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House Building (Avon)
1 pm
Mr. Steve Webb (Northavon): I have been asking myself what the worst ministerial job in Government must be. Until recently, I assumed it was the job of junior transport Minister, someone who must spend his or her time, often in the early hours of the morning, responding to hon. Members who either want a ring road or bypass or desperately do not want one. However, it strikes me that even worse is probably the job of the Minister--who will shortly join us, I hope--who has to respond to housing debates. In a series of debates, hon. Members of all parties have recognised the need for additional house building, but said that none of it should happen in their constituencies.
Having said which, I make no apology for raising the subject of house building in the former county of Avon. It is probably one of the biggest issues impacting on the quality of life of the people represented by the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Dr. Naysmith), who is present for this debate, and by me. While the scope of the debate is the whole of Avon, I shall be parochial for a moment in outlining three development threats in Northavon that illustrate why I sought the debate.
First, it is possible that ICI land on Severnside, for which planning permission for industrial development dating back to the 1950s exists, might be turned over to residential development. That could double the size of the adjoining village, Pilning. Pilning and Easter Compton are distinct villages with distinct characters, but they could become one sprawling housing estate, and that would be highly unwelcome.
Secondly, there is a threat of further development north of Yate, which would add to already extensive house building, taking up scarce green-field sites. Finally, there is a new threat to the area north of Thornbury, where developers are believed to be eyeing up farmland even as we speak, not least because of the weakness of agriculture. Few farmers, given the opportunity to sell their land for mass house building and a substantial profit, would be able to resist when the alternative is the very meagre income that many of them earn.
I congratulate the Government on ending the numbers-driven predict and provide approach that has characterised housing development in recent years. Let me give an example of the absurdity of that strategy. Projecting populations over 20 years is difficult. Projecting regional populations is even more difficult. When it comes to sub-regions such as the former county of Avon, it is frankly absurd, and it produces bizarre results.
The joint strategic planning and transportation committee of the former Avon authorities produced a document after receiving projections from the Office of Population, Census and Statistics, based in 1993, for the sort of people who would move into Avon. The OPCS said:
The figures were produced by a process of iteration. Statisticians know that the total migration around the country must add up to zero, and they have certain views about what determines flows from one area to another. They try to tweak the numbers until all totals add up to zero and all prior assumptions are satisfied. That produces frankly barmy statistics.
If the problem were merely a statistical nicety, we could ignore it and move on. However, the gender balance of those who move into an area affects house building projections. It is assumed that men have a faster rate of forming households, or form more households, than women. Were we still driven by numbers, those figures could mean real houses in real fields in my constituency. I am pleased that the Government have dropped predict and provide.
South Gloucestershire has borne the brunt of additional house building in the Avon area in the past. Since the late 1980s, out of the four unitary authorities in the former county of Avon, South Gloucestershire has taken the largest share of new house building in every single year. It would be a travesty if the area that had rapid growth in the past was therefore deemed able to cope with rapid growth in future. The houses have come, but the infrastructure has not come with them. Huge development has come, first at Yate, then at Bradley Stoke, now at Emersons Green. Some time, a limit must come. The infrastructure must be given time to catch up.
On the face of it, one would assume that the disused Hortham hospital site would be a natural for housing development. It might be assumed to be just the sort of site on which people like me would want new houses to be built. However, the site illustrates our infrastructure problems. The 250 houses planned for the site, to which the local authority may give the go-ahead, will mean yet more congestion on the A38. It is already overcrowded, and local residents will tell anyone it is more like a car park than a road. Unless infrastructure is given time to catch up, areas such as south Gloucestershire will have great difficulty in coping with planned additional house building.
What can be done? Government action is already under way in three areas, but I would like to see more being done to reduce the pressure for new house building on green-field sites, particularly in south Gloucestershire. First, let me touch on the use of empty properties. The Bristol Evening Post recently highlighted the 5,500 empty properties in Bristol alone. A Friends of the Earth spokeswoman said:
The Minister for London and Construction kindly ensured that I was provided with a written answer in time for this debate, which identified no fewer than 13,000 empty properties in the former Avon area. Compare that number with the 3,000 or 4,000 new houses that are built in Avon each year. If only one third of the empty properties could be returned to use, we might have a year without new house building. Matters are not that simple, of course, but that is the scale of the problem.
Reducing void rates and empty rates is feasibleIn Holland, the empty property rates are closer to 2.5 per cent. than to our 4 per cent. That 1.5 per cent. of difference would make a substantial impact in my area.
First, let me make a radical suggestion. I propose that house builders be told that they can build no new houses in the next 12 months, but must devote all their attention to setting about some of the 13,000 empty properties in Avon. They will be told that they can have permission to build in certain areas subsequently, but that, for 12 months, all their refurbishment and building skills must be put into doing up existing properties. If that proposal were on the table, it would concentrate minds wonderfully. I am sure that empty properties are a national problem, but the numbers in Avon are clearly substantial.
Secondly, can the Minister reassure me on the sequential development test, a Government measure that I welcome, but which I would like to have more teeth? As I understand it, go-aheads will not be given for development on green-field sites unless developers show that they have first considered alternative brown-field sites.
I am not sure precisely how that will work. My constituency has few brown-field sites. Does a developer who wants to build thousands of houses on the outskirts of, say, Thornbury merely have to say that he has exhausted brown-field sites in Northavon? Would the relevant area be south Gloucestershire, or the former county of Avon, or the south-west? What is the test, and how high is the hurdle?
Would developers be able to say that they had considered a site, but that it would cost too much to clean up? That would not be good enough. If sites can be developed appropriately for new housing, but with, perhaps, a smaller profit margin, I do not believe developers should be able to get away with not using them. I should be grateful for some assurance that real teeth are being put behind the test.
Thirdly, there is the tax anomaly. As the Minister knows, someone who wants to do up a rundown or empty property has to pay VAT at 17.5 per cent., whereas someone who wants to build a new house on a green-field site faces no similar tax burden. That cannot be right; it gives all the wrong incentives. Why not have a tax on green-field sites? I believe that one is under consideration, but my constituents say, "House building is going on now. How long will we have to wait for the tax incentives?"
The tax revenues from such sources should not be used as a milch cow for the Treasury, but should be recycled into urban development. We make a serious mistake if we view the issue as one of town against country. One of the merits of examining the problem on an Avon-wide basis is that the result can be a win-win situation. The proceeds from development in rural areas could be used partly for infrastructure to support those developments, but also for the rejuvenation--I believe that the word now being used is "renaissance"--of urban areas.
Although many people want to live in the country, in villages and in suburban areas, many people, especially students and other young people, want to live in towns, where the life is and where things are going on. They do not mind living in flats above shops in the city. If we could make life more palatable for such people, and revive the urban areas, we would do the whole community a favour and avoid setting the countryside against the town.
As for the way in which green-belt policy affects the south Gloucestershire area, it has been pointed out to me that the green belt that surrounds our area is very thin--more of a loop than a broad band. Although it prevents some of the immediate sprawl, it intