Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of current measures to protect public green spaces from (a) unauthorised encampments and (b) environmental damage.

The designation of land as Local Green Space through local and neighbourhood plans allows communities to identify and protect green areas of particular importance to them.

Local plans are expected to identify, map and safeguard locally designated sites of importance for biodiversity, including Local Wildlife Sites.

Local planning authorities already have a wide range of enforcement powers, with strong penalties for non-compliance, which they can use to tackle all types of unauthorised development. We will keep the use of these powers under review.