Housing
and Planning Minister responds to Congleton MP's request to strengthen influence
of Neighbourhood Plans in planning decisions
Yesterday
in the House of Commons, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, Gavin
Barwell MP, responded to a strongly worded speech by Fiona Bruce MP when she pressed
the Government to accept the work put in by local residents, such as those in Brereton
and Sandbach in the Congleton Constituency, to create and agree Neighbourhood
Plans and to strengthen their impact in the Planning system.
The
full text of Fiona’s speech is below.
In response the Minister
said
“The National Planning Policy Framework already says
clearly that, where a planning application conflicts with a Neighbourhood
Plan that has been brought into force, planning permission should not normally
be granted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton pointed out, the issue
here is that, where a local planning authority does not have a five-year land
supply, that is not a normal circumstance and the presumption in favour of
development in some cases—not all—overrides Neighbourhood Plans.
In the Written Ministerial
Statement, I made it clear that from yesterday, where communities plan for
housing in their area in a Neighbourhood Plan, those plans should not be deemed
out of date unless there is a significant lack of land supply—that is, under
three years. That applies to all plans for the next two years, and for the
first two years of any plan that is put into place. That will give a degree of
protection that has not been available. The message needs to go out clearly
from this House that local authorities must get up-to-date plans in place to
provide that protection for Neighbourhood Plans. I hope that that reassures
people. As I said, I have written both to the Planning Inspectorate and to
local councils on that issue.”
The
Minister also issued a Written Ministerial Statement yesterday, the full copy
of which can be found at https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2016-12-12/debates/16121220000009/NeighbourhoodPlanning.
Speaking after the announcement
Fiona Bruce said “I am pleased that Ministers have listened to
my constituents concerns, both as I expressed in the Chamber of the House of
Commons yesterday and in recent meetings on this issue which I have had with
the Housing and Planning Minister and that, in response, Ministers reviewed the
planning impact of Neighbourhood Plans with immediate effect. It remains to be
seen how this will improve decisions to more fairly reflect the work which has
been and is being put in to Neighbourhood Plans in the Congleton Constituency.
There is also the question, now to be considered, as to whether Judicial Review
of any decision already made by the Planning Inspectorate should be applied for
in light of the fact that these regulations have come to effect immediately,
and that any Judicial Review would therefore be judged in the light of them.”
ENDS
Fiona Bruce’s Speech
House of
Commons Chamber 13-12-16
Debate on
Neighbourhood Planning
·
Fiona Bruce
It is imperative that
Ministers act to restore the confidence of my Congleton constituents in the
status of Neighbourhood Plans specifically and in Localism more widely. My constituents consider that the status and
application of Neighbourhood Plans is confusing, contradictory, inconsistent
and unfair. The area has no Local Plan and no agreed five-year planned housing supply.
For years, local communities in my constituency have been bombarded with a
barrage of inappropriate planning applications by developers gobbling up green
spaces, including prime agricultural land, and putting pressure on local
schools, health services, roads and other services. It is essential that
Ministers take action to give Neighbourhood Plans the full weight in practice
that the Government say they have in theory. It is for that reason that
residents in my constituency have in some cases taken years to prepare Neighbourhood
Plans. I respect the Government’s good intentions, but they are not being
carried out.
The
Government Factsheet on the Bill states:
“Neighbourhood
Planning gives communities direct power to develop a shared vision for their
neighbourhood and shape the development and growth of their local area. For the
first time communities can produce plans that have real statutory weight in the
planning system.”
That
is the theory, but let me tell hon. Members about the practice. The parish of
Brereton was the first area in my constituency to produce a Neighbourhood Plan.
It is a rural farming area mainly—just 470 houses are dotted about it. It
developed a Neighbourhood Plan over many years, and it was voted in with a huge
96% majority vote on a 51% turnout. It is a very intelligent document. It has
no blanket objection to development, but does say that development should be
appropriate in scale, design and character of the rural area of Brereton, and
that it should not distort that character. It says that small groups of one or
two properties built over time would be appropriate, supporting the rural
economy and providing accommodation for those with local livelihoods, which seems
reasonable.
I
warmly welcomed the plan when it was produced and when it was adopted. However,
the Brereton example is one of several in which planning applications that are
contradictory to the best intentions of local residents have been approved by the
inspectorate. Brereton is a parish of 470 houses. Within the last month, one
development of no fewer than 190 houses has been allowed on appeal. Another
application for 49 houses is coming down the track. That is more than half the
size again of the parish.
Because
Brereton has very few facilities—for example, it does not have a doctors’
surgery—nearby Holmes Chapel will be pressurised further. That village already
has hundreds of recently built properties or properties for which permission
has been given. The health centre is full, the schools are under pressure and
traffic pressures render roads dangerous. Unlike Brereton, Holmes Chapel has
not yet completed its local Neighbourhood Plan, but people there are now asking
whether it is worth the time and effort of completing one.
