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Mr. Wilshire: On a point of order, Mr. Pike. The Minister said that his comments ranged somewhat wider than the amendments. Have you reached a view on whether to allow a clause stand part debate? I could address issues arising from the Minister's comments now because the debate has moved wider, or I could keep them until the clause stand part debate, if you are minded to allow that.
The Chairman: The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind that the Minister answered many points. I have listened to the debate and the clause is important, although it is relatively short and tight. I shall allow a relatively short stand part debate but I hope that hon. Members will respect that judgment because the Minister made several points clearly. I hope that that will curtail the length of the stand part debate.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: In dealing with the amendments, the Minister has been incredibly helpful. As he made clear, the statement of community involvement is an important part of the planning system, and will help people to feel involved. It is understood that the Minister will produce some clear guidance on that, and there already are clear instructions on how that involvement is to be achieved in the document that he mentions. On that basis, and having explored the issue in considerable detail, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
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The Chairman: I have given guidance on the clause stand part debate, and I hope that hon. Members will respect it.
Mr. Wilshire: I have just one matter to discuss. It follows on from some of the points that I made in the debate on the amendments, but I was deliberately trying to confine myself to the amendments only.
As you rightly said, Mr. Pike, this is an extremely important part of the Bill. Everyone in Committee—indeed, the House—would say that the more we involved the community in the process, the better, and the more likely it will be that the community will feel a sense of ownership of the plan produced by the experts. I welcome that, and am not speaking against the clause. However, simply saying that something will happen does not mean that it will. The Minister has said what should happen under the Bill, but have he, his Department or anyone in Government made any attempt at being proactive in helping the community to get involved?
As I mentioned earlier, if the Bill simply says that a formal system of community involvement is to take place, it will all too readily take place within the framework of what is available at the moment, rather than what we should have for the future. The list of consultees will be a list of pressure groups, almost all of which will be against things. I do not believe that that is good and serious community involvement. We had a debate earlier about parish councils, and I shall not re-open it, but has the Minister given any thought to encouraging the creation of parish councils where they do not exist?
There is provision in legislation—unless it has been repealed, and I do not think that is has—for community councils to be set up in areas such as the Minister's own. I say that because such councils would allow democratic representation in the consultation process. The huge difference between the parish council and the pressure group or residents association is that the parish council has democratic credentials. It has been elected to speak on behalf of the people. That is in contrast to the typical consultation process. I shall give an example of how that process can so readily go wrong. It refers to a small matter, but it makes the point beautifully.
In a street in my constituency there are some trees, some of which are held to be dangerous and rotten. The county council, quite rightly, addressed whether the trees should be cut down, and finally agreed to consult. It noticed that a protest group on cutting down the trees has been set up, and as a result, decided that the consultation with the public should be made not through local county councillors, although the county council will set it up, but through the pressure group. The people who turned up at the meeting to elect the officers of the pressure group were—surprise, surprise—those against cutting down the trees, and the county council has gone on to say that ''consultation'' means meeting representatives of the pressure group in the street to consider the trees.
My mailbag tells me that a number of people scattered about the place want the wretched things cut down, but a formal process of consultation that would
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meet the requirements of the Bill has been undertaken, and a group of people who appear to be speaking on behalf of the community is to be consulted. That is not good enough, and I hope that the Minister will listen to this argument and see that there is a role for a proactive contribution to the improvement of the process of consultation. It works well in some cases, but it works very badly in others, and it works worst in cases where there are no organisations such as parish, community and town councils, because that means that democracy is lacking and self-appointed people participate. I hope that the Minister is giving thought to how to improve consultation.
Mr. McNulty: We always seek to be proactive, to find examples of best practice and to assist in aid where that is necessary: that is the case not only in the context of this Bill, but more broadly. Getting Llewelyn-Davies to go out and find best practice where it exists is a part of that process, as is coming up with documents such as ''Making Plans''. That paper goes above and beyond guidance or anything that we need to do, and I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to page 62 which refers to some excellent participation events for the development of the Cotswold local plan, which I am sure that I will be able to commend to the Committee.
In clause 80, we seek the leave of the House to get to a stage where we can get grants for advice and assistance to other bodies, such as Planning Aid, that will do what is formally set out in the Bill. Over the coming couple of weeks, we will determine how we resource such bodies; that will happen when the Deputy Prime Minister makes his statement on the communities plan.
I am mindful of what you said earlier, Mr. Pike, so I will say no more.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 18
Preparation of local development documents
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I beg to move amendment No. 232, in
clause 18, page 10, line 29, after 'to', insert 'all material considerations including'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 288, in
No. 203, in
clause 18, page 10, line 43, after first 'the', insert 'local and national'.
No. 293, in
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(ic) the community strategy for any other authority whose area comprises any part of the area of the local planning authority;
(id) any other local development document which has been adopted by the authority;
(ie) the resources likely to be available for implementing the proposals in the document;'.
No. 125, in
clause 18, page 10, line 45, at end insert—
'(k) minerals and waste development documents adopted by any other authority whose area comprises any part of the area of the local planning authority.
(l) other relevant documents adopted by any other authority whose area comprises any part of the area of the local planning authority.'.
No. 216, in
No. 291, in
Mr. Clifton-Brown: The hon. Member for Ludlow is absent, but I am sure that he would not mind my moving his amendment No. 232.
Clause 18 contains a long but incomplete list of what must be considered in drawing up local development documents. I have some sympathy with the amendment, because the Bill requires the local planning authority to have regard to paragraphs (a) to (j), which implies—although I am sure that this is not the explicit power—that that is all that they need consider. Many other things must be considered, some of which are incorporated in our large group of amendments, others of which are not—and amendment No. 232 alludes to the fact that many other matters will need to be taken into consideration.
I turn to my party's amendments—those from amendment No 288 onwards. They were suggested to us by the Confederation of British Industry and other organisations. Their purpose is to ensure that local authorities have proper regard to economic considerations when preparing a local development document. The CBI told us that they accept that hard decisions about economic, social and environmental priorities for land use will often have to be made in the interests of sustainable development. The planning system has the role of balancing those often competing demands. However, clause 18 lacks a meaningful economic dimension, even though the link between planning and economic development is crucial—we touched on that in our discussion of the previous clause.
The promotion and improvement of the economic well being of their area should be an important—I would say vital—focus for local communities. As has been said, the generation of wealth by businesses in a local area keeps the vibrancy and general sustainability of that area; otherwise it will start to run downhill. For that reason, a better understanding of the local and regional economic contexts and priorities will underpin an improved guidance system and will help
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to ensure that there is not a growing bias in the system against development. We also seek an assurance on other key strategies, such as those regarding local and regional transport. We have not discussed transport strategies, but it is important, in the context of the clause and the Bill in general, to understand how local transport plans will link with the other plans and documents. In particular, we should understand how those would be integrated to inform the planning process effectively.
4.30 pm
I move on to deal with some specific matters, especially amendment No. 203, which deals with paragraph (i). Were it amended, paragraph (i) would read:
''the local and national resources likely to be available for implementing the proposals in the document''.
I had a long discussion yesterday with the Quarry Products Association, which has some reservations about the Bill. Much of the minerals planning in this country is currently dealt with by county councils and the association feels that there is much inconsistency between authorities. For example, when planning applications for minerals are granted in Essex, a section 106 agreement often contains about 20 specific reservations, whereas in Leicestershire such an agreement contains up to 60 reservations. However, the two authorities are basically doing exactly the same thing. Clearly, some authorities can do minerals planning in a much more direct and simple way than others. We should be doing minerals and waste planning on a larger basis, rather than leaving it to individual local authorities. On drawing up local plans, the Minister must tell the Committee how he would consult the individual county councils and individual unitary authorities that would still be responsible for drawing up minerals and waste strategies and how that could be done more consistently at national level.
Amendments Nos. 293 and 125 deal with minerals and waste. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors suggested the wording of the amendments and it has said that they are intended to ensure that local development documents are prepared with explicit regard to the relevant mineral and waste strategy. There is nothing in the Bill as it stands that says how the minerals and waste strategy should be considered by a local authority in drawing up its development documents. The RICS has said that such strategies are of both strategic and practical importance in respect of local planning issues and that they should be clearly and unambiguously set out in the list of matters for consideration in the clause.
