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12.52 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford): I thank myhon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West(Dr. Hampson) for raising the issue of out-of-town retail parks. He described in graphic detail--given time, he could have added to the detail--the difficulties that some Labour planning authorities impose on local residents.
He asked many questions and I shall answer as many as I can, but I shall have to write to him; otherwise I will have only about 30 seconds to answer each one, and some of the answers are more complicated than the questions.
I am aware--one cannot help but be aware--of the local concern and controversy about retail parks that are proposed for the north-west of Leeds, and I note the worries about the possible development of land at Bodington fields. As my hon. Friend is aware, there has been a history of interest in retail development of the area, and in 1989 proposals for a shopping and leisure development were turned down on the recommendation of one of the Secretary of State's inspectors. That in itself raises a question.
More recently, in 1993, Leeds city council made proposals in the draft Leeds unitary development plan. It proposed a range of policies for shopping and retail development in the city. Among those, I have identified locations where the council--I emphasise the word "council"--thinks that there is potential for major convenience goods retailing. One of the locations is West Park and the Westwood area of north-west Leeds. The council takes the view that there is a deficiency in facilities for selling convenience goods, which might be remedied by developing part of the Leeds university playing fields at Bodington Hall. On that basis, the council made a proposal in the unitary plan for such a development at Bodington fields.
As my hon. Friend knows, we attach considerable importance, for good reason, to settling local planning policy through preparing development plans, such as the Leeds unitary plan. That process allows for widespread consultation about the plan and its proposals for development on particular sites. It is an important opportunity for local residents to put their views. It allows the public to comment on the plan and to make formal objections, which are then considered by an independent inspector at a public local inquiry.
If the matter was straightforward and was moving with the grain of local residents, one would not expect much of a necessity for consultation. One would expect the unitary development plan to proceed, as it has in many areas, with simplicity and without taking too much time, but in this case some 19,000 objections were made to the Leeds UDP. Only one other council, which, I suspect, is notable for a similar attitude, managed to beat that record--Bradford. It is worth emphasising that the system works where the plan goes with the grain. Where it is imaginative, local residents will go along with it and understand, but in this case there were some 19,000 objections.
Some 200 or 300 of my hon. Friend's constituents have already taken advantage of their rights and objected to the proposal for Bodington fields. The public local inquiry into objections about the Leeds unitary plan has been under way for some months. I understand that the inquiry inspector will consider all objections to the city council's intentions for the retail development later this month. During the inquiry, the inspector will consider objections about a number of retail sites and consider options that have been suggested by constituents and, perhaps, by prospective developers. One such proposal might be at Woodside quarries in north-west Leeds, and there is controversy about that, too.
My hon. Friend asked about the reaction of the UDP inspector to the specific and minute details of the scheme submitted by John Lewis. As he is aware, the inspector deals only with broad issues; he does not approve anything. The John Lewis application is not before him. The inspector makes broad recommendations.
The inquiry inspector has a duty to look carefully at all the objections--all 19,000 of them in the case of the Leeds UDP. In due course--it will be some time away, because of the length of the inquiry into the Leeds plan--he will make recommendations to the council. The council must then decide the final form of the plan after considering the objections and recommendations. That is to ensure protection for the people of the area. That is why the process has taken so long in this case. The procedures then allow for another round of public consultation about any modifications that the council might propose, including a right of objection.
I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise that the plans provide a distinct safeguard to ensure that major decisions about development are not taken without a full hearing and an appreciation of all the points of view. Obviously, it would be wrong for me to predict the outcome of the inspector's consideration and the view that the council might eventually take, but our national guidance on retail policy will be a major consideration in any of the decisions.
The Government's key objectives for town centres and retail developments are to sustain and enhance the viability and vitality of town centres; to focus retail development in locations where the proximity of competing businesses facilitates competition from which all consumers can benefit; to ensure the availability of a wide range of shops, services and facilities to which people may have easy access; to maximise the opportunity for shoppers and other town centre users to use a means of transport other than the car; and to maintain an efficient and innovative retail sector. All those objectives must be taken into account in the Leeds unitary development plan and in the two cases that my hon. Friend mentioned.
As everyone is abundantly aware, there has been considerable concern about the development at Bodington fields. There is nothing to prevent a planning application being submitted and, as my hon. Friend says, such an application has been made. The matter might eventually require a decision by the Secretary of State either because the city council refers it to him or, in the event of refusal, because there is an appeal. As my hon. Friend is aware, for that reason I cannot specifically comment.
The city council will receive any planning application for a retail park in Leeds, and it will be expected to have regard to the current development plan and to the emergent plan, although there may be uncertainties about the planning status of the site. If its status is not firmly established in an adopted plan, which is a plan that has passed through all the stages of preparation, objection, inquiry--
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes):
Order. We must move on.
Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and West Devon):
I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the problems that I and my colleagues see as caused by the Government because of their weak approach to European funding for projects in the south-west. I shall refer first to a report called "No Go South West 1996, Bureaucracy Run Riot--How Whitehall Blocks Britain's Euro Funds". That Liberal Democrat document was produced by Robin Teverson, a Member of the European Parliament. His earlier document called "No Go South West 1995" was warmly received by business men in the south-west.Mr. Bell, the managing director of Curnow Shipping, said:
I shall quote another brief comment from Mike Boxall, the chief executive of the West Country development corporation. He is one of the ambassadors for that corporation as are many of my colleagues. He said:
Alison Best, the senior policy adviser for the National Farmers Union, said:
I have many such comments, but a summary of the problem is that the Government simply do not care, despite the positive regional policy that is driven at European level and which has meant that Plymouth, Cornwall and Devon are in line for major funding for economic development. In the period 1994-96 Plymouth has been allocated £23 million of Euro-funding, and Cornwall has access to £170 million of projecting5b funding earmarked for the south-west. Europe wants local and regional communities to decide for themselves how funds should be used, and it involves itself in administration and paperwork only for the largest projects.
Thanks to the Government, nearly two years into the programme, the south-west has seen very little hard cash. Of the £193 million of European money, only about£6 million has been received and 75 per cent.--three quarters--of projects that were approved by the working groups before November are still waiting for offer letters
because of delays by Government Departments. It takes an average of six months for Government offices to approve a scheme. That is wholly unsatisfactory, and it is the reason for the debate.
The paper chase is the key. Under this Government, Departments use 100 words where 10 would do. We have only to look at the IACS form from MAFF. Our version is the biggest, the most pedantic and the most time-consuming in the whole of Europe. But when it comes to applying for Euro-funding for the south-west, our Ministers seem to have made the largest effort of all. The application form is brevity itself, but unfortunately, after it has been filled in, it is downhill all the way.
Understaffed and perhaps unappreciated by the Government, the Government's regional office in the south-west tries hard, but it requires completed forms no less than four months before the date of the working group meeting. Anyone who applies now will get in for the June meeting--if he is lucky. If the date is missed by a day or two, he can forget it until October, by which time perhaps there will be a general election. Even if the form gets that far, staff shortages in the regional office mean that many forms are sent to Scotland for assessment by consultants.
Probably because of "No Go South West" and our pressure, two secondees have been employed at the south-west office to help with applications. However, that does not seem to help, because the applications are not getting through to the European Commissioner. At the last working group meeting, the commissioner was targeted as the person who had held up the meeting. However, one of the problems was that the Commissioner, Mr. Oreja, had not received the papers in time to look at them properly. He received them so late that he could not examine them thoroughly. He asked to hold up some projects for a week to look at them further, but the Department of the Environment said that that was a matter for national Government, and there was no way that he could delay matters for a week. The DoE said that, although the Government gave the Commissioner the papers very late.
Neither the UK nor the Commission currently recognises regional or local influence or responsibility for 5b, and that means that we could have sent the papers ourselves. That meeting took three hours longer than normal and people left it disillusioned and annoyed. Some new time limits were set at the meeting and were sorted out by the Commissioner. First, it was decided that as soon as a project has been approved at a working group meeting the project has to start within 12 months.
1 pm
"I thought 'No Go South West' was an accurate, succinct situation report. Since its earliest days I have been a member of SWEL's Euro sub-committee so ably run by Paul Davis . . . At one of our regular meetings, about two years ago, there was a trio from Government Office South West. At the end of the meeting I voiced the suspicion that 5(b) funds were never going to flow our way because the Treasury saw them as being added to the PSBR. The reaction was volcanic: the sky duly fell in on me: It was very obvious that I had touched a raw nerve.
It is sadly significant that Minister David Curry avoids any mention of the Treasury's attitude and the other three Departments beyond GOSW."
"I believe your paper 'No Go South West' has provided a very useful contribution to resolving an unsatisfactory situation and I also believe that lessons learned from the experience of the last two years or so should be remembered for future programmes . . . we are still awaiting the Guidelines for this involvement by the Private Sector and you can imagine the frustrations this brings."
"We share your disappointment that the Minister has failed to acknowledge the current problems of accessing European funding. According to our information only three projects have been accepted for submission to the next meeting of the EAGGF Working Group and there is a further eight or so which MAFF may regard as suitable for submission. There are at least 24 applications which we have been told will be delayed until the June meeting of the Working Group at the earliest . . . our suggestion here is obviously what are the facilitators supposed to be doing?"
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