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Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex): I am grateful to be able to speak tonight solely about West Sussex and to invite the Minister, after what I thought was a deplorable performance from the Government Dispatch Box on such a serious matter, to deal sensibly and seriously with the points that I shall make. I shall speak in the context of the motion tabled by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and other right hon. and hon. Friends. I shall focus my remarks on the grave anxieties that are rightly and understandably felt by those who live in my constituency of Mid-Sussex and in West Sussex more generally.
As the Minister may or may not know, West Sussex has some of the most beautiful and romantic landscape in Britain. However, under present Government policy, not one green field is safe in the area. Every settlement feels that it is under pressure. In East Grinstead, Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill, local people are extremely anxious about the Government's monstrous decisions. This is a wholly unacceptable and thoroughly bad state of affairs. It happens also to be environmentally unsustainable.
I shall remind the House of exactly what has happened in West Sussex. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), who so carefully and sensibly set out the case.
Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
There is no disagreement in West Sussex, as the Minister knows, that there will have to be development. Mid-Sussex is at the heart of a prosperous, growing and ambitious county. All parties in West Sussex agreed on a structure plan, which was approved by one of Her Majesty's inspectors at an examination in public in May 1997. It was a well-researched, well-documented and careful piece of work by the county, the district and the parish councils. It related to the overall environmental and economic situation in West Sussex.
The Deputy Prime Minister, in what was a monstrous decision, overturned his inspector's report in December 1997. The right hon. Gentleman has imposed, in addition to the 37,800 houses which the county council had agreed to build, 13,000 houses on the county.
Mr. Blizzard:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Soames:
No, I will not give way.
The Deputy Prime Minister has ordered West Sussex to ignore his inspector's assessment, and by central Government bully-boy tactics, he has chosen to exceed the environmentally safe capacity of West Sussex. The truth is--the Government have deliberately ignored it--that the infrastructure in Mid-Sussex especially, and in West Sussex more widely, cannot cope with such a level of development.
The new houses will put impossible pressure on schools and social services that are already hard pressed. This will follow on from West Sussex having suffered an appalling local government settlement this year. Equally, there will be impossible pressure on hospitals and roads. Already in
Mid-Sussex I have almost every week a request to visit schools and other facilities where life is made impossible by the burden of traffic and the growth of it around schools, for example, where there are seriously dangerous situations developing.
Central government--even the previous Conservative Government--have not put enough money into roads in West Sussex. The present Government have not only failed to put enough money into roads, they have cut the programme altogether. That flies in the face of other Government policies. I shall quote an answer that was given to me by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. My question was to be answered on 25 January but the hon. Lady was unable to provide an answer on that day for reasons that I understand. She had to have three extra days to answer it. I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Within the context of the motion, I shall say a word or two about the green belt and its impact. This was the only part of the Minister's speech in which he said something of interest. Much of Surrey and other home counties is designated as metropolitan green belt. The effect of this is to restrict the outward growth of London and to constrain severely the expansion of many of the settlements within the green belt--for example Redhill and Dorking.
Protecting the green belt can and has pushed development pressures into other areas, especially those just beyond the green belt--for example, the northern part of West Sussex where my seat is located, and, among others, Horsham, Crawley and Mid-Sussex. Green fields in those areas, without the protection of green-belt status, accordingly and inevitably come under greater threat from development. The Government are reluctant to extend green belts beyond those areas already designated.
In West Sussex the structure plan policy--that of the structure plan that has not been overturned by the Deputy Prime Minister--aims to protect strongly and forcefully the remaining strategic gaps that are crucial between settlements--for example between Crawley and East Grinstead, Crawley and Horsham and Haywards Heath and Burgess Hill. At present, the Government do not think that such local designations--strategic gaps--should protect land as strongly as national designation such as the green belt and areas of outstanding natural beauty.
I urge the Government to take seriously the request to enable greater protection to be afforded for counties such as West Sussex in the situation that I have described, and to enable greater protection by placing on a par with green belts strategic gaps and other similar local designations. That is vital if the Government are serious about trying to protect the character of areas where pressure for development is at its strongest.
Paragraph 236 of the excellent report of the Select Committee on Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs states:
If the Government persist with what amounts to a gross betrayal of the West Sussex countryside, we must ensure that more is done to improve the design and layout of new developments. I very much agree with one or two points made by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) about the reform of the planning system. I want much tighter designation of architecture, design and layout.
