Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-Committed) Bill

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Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He does the Committee a service in bringing the issue of road signs to our attention.

Again, the problem affects not only areas of high landscape value, important conservation areas, areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks; there is a general trend throughout the country for more and more signs to be erected on our highways. The problem is that with more and more legislation, highways authorities are trying to cover every eventuality. Not only that, they are advertising commercial interests by erecting so-called brown signs. There is a proliferation of brown signs, which are supposed to be guides for tourists—that is how authorities get round it—but in fact they are advertising commercial ventures.

Highways authorities and the Government used to have the philosophy that only those signs that were absolutely necessary in the interests of highway safety were to be erected and that every other sign was to be resisted. I represent a constituency that is about 80 per cent. covered by areas of outstanding beauty and yet I have a proliferation of such signs. Not only is there the argument advanced by my hon. Friend that they are unsightly, which they certainly are, but there is also an issue of safety. The more signs there are, the more likely it is that the motorist will ignore the sign that is really important because his mind will be so focused on other signs that he will not focus on the one that is really important.

Mr. Turner: I agree absolutely with that. Would my hon. Friend also accept that the bigger signs become, the faster motorists are able to drive while they read them, which in turn has consequences for road safety?

Mr. Clifton-Brown: I agree with that, too, but they have to be big enough. There is nothing more annoying than small road signs that one cannot read in a car until one is right next to them. That is equally unsafe because one is concentrating so hard on trying to read that road sign with small writing on it, one is not paying 100 per cent. attention to what is going on elsewhere on the road. The answer is to minimise the number of signs. Size is important, so that people can be aware of signs that are of critical importance, such as stop signs. A stop sign means stop; it does not mean a temporary slowing down—the wheels have to stop turning. One so often sees that stop signs are honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

My hon. Friend has done the Committee a service. I am not sure that his new clause is the solution. I am not sure that this is a planning matter. It is perhaps one that should not be dealt with in legislation.

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However, we are coming on to discuss a plethora of RPGs and PPGs—supposedly to be renamed PPSs—and the correct solution might be that the matter should be dealt with through guidance to planning authorities and highways. I am not sure that primary legislation is the right vehicle because it is impossible to cater for every circumstance in primary legislation.

Sir Sydney Chapman: I want to draw the Committee's attention to subsection 2(e) of new clause 3 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight. Understandably, he and my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold have referred to areas of outstanding natural beauty and the countryside. However, by and large conservation areas are mainly found in urban and suburban areas, and also in villages in what I regard as developed areas, although they are in the main extremely beautifully developed.

The question concerns the eyesores of road signs and how often they are unnecessarily duplicated. I would have thought that it was quite reasonable not to have gallons of white and yellow paint poured on our road surfaces, when a small notice, or a colour band on a street light might be just as effective an alternative. In urban areas, the street litter and street furniture in otherwise pleasant streets are a ghastly sight to behold.

The difficulty that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight has in introducing his new clause is that beauty is a subjective judgment. I have no doubt that certain traffic engineers think that the signs on our motorways and streets are beautiful things to behold. That is a view I do not happen to share. I invite everyone going home tonight—if we finish before nightfall—to look at any street that they walk down and imagine the street furniture removed from that highway, and how much more pleasant it would look. I am not naive enough to suggest that we do not need road signs, but we ought to make a positive effort to see how we could visually improve urban areas and the countryside, particularly designated and other beautiful areas.

The problem is multiplied by garish shop fascias, which are all too prevalent on our high streets. It seems that every shopkeeper has to compete with the shop next door by making his property stand out, which makes it more garish. We could take a much more intelligent and communal approach. I would like to go back to the old-fashioned hanging signs, which could tell us equally well what sort of shop we were approaching. Instead, we see letters 5 ft high displayed on scarlet or yellow fascia boards.