The
position is the same in Goostrey, another nearby village that is in the process
of developing its Neighbourhood Plan. A resident and member of the Goostrey Parish
Council Neighbourhood Plan Team wrote to me. He says that such decisions are “demotivating
when it comes to creating Neighbourhood Plans, and that they make encouraging
people to get involved in the Goostrey plan much harder”—he refers not only to
the Brereton decision, but to the inconsistency of two recent decisions down the road in Sandbach, where one application for a
substantial housing development was dismissed based on the Neighbourhood Plan,
and another, cheek-by-jowl down the road, was approved with the Neighbourhood
Plan carrying little or no weight, even though there was no five-year housing
supply in both cases.
I
have been told by local residents that what really offended people in Brereton
was the fact that
“at
the public examination of the Brereton Neighbourhood Plan in November 2015 at
Sandbach Town Hall, the Examiner insisted our Plan and its policies were
sufficiently robust to counteract mass housing development and protect the
rural character of the Parish. He asserted publicly that Brereton, as a rural
Parish, did not have a responsibility to provide mass housing towards the wider
strategic housing target—yet, the Appeal Inspectorate essentially has argued
the complete opposite. Why are Government representatives involved in planning
matters holding completely opposing and inconsistent views?”
Another
resident in yet another Parish who has worked for almost two years with
neighbours to develop a Neighbourhood Plan area designation has now resigned
from the Steering Group, in what the constituent calls “total disillusionment”,
saying:
“I do
not understand how this decision is either fair or reasonable…I conclude that
the Neighbourhood Planning Process is a Government-sponsored confidence trick”.
Those
are strong words, but they express how many of my constituents feel. Another
said that
“there
seems little point in producing a Neighbourhood Plan if it is considered
irrelevant.”
·
Sir Greg Knight
(East Yorkshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend
agree that consultation is meaningless if the people consulted are then
ignored?
·
Fiona Bruce
That is what I am
saying. Time and again, our constituents are being encouraged to produce Neighbourhood
Plans. About two years ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford
(Nick Boles), then a Minister in the Department for Communities and Local
Government, came at my invitation to Sandbach town hall to talk to residents
concerned about the barrage of applications by developers to build thousands of
houses across my constituency. He said that the way to protect our local
communities was by developing Neighbourhood Plans. That galvanised communities
such as those that I have mentioned into working towards Neighbourhood Plans.
As others have said, some residents have put hundreds of hours into doing so.
·
James Heappey
My hon. Friend
describes a situation that I am sure we all recognise well. In my experience,
many local communities engage positively with their neighbourhood and local
plans to identify the housing need in their area, and then plan accordingly.
Does she share my frustration, however, that because of the robust protections
afforded to the Bristol and Bath green belt to the north of my constituency,
despite my communities having made plans in Somerset, much of the former’s
housing demand is being displaced southwards, so we end up having to absorb
that as well, outwith our planning?
·
Fiona Bruce
I do very much empathise
with my hon. Friend’s concerns.
Another
resident says that unless Neighbourhood Plans are given significant weight—that
is what I and many colleagues have asked the Minister to ensure—their community
“would
advise others not to put the time and effort into what is increasingly looking
like a futile and wasteful exercise”.
Another
resident pointed out that the Factsheet I referred to states, in response to
the question,
“should
a community produce a Neighbourhood Plan where the Local Plan may not be
up-to-date?”,
that
through
“a Neighbourhood
Plan, communities can have a real say about local development…and protect
important local green spaces”.
It
also states that
“the
NPPF is very clear that where a planning application conflicts with a Neighbourhood
Plan that has been brought into force, planning permission should not normally
be granted (NPPF para. 198)”.
Contradictorily,
in the case of Brereton, the inspector’s report allowing the appeal for these
190 houses stated:
“Reference
was made to paragraph 198 of the Framework, which provides that where a
planning application conflicts with a Neighbourhood Plan (as in this case)”—
he
acknowledged that—
“that
has been brought into force, planning permission should not normally be
granted”.
So
far, so good. It goes on to say:
“However,
the position is not ‘normal’ in that as NP policy HOU01 is clearly a relevant
policy for the supply of housing, and is in conformity with Local Plan policies
which are themselves out of date”—
meaning
there is no current Neighbourhood Plan—
“only
limited weight can be afforded to the policy”.
As my
residents are saying, it looks as though the Department is saying that
an application that conflicts with a Neighbourhood Plan would result in refusal
of a planning permission, even though a Local Plan is not up to date—that is in
the Factsheet—but the Planning Inspectorate is saying that a Neighbourhood
Plan can be given only limited weight for the very reason that the local plan
is out of date.
In
conclusion, I ask Ministers to clarify the weight—the actual weight—to be given
to made Neighbourhood Plans in the absence of a Local Plan, and also to provide
increased weight to a draft plan because of the stage it has reached. Many of
these communities that are now in the process of developing plans have become
disillusioned, as I said. There are many months still to go before their plans
can be finalised, and they want to know whether it is worth continuing.
Let
me finally ask if we could have a fairer methodology for calculating a
deliverable five-year land supply, because the head of planning strategy at
Cheshire East Council has confirmed to me:
“If
we could count all our current permissions, the Borough would have a 5-year
supply as things stand.”
But
things do not stand there because the problem arises from the fact that
developers do not build out. They are tardy, and they are deliberately tardy
because they simply want to get more and more permissions. They are, as
colleagues have said, gaming the system.
