Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how their proposed changes to the
planning process will ensure that the public is supportive of new
housing developments.
(LD)
[V]
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on
the Order Paper and declare my interest as a vice-president of
the Local Government Association.
The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing,
Communities and Local Government () (Con)
We know that the planning system has a poor record of community
engagement and can often be adversarial. That is why our reforms
have effective engagement at their heart. By ensuring that
communities are meaningfully involved in preparing plans and
local design codes, they can have real influence over the
location and design of development. This will be supported by
digital transformation, with new tools to make planning more
transparent, accessible and engaging.
(LD)
[V]
I thank the Minister for what he said, but could he explain how
involving the public only every five years when a plan is drawn
up, alongside so many sites under the new reforms having
automatic permission in principle, will restore trust and
confidence in the system? As a former council leader, how does he
think this will work in reality years later, when work actually
begins?
(Con)
My Lords, it is not just involvement in the local plan that
happens every five years but producing the design codes. But,
importantly, communities will have a say in detailed aspects of
planning applications.
(Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as an honorary fellow of the
RIBA. People, if consulted, often prefer smaller and lower-rise
developments. What steps will Her Majesty’s Government take to
promote such developments and secure public approval of
ecological measures to reduce carbon emissions from them?
(Con)
My Lords, the drive for development does need to take into
account the need for sustainable development. Planning will take
on board a zonal approach, with some of the positives of the
existing system, and will divide areas into growth areas, renewal
areas and protected areas.
(LD) [V]
I am sure that the Minister will agree that neighbourhood
planning has been very successful in involving communities,
delivering approximately 18,000 more houses than were contained
in local plans. So can he confirm that neighbourhood planning
will remain after the Government’s planning reforms are
introduced and that they will remain a material consideration
when decisions are made?
(Con)
My Lords, I do not want to presuppose what will be in our
response to the planning White Paper, but I recognise the
important contribution that neighbourhood plans provide to
delivering homes.
(Con)
[V]
How are the Government intending to ensure that there is full
community involvement in planning and a strong focus not just on
housing numbers and speed of delivery but on developing
sustainable communities, with a much wider remit?
(Con)
My noble friend is right that we should focus on sustainable
communities, not just the drive for volume and more housing. It
is important to strike a balance between enabling vital
development, including building the homes we need more quickly,
and continuing to protect and enhance the natural and built
environment.
(CB)
[V]
My Lords, the Town and Country Planning Association has raised
concerns that bypassing meaningful input from local bodies,
councillors and the public, and delivering homes through
permitted development rights, undermines public support for new
housing. Does the Minister agree that, by continuing to expand
the delivery of homes through PDR, the Government are undermining
their own stated goal of making the planning process more
democratic?
(Con)
My Lords, I point out that permitted development rights have
enabled us to deliver a net additional 72,000 homes in the last
five years and make an important contribution to the planning
system. Our planning reforms are all designed to get effective
community engagement at the front end of the process.
(Lab)
The expansion of permitted development rights is taking away the
voices of local communities in the planning process and handing
them to Whitehall’s appointed boards of developers. Are the
Government consulting local government representatives about
these changes? If so, what representations have they received?
(Con)
My Lords, at this stage of the planning reform process we have
had 44,000 responses and have continued engagement with the Local
Government Association and other important stakeholders, and we
will be responding to those responses in due course.
(LD) [V]
My Lords, the city of Freiburg is widely recognised as a global
first-rank model of urban sustainable life, based on strong and
active democracy and citizen participation. Is it not time that
councils in this country were given the real powers they need to
redress the balance between overpowerful developers and
democratic institutions?
(Con)
My Lords, we need to recognise the existing frailties of the
current planning system, which has not been reformed for over
seven decades and has a very poor record on public engagement.
Data shows that less than 1% engage on local planning
consultations and only 3% engage on applications. That is
something that we intend to improve with the reforms that we have
outlined in the White Paper.
[V]
My Lords, there is a real risk that the proposed changes to the
planning process could mean that fewer accessible homes are built
for older and disabled people. Research from the housing
association Habinteg reveals that more than half of all local
plans make no requirements for new homes to meet any accessible
housing standard. Fewer accessible houses are being planned now
compared with 2019. What plans do Her Majesty’s Government have
to ensure that more homes are built to accessible and adaptable
standards?
(Con)
My Lords, we continue to set standards around accessibility and
recognise that it plays an important part in getting the right
number of new homes. We have set out an approach that allows more
public engagement, so that local communities can shape the places
that they live in.
(Con) [V]
My Lords, do the Government recognise the importance of
place-making when it comes to building homes; that we are making
communities for people to live in, not just houses; and that, in
particular, living in the places we make should not be dependent
on using a motor car?
(Con)
My noble friend is right that it is important not just to have
volume as the driver but to think about the quality of the
housing. Indeed, our reforms enable there to be model design
codes. We have a draft national model design code that shows how
to engage the community in creating places that reflect local
views and allow people to shape the places they live in.
(Lab) [V]
My Lords, what local people object to is large numbers of houses
being dumped in their back yard to fulfil the Government’s flawed
housing targets, because they know that they are based on
out-of-date 2014 assumptions and dodgy algorithms that focus
housing in areas where houses are least affordable. The Minister
has already had a biffing on this from his Home Counties
colleagues. Will the Government revisit the housing target
calculation and will the Minister comment on why annual planning
permissions for houses have more than doubled in the last 10
years, yet house prices have not come down and, indeed, houses
have not been built?
(Con)
My Lords, we have already looked at the approach to assessing
local housing need to ensure that we see greater focus on the
renewal of our cities and towns rather than urban sprawl. So we
have already taken that point on board.
(Con)
Does my noble friend agree that the public would be more
supportive of the proposals to build the hundreds of thousands of
new homes that the country needs if more of these homes were
clearly being targeted at families on average incomes, with
children, already living in the area and at key workers such as
nurses and teachers, with perhaps less emphasis on unaffordable
homes for newcomers?
(Con)
My noble friend is absolutely right that we need homes of all
types and tenures. Our reforms will give communities a greater
voice from the start of the planning process. The reforms will
make planning more straightforward and accessible and make it
easier for people to influence local plans and have a say on
locations, standards and types of development. The Government are
of course committed to home ownership; the First Homes scheme
allows a discount of up to 30% of full market value and, of
course, there is the £11.5 billion affordable homes programme
that will allow for the decent family homes that my noble friend
sees as so critical.