I am delighted that, in June last year, members of the Select Committee visited the Duchy of Cornwall's remarkably interesting project at Poundbury in Dorset. They also visited the millennium village in the Minister's constituency, which is another fine example of new ideas. I hope that the Government will pay attention to the lessons of Poundbury. West Sussex county council officials paid a visit there in November and came away very impressed, as I had been on an earlier trip.
No one is suggesting that all new developments should look like Poundbury--of course they should not--but we need to take on board that what was dismissed as an irrelevance by the know-all practitioners has now been accepted as best practice in the layout and design of new settlements. We must learn that the requirements of environmental quality, layout, architecture and harmony must be much more strictly fulfilled if we are to accept the horrific level of planning that is suggested. Best practice should include thoughtful and sensible principles on planning and architecture. Poundbury has achieved a remarkable success and I hope that the Government and planners will be much tougher on builders about those principles.
Mr. Colin Pickthall (West Lancashire):
Almost all of my constituency is in the green belt, and that has prevented Greater Manchester from physically merging with Merseyside. That fact alone is sufficient to make me daily bless the vision of those in the post-war Labour Government who made the green belt a reality.
In speaking about my green belt, I speak also about the green belt covered by the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow), which shares the same characteristics and problems. This will be an "on the one hand, but on the other" contribution to the debate because I believe that neither a totally defensive nor a totally invasive policy on the green belt is acceptable.
First, it is important to point out that the green belt is not homogenous. It varies in its geological and agricultural characteristics and very much so in its proximity to, or remoteness from, urban settlements. In my part of the world, the green belt is mostly flat peat land and reclaimed marsh. It is mostly A1 agricultural land and most of the industry is horticulture and the production of field vegetables of an extremely high quality.
Despite the variety in green-belt characteristics across the country and the different levels of pressures on the green belt in, for example, the south-east around Greater London compared with Lancashire, the underlying purpose of that land is the same. As PPG2 says, that purpose is
I want to place on record my deep appreciation for the stout defence of the principles and objectives of the green belt put up by West Lancashire district council and, in particular, the stubborn resistance of the chairman of planning, Bob Pendleton, to the despoliation of the green belt. However, those like myself who have had the good luck to live and work surrounded by the green belt--in my case, for over 30 years--are badly placed to object in principle to the natural desire of those in Liverpool and Manchester to move into the areas that we so much enjoy.
One of the things that worries me about Opposition Members' total concentration on housing and planning in the green belt--I understand their anxieties--is that behind it lies the substratum opinion, "We have got into the green belt, thank you very much; we are all right. Pull up the drawbridge. We do not want anybody else in here with us if we can possibly help it."
My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has very properly and crucially yoked, by violence, the preservation of the green belt and green areas generally with the need to upgrade and improve our urban environment. I urge the Government to pursue that relationship relentlessly, and I am sure that they will.
There is more capacity for developing brown-field sites and for living above shops; there are more redundant Ministry of Defence and Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions sites, as well old hospital and old asylum sites to be developed; there is a vast amount of unused Railtrack land. Planning and taxation obstacles to such development possibilities can be adjusted to speed up such acceptable development, while as much development of the green belt as possible is slowed down. My right hon. Friend has proposed a target of 60 per cent.--that has been much debated, so I need not go into it. I believe that that can be achieved, and improved on.
I said at the outset that there are huge differences in land characteristics and usage between green belts. I want to flag up some of the problems faced by my constituents. The survival of economic activity in the rural areas of West Lancashire depends on an intricate and delicate web of interdependence in the horticultural and field vegetable industries. In order to challenge, or to integrate with, the power of major retailers, which I am glad to see are represented in the Chamber, growers must adapt their buildings and become more efficient in transporting their produce. Farmers must adapt their buildings to meet animal welfare needs, among other pressures. Restrictions in green-belt regulations make that process exceedingly difficult and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) said, extremely protracted. It is absurd that local growers and hauliers are often unable simply to park their vehicles on or close to their land because hard-standing counts as building development. Several small growers in my constituency have closed down precisely because of that.
Changing buildings directly to meet the demands of supermarket buyers can also prove so protracted and difficult that contracts are lost. Many local authorities, particularly mine, have been stung by the fiddling of planning permission for so-called agricultural dwellings to the point that they are reluctant to grant any such permission. Absurdly, that has led to them making judgments on the commercial viability of projects--something that local councils are not fitted to do. Constituents of mine are trying to diversify from pig farming--who would not if they had the choice--by buying a redundant plant nursery and bringing it back to life. That nursery is in the green belt and has no dwelling attached to it. The project could well fall through due to obstacles to planning permission in such circumstances.
