Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-Committed) Bill

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Mr. Clifton-Brown: It is fortunate that three of the protagonists in the debate of 9 July, which has been referred to, are present: you, Mr. Hurst, who had a problem with Gladwish Land Sales; the Minister, who replied on that occasion; and me. It is useful to refer back to what happened on that occasion to remind the Committee of the problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight introduced his new clause excellently, and the Committee is indebted to him for bringing up the matter so that it can be debated. I think that there are problems with his new clause, but in essence he has tabled a measure to deal with a problem that definitely needs a remedy.

3 pm

In the 9 July debate, citing an example that you had given, Mr. Hurst, I referred to the fact that

''Gladwish Land Sales Ltd. bought a 40-acre plot and subdivided it into plots of one fifth of an acre. The fear was that those who bought plots would start unauthorised development by putting up fences and putting in roads, hard-standing for caravans and so on, and that the whole area would become an eyesore.''

That mirrors the experiences of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight and the reason why he has tabled his new clause.

The question is what to do with such problems; the issue spills over into unauthorised development by travellers. The two are connected, although not intimately. I also said:

''Planning permission is required for a change of use from agriculture to gardens and amenity land. There could be a minor change in the law, so that if plots were of an inadequate size to be viable for agricultural purposes—that would certainly be true in the Braintree case—planning permission would be required to subdivide the land. That is a germ of a solution.''

I went on to mention that previously

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''the Minister said that

'if the problem is occurring on farm land, those affected could ask the local planning authority to consider whether anything has occurred to create a situation where agriculture realistically could no longer be carried out, and therefore whether an unlawful material change of use . . . has occurred . . . If no application for change of use has been submitted, the local authority may decide, subject to its own legal advice, that enforcement action would be feasible and appropriate.' ''

Although I have suggested that route to Ministers and we have had correspondence on the matter, from my own planning experience I think that it would be difficult to obtain such an application for a change of use. Therefore, a stronger sanction needs to be introduced in law.

In addition to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight, my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron) has been working on the problem for a long time. He has suggested that we need to introduce to planning law the concept of a notice to remedy when significant harm has been caused and he has said that in cases of significant harm a notice could be served on a person whose identity was unknown to the local planning authority. That concept is not new; it exists in injunction law, whereby an injunction can be served on a person or persons unknown. My hon. Friend has also described criminal sanctions, although I have reservations about those.

I mentioned in the 9 July debate that my hon. Friend had suggested that

''if the person on whom the notice was served refused to reinstate the land, the local authority should be entitled to do that work itself and to charge the person who created the problem. The fine and any costs could be registered under the Local Land Charges Act 1975.''

I went on:

''We must seriously consider all those matters when the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill returns to this House and is recommitted to a Standing Committee in September or October. I undertook in my letter to the previous Under-Secretary that the Opposition would co-operate with the Government in drafting and agreeing relevant amendments.''—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 9 July 2003; Vol. 408, c. 259–60WH.]

I have had a conversation with the Minister for Housing and Planning, who is only too aware of the problem and who recognises that something needs to be done. I have skated around some of what could be done. I suspect that the Minister who replies—I am not sure whether it will be the Minister for Housing and Planning or the other Minister—will say that the Bill is not the right vehicle, but exactly the same argument as applies to high hedges is involved. A serious problem needs to be remedied.

An associated difficulty is that involving travellers buying up pieces of land and stationing caravans there, without planning permission, as a permanent encampment, using the exemption in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. That is a similar problem—unauthorised use of land—that the planning system seems incapable of dealing with. I would like some assurance that Ministers recognise the problems—which will not go away, but will get worse—and intend to deal with them. If the Minister says, as I suspect she will, that the Bill is not the right vehicle to deal with the problems, I would like some assurance that she intends to take the problems seriously and produce legislation in future. The

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problem is that there is a planning Bill only once every 10 years, and I am not sure where the matter will be dealt with if not in the Bill.

Matthew Green: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight on tabling the new clause. I think that the memory of the hon. Member for Cotswold fails him slightly because I, too, was present at the recent debate.

There is indeed a difficulty, and it has been outlined well. The issue becomes a problem because it goes beyond people putting caravans on land and using it that way. There is great danger that in most cases the plots of land are bought by people who are not local—in fact, they may even live abroad. Such plots are bought over the internet as a speculation and then just left. They grow wild and fall out of use, which can be of considerable detriment to the countryside, particularly in areas of outstanding natural beauty.

We have heard about a few areas that suffer from the problem. I understand that it affects Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Oxfordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Wiltshire, Dorset and Norfolk, and those are just the places affected so far. Shropshire is not yet on that list, but I have great fears that we could be one of the next to be hit. At least eight companies that I have information on are dealing in that business. I understand that one company suggested on its website, although the suggestion has since been removed, that it is unethical for prospective purchasers to approach the local planning department to discover the development potential of land before completing their purchase, so we see some of the techniques that may have been used to encourage people to buy plots.

Before the Minister tells us some ways that we might deal with the problem, I want to concentrate on possible routes that might be used and why they are not working. Clearly, the erection of unlinked demarcation posts does not constitute development as defined in section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The erection of fencing does, but it is allowed under the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995. If there is fencing, the local planning authority can act to withdraw the GPDO article 4 directions, but it cannot take action retrospectively. To withdraw an article 4 direction, one has to predict that a problem will arise. Also, I understand that in some cases quite large fields are subdivided in a single weekend, so clearly the order will not deal with the problems that exist.

Mr. Clifton-Brown: I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. Of course he was present on 9 July and he made a pertinent contribution.

I meant to deal with the article 4 procedure in my speech. The problem with the procedure, as clearly identified by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling in a dreadful case in his constituency, is that although it can be issued by the local authority it then has to be confirmed by the Secretary of State. In the dreadful case I refer to, it

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took six months for the article 4 direction to be effected but, as the hon. Member for Ludlow said, such changes can take place over a weekend. The mechanisms in the planning system are simply not rapid enough to deal with such developments.

Matthew Green: The hon. Gentleman makes a pertinent point.

A local planning authority can make a discontinuance order by virtue of section 102 of the 1990 Act, which requires fencing to be removed prior to the article 4 direction. However, that provision carries a liability to pay compensation, so local authorities might even have to pay the people who are attempting to exploit the countryside—that is the simplest way of putting it.

There is a possibility of using an untidy land notice under section 215 of the 1990 Act, but that is applicable only when land has become seriously degraded. The recipients can appeal to the magistrates court. That consumes local planning authorities' resources and does not deal with the problem of the fencing, which is one of the visual impacts on the countryside.

The change of land use has already arisen as a possible means of enforcement, but it could be difficult to prove that a change has taken place and it might not result in the removal of the posts and fences. It would be almost impossible, particularly if the land were in the hands of different owners, to use that provision to get the fences removed.

The final course left open to local authorities is compulsorily to purchase the land. They could, at some considerable cost, do that under section 226 of the 1990 Act, if there is a purpose that is necessary to achieve the interests of proper planning of the area in which the land is situated. It would take the local authority a lot of time and could cost a lot of money. It appears that none of the possible routes to deal with that problem have the remedies at the moment.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight has done the Committee a service in bringing the issue forward. I suspect that the proposals are not technically perfect, as is always the case with Opposition amendments, and will not be accepted as they stand. I would, however, like the Government to try to make it clear how they intend to deal with things. They might say, ''The Bill is not the vehicle. It is dealing with the system, rather than the detail of planning.'' We need a commitment to get the changes through in another way—for example, through changes to the General Permitted Development Order 1995. The Department consulted on that and, at the end of last year or early this, said that it had decided not to make any changes.

 

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Prepared 16 October 2003