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The fact is that we are all competing for attention—I am referring not to our political careers, but to the general environmental standards in town and country. I do not know whether the Bill is the right vehicle for my hon. Friend's new clause. I suspect that, for the third time running, the Minister will say that it is not—she may be allowed to keep the cup as a result. Nevertheless, we ought to take a much more intelligent approach to our street furniture, and the awful litter. What is there is not always necessary.

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Matthew Green: I thought for a moment that the hon. Gentleman was going to suggest that we went back to the 1940s, when there were no road signs, as they had been removed because of the threat of German invasion. I doubt if anyone in the Room remembers that, but it would be interesting to know how people managed to get around.

Sir Sydney Chapman: Unfortunately, I do remember it.

Matthew Green: I was trying to do the hon. Gentleman a good turn.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight has raised a significant issue. I hope the Minister will say that this can all be done through guidance—and that it will apply as much to the Highways Agency as to the highway authorities. The agency sometimes acts more unaccountably than local authorities, and I would like to see all those bodies brought into line. However, I issue a note of caution.

My constituency is the size of Greater London, and it is criss-crossed by many roads, not one of which is a motorway or dual carriageway. Only one trunk road, the A49, runs through it. Almost 40 per cent. of it is an area of outstanding natural beauty. If the new clause were enacted, the county council would forever be paying planning fees to erect new signs. There is quite a lot of pressure in Shropshire for 30 mph speed limits in all villages, all of which would require signage. There is huge public support for such speed limits, and the signage could be done sensitively, but if they required planning permission the county council would face an extra cost—one that I do not want it to have to bear.

Sir Sydney Chapman: The hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that some years ago, one of his predecessors—not his immediate predecessor—told me with pride that he had only one set of traffic lights in his constituency. The hon. Gentleman might like to take this opportunity to put in a bid for the town of Ludlow, which is regarded by many as being one of the most beautiful towns in the country.

Matthew Green: I am always happy to talk about Ludlow and the surrounding countryside—and other towns such as Much Wenlock, and Bridgnorth, where I live. They are all outstanding. I would recommend that members of the Committee visit the area, and spend some of their holiday time there. We now have more than one set of traffic lights, but still not many. It is probably only in the past decade that we have gained roundabouts in my part of the world. I am still very proud that there is not a McDonald's in all of my constituency, which is a good reason to come and visit it; if a McDonald's were ever suggested, the Minister would be hearing from me and could expect a call-in.

This is a genuine issue, but new clause 3 is not the way to deal with it. For example, there are areas with little population and lots of roads. Signage is not a big problem in my constituency, but it would be a great expense for the county council to have to deal with those requirements out of its minuscule road safety budget.

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There is also a lot of pressure to increase road safety. On a road in my constituency that runs through the Corvedale there have been six deaths and five separate accidents in the past six months. I have only just had a meeting with the police and the county highways department to discuss extra signage. If someone suggested that they had to go through the planning process to deal with a growing problem that needed to be reacted to quickly, I would be concerned. That is not the way forward, and I would be perturbed if the Minister suggested that it was.

There is clearly a significant problem in parts of the country. I hope that the Minister suggests a way through; the answer is probably guidance. Let us make sure that it is guidance that the Highways Agency, in particular, is keen to follow.

Yvette Cooper: New clause 3 would require planning permission to be obtained for road signs and street furniture, including street lighting, in areas of high environmental value. As the hon. Member for Ludlow said, the planning system has long recognised that certain types of development should be allowed to take place without an application for planning permission. That is designed to reduce the burden on the planning system of development types that are minor or non-controversial in nature, and also to ensure that such development is not unduly delayed.

Section 55(2)(b) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 makes it clear that the carrying out of work required for the maintenance or improvement of a road is not treated as development and therefore does not require planning permission. That means that authorities that need to install or replace traffic signs or street lighting can do so without having to apply for planning permission every time. The provision does not apply if development that is not exclusively for the maintenance of the roads would have significant adverse effects on the environment. Likewise, the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations 1992 allow the display of traffic signs without the need for planning permission provided they fall within the criteria set out in the regulations.

 

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Prepared 16 October 2003