On the other hand, some of the activities allowed in the green belt are proving to be a different problem. Sprawling golf courses, for which permission is granted because they are part of what is considered acceptable use, sports centres and a proposed crematorium and graveyard in West Lancashire are all as bad an intrusion into agricultural green belt as small factories or extended horticultural units, and certainly as bad as housing development. A proposal to convert a redundant commercial unit in a tiny hamlet into a smithy was turned down because it was deemed not to be agriculture related.
Most problems with residential caravan sites, the creation of new farm roads and alternative use of redundant farm buildings will be common to all green belts, but problems that might be especially acute in horticultural areas require particularly sensitive handling, which is not always enhanced by green-belt regulation. That handling is of course best understood and undertaken locally. I am enthusiastic about the role to be played in this process by regional development agencies. I do not share the fears and cynicism of the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns). I very much hope to see elected regional government in the next Parliament which has an overview of such matters.
I am aware that there is a contradiction in what I have said. I have learnt to contradict myself very quickly; it saves my wife the trouble. I have argued the defensive case, which would be strongly in support of the integrity of the green belt, and, at the same time, I am arguing for
more local flexibility--not in terms of the extent of the green belt, but the land usage within it and permissions for that.
Local authorities are much more likely to be able to judge the genuineness of the need or the demand for development, especially in relation to local commercial need as well as housing. Specifically, local authorities are most likely to be able to make sensible judgments about infill in "washed over" villages and hamlets. Remarkably, in Lancashire, surveys of parish need for new homes often produce the information that there is no need, but that never prevents the owners of a large garden or spare plot from conjuring up amazing arguments to prove the need for, or the reasonableness of, what they are doing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East said, it is the people with the money who can command the planning silks, who always seem to get their way in the end.
How do we square the contradictory pressures that all hon. Members who represent green-belt areas experience? Whatever else it did not do, the Opposition's chronic over-egging of the case for preservation of the green belt in recent months, which might well have buried the case for its conservation, has brought into the public domain the Government's more detailed ideas about green-belt policy and countryside policy as a whole. Many of us have returned to the Labour party policy document produced before the general election, "A Working Countryside", for which my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East and Musselburgh (Dr. Strang) has not had sufficient credit.
For my constituency's green belt, the devil is always in the detail. Given the natural reluctance of a council to get embroiled in lengthy and expensive appeals and wrangling with landowners' barristers, it is easier for the council to say no, full stop. In many cases planning applications are passed to and fro between district and county councils.
Some time ago, I suggested to my local council that one way forward might be to self-impose an absolute limit on the amount of green belt that it would allow even to be considered for suitable development. I envisaged a tiny proportion, perhaps 0.1 per cent., but that would still representing a significant amount of possibilities. That would allow the identification of relatively degraded land, and of unsightly, unused farm buildings, as well as the identification of key small sites for the parking of produce merchants' vehicles, for the erection of small appropriate commercial units and so on.
As things stand, the pressures on industrial and commercial land in Skelmersdale--a new town well inside the green belt--are now such that, this year, the council is planning to release a large tract of land on the edge of the town, formerly designated to come into the planning ambit in six years' time. A more flexible overall policy might have enabled us to avoid that. Although it is good that Skelmersdale is at last starting to grow after years of being trodden on by the previous Government, it is regrettable that it can do so only by spreading into attractive open countryside in what is still the green belt, with the development of an industrial estate.
"what steps he has taken to encourage an environmentally sustainable economy in Britain."
The Economic Secretary replied:
"The Government's approach to sustainable development is based on four broad objectives",
the fourth of which was the
"effective protection of the environment and prudent use of natural resources."--[Official Report, 28 January 1999; Vol. 324, c. 349-50.]
If the Minister thinks that the Government are providing effective protection of natural resources and the environment in West Sussex, he is gravely mistaken.
"Environmental protection and sustainable development should be put at the centre of policies on the location of housing."
To my intense sadness and regret, the Government have not done that. No doubt, the previous Government were also seriously at fault. As the Minister rightly said, planning is an extremely difficult matter. However, in terms of the protection of the countryside, West Sussex has suffered what amounts to environmental vandalism. I want the Government to reconsider the consequences of their actions because their steps are, and will continue to be, hugely damaging to the environment.
"to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built up areas and to prevent towns merging; to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment; to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns and to assist in urban regeneration by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land."
It is worth reminding ourselves of those objectives, as it is worth reminding ourselves of the first sentence under "Designation" in PPG2, which says:
"The essential characteristic of Green Belts is their permanence."
Within the parameters of what development is allowed in the green belt, land usage is a different matter, and I shall return to that point in a moment.
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