, Rodley. If I miss one out, I will be in real trouble.

I am trying to make the point that there is a willingness to make neighbourhood plans work, but when there is such a conflict with the city council, it is very difficult to introduce them. There is real concern about the green belt, and I hope that the Minister will come to my constituency soon so that I can show him, in detail, the problems we are facing.