The RICS told us:
''In order to maintain coherence between county-prepared waste and mineral plans and locally-prepared development documents, authorities should have regard to each other's plans when preparing such documents.''
I would have thought that that was a matter of common sense. I would, however, like the Minister to say, for the record, whether that will be the case; otherwise, it could result in a lack of effective co-ordination and create a potential conflict. For example, the situation may arise in which a minerals
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plan may contain land allocated for aggregates, while the local authority may, in a local development document, allocate the same land to housing. In order to avoid such confusion, it would be helpful to clarify the position. Since the waste and minerals functions would remain with the counties, it is important to integrate those properly with the broader proposals in the Bill.
On amendment No. 125, and on a point regarding the minerals strategy brought to us by the CPRE, how will the minimisation of the use of aggregates be considered in the plan? It is an important point. A large amount of ex-building material could be refurbished and reused instead of the enormous amount of aggregates that we currently mine and use. Materials such as road planings can be used in place of aggregates. Local authorities have a duty to consider this when drawing up their strategies, and they have a duty to ensure that when applicants submit their detailed drawings the specification is not over-specified, because it is far easier to use raw new aggregate than recycled aggregate, but in many cases recycled aggregate can do just as good a job as raw aggregate from the ground—and, in many cases, the sea bed.
The Local Government Association also had an input into amendment No. 125. It tells us:
''The proposals to integrate land use plans and community strategies envisage land use plans becoming spatial development strategies for their areas. These spatial development strategies will be the key to the implementation of community strategies, environmental strategies and the policies, programmes and investment of all organisations in an area. These will include transport, education, housing, health, employment and major investment strategies.
Minerals and waste development document are going to be statutory documents prepared by county councils. Local planning authorities need to have regard to them in the preparation of LDDs''.
Amendment No. 216 concerns flooding. We have discussed flooding on previous clauses, but it is particularly pertinent at this time of year. Houses in my constituency have been flooded not only with water but with raw sewage. Having visited a house flooded with raw sewage, I can say that it is a nasty experience. To continue to build houses within the flood plain where there are inadequate arrangements to deal with foul effluent is absolute folly. It must be a critical part of drawing up the plan to identify the location of the flood plains and the effect on existing developments of building on flood plains. We all know that the footings of a large number of houses containing concrete can force water out of one area into another. If an existing housing estate lower than the new housing estate is standing on the other area, it is likely to be flooded as a result of the new development.
That does not make sense, but it happens far too often in this country. Too many houses are flooded each year. We will have to pay more and more attention to that when drawing up such plans. The Environment Agency plans are a one-in-a-100-year event. With climate change we will have to look at planning for shorter periods. In other words, we may have to over-specify in dealing with developments in
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and around flood plains to ensure that new developments do not cause additional problems.
I am sure that other members of the Committee will have examples from their constituencies of planning problems. I am sorry to get earthy, Mr. Pike, but I must discuss the sewerage infrastructure in my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne mentioned Lechlade, whose surrounding area is at the source of the Thames. It is a low-lying area. When the Thames comes up in the winter, the sewer in the low-lying areas—of which there are several—is simply unable to discharge and backs up. It has backed up as far as Cirencester. I am glad to say that Thames Water has taken measures to alleviate the problem, although it has not yet entirely cracked it for Cirencester and the villages in that low-lying area.
Clearly, in drawing up its local plan, Cotswold district council would have to pay very careful attention to any new development in such areas. Indeed, I have gently asked it to resist any new development in those villages until the sewerage problem has been solved. It seems absolute folly to approve new developments if existing problems have not been solved.
I have dealt with some of the items that could be included on what would be a huge list, and I am sure that my colleagues will add others. The plan is all-encompassing. It tells local authorities how they are to consider not only the spatial and land use environment but the economic and social environment. Several items must be contained in the local plans. It is a difficult process—that is why it takes so long—and the more we put on the list, the longer it will take. However, if items such as flooding need to be on the list, they should be there. It will be very interesting to hear from the Minister what he expects local authorities to consider in drawing up their plans.
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