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9.17 pm
Mr. Archie Norman (Tunbridge Wells): I am delighted to speak tonight on an issue that threatens to herald one of the great environmental disasters of the 21st century unless we address the matter early. We are examining changes that are irreversible and it is for that reason that they pose such a great threat. The speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames), who is no longer in his place, illustrated vividly the terrible tragedy that potentially faces West and Mid-Sussex, parts of the countryside that are a national treasure and irreplaceable. His point was not only that we risk losing the countryside, but that, today, communities in that countryside are living under the threat of development. That is a way of setting community against community. The decisions to be made could be regretted by generations to come.
Conservative Members, especially those new to the House, like myself, fully recognise that what we are saying today reflects a change in thinking that is not unique to this side of the House. It is a consequence of the learning that has taken place from the erosion of the countryside in the past two decades. The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) raised the question of supermarket development, and I stress that I am not here tonight to speak for the supermarket retailing industry. However, as the hon. Gentleman raised the issue, I would point out that it is important to recognise that the supermarket industry has, for the most part, welcomed the tightening of planning restrictions, which is good for the industry and for the community.
More important, the hon. Member for Leicester, East noted that, as a consequence of that tightening up, market forces have ensured that people in the retailing industry have turned their minds with ingenuity and creativity to solutions using brown-field and town-centre sites. That would not have arisen without the tightening-up under the previous Government. The same analogy should be applied to housing, where tightening up restrictions on green-field sites--not only green belt--will result in the same ingenuity in architecture and development.
Mr. Drew:
I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman. I would not put words into his mouth, but is he saying on behalf of the companies with which he is associated that they no longer intend to pursue their existing planning permissions outside town centres?
Mr. Norman:
I explained that I am not here to speak for the supermarket industry, my interest in which is well known. It would not be appropriate to use the time of the House to pursue that when other hon. Members want to speak.
I want to discuss countryside issues, especially in my constituency, which is a spa town in a part of the country already facing saturation development. There is extreme congestion pressure and pressure on infrastructure such as schools and hospitals. We must recognise that other Government policies, such as the restriction on new road building and the cancellation of the A21 dualling project, have increased the pressure from congestion. Those policies fly in the face of encouraging new housing development, notably the building of 125,000 new homes in Kent.
In his opening remarks, the Minister claimed that the projections for the requirement to build some 4 million new houses are incapable of challenge. We all know that that is not the case. Good evidence on projections was submitted by Professor Glen Bramley to the Environment, Transport and Regional Affairs Committee. He said:
The assumptions of the new projections are open to question. We must recognise that straight-line projections based on demand such as this are first based on the assumption that we have to meet the demand as it appears; supply has to meet demand without any change in life style being sought, as mentioned my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray). We are approaching the point where that form of development is no longer sustainable. Life styles, modes of living, development and architecture will have to adapt accordingly.
Dr. Stephen Ladyman (South Thanet):
The hon. Gentleman is a fellow Kent Member. Given what he has said, what did he think when, in 1996, the Tory Government forcibly increased the house-building target in Kent over what Kent county council had wanted?
Mr. Norman:
I have already explained that this is today; we are talking about the future and the threat to the countryside now. We fully recognise that some past judgments might not be made in the same situation today.
It is important to recognise that the projections are high risk. They assume the continuity of today's life style. Important assumptions about migration and immigration are made. The requirements of immigrants are particularly important to the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman). They also assume a continuity of vacancy rates, which run at 4 per cent., as my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire said. A reduction of vacancy rates, compelled partly by market forces, to, say, 2 per cent., would result in 471,000 new homes being taken up, or about 10 per cent. of the total requirement. That shows that the projection is far from sacrosanct.
When the Secretary of State approved 2,500 new homes on green belt in Newcastle, there were already 4,000 empty homes in the Newcastle town centre area. Instead of giving permission for green-belt development, we must apply pressure to encourage architects and developers to find ingenious solutions in town centres. We would thereby solve half of the problem without sacrificing the countryside.
We must recognise the fragility of the projections. They are not certain. No one can predict with any degree of certainty what will be required in 2016. That is why green-belt and green-field developments should come last, not first. We should not give permission for new settlements in the countryside now. If they are required, they should follow on in a decade or so.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire also put forward a powerful argument for the nature of the new houses required. The projections do not show that we need hundreds of pastiche, new family houses in the countryside. In fact, 80 per cent. of the new household requirement is for single-person households. As Labour Members said, those include elderly people. Some of the dwellings will perhaps be for single-parent families and some will be for single people and students. Single-person households do not require houses in the countryside or on the edge of towns in green fields. Ideally, they require housing within the existing community. A greater density of housing and a re-configuration of the accommodation will be required in those communities. That is contrary to the effect of the Government's policy on new green-field development. Our best chance is not to give permission now and release land for green-field development, but to oblige developers and architects to find solutions in town centres.
Finally, the cost of green-field developments to the community and the public purse in the long run has an enormous multiplier effect, which is not necessarily the case with developments in towns. What was once a village called Paddock Wood in my constituency is now the major development centre in Tunbridge Wells. Migration into Paddock Wood is not from Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding community and does not consist of single person households. The development is for families moving from London and the Medway towns to Tunbridge Wells and the Kent countryside. The impact is not merely the loss of income-generating families to the Medway towns and the metropolitan conurbation, or the decline in school rolls in the city centre. We will have to build new schools and roads in Paddock Wood and the surrounding area, which will be a cost to the public purse. Green-field development is not merely environmentally destructive: it is a great deal more expensive and it is inappropriate to the requirements of single-person households in the Government's projections.
The Government claim to have moved to a decentralised approach to planning and housing requirements. In so far as that is the intention, it is welcome, but it has not happened. The London and south-east regional planning conference, Serplan, covers an area from Oxford to Folkestone. That is not local or decentralised. Regional is not local or democratic. There is no effective accountability and it is not likely to work.
Barbara Follett (Stevenage):
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this important debate, to set the record straight on the reasons for the development to the west of Stevenage, and to outline what Hertfordshire county council intends to do to implement its structure plan in a responsible and sustainable fashion.
First, I have to repeat what has already been said: the 4.4 million target figure was a Conservative target figure and Hertfordshire county council was told that it had to provide the space for 65,000 houses by 2016. From 1994, Hertfordshire struggled to do that and it eventually found space for 54,000 houses on brown-field sites in towns and villages, but the problem of space for the remaining 11,000 houses proved intractable.
"Nevertheless, the household projections have attracted increasing attention and a range of critical comment, some at least of which cannot be lightly dismissed."
No Conservative Member pretends that we do not need to build new houses; we recognise that we do. It is a question of the extent and nature of the new housing developments required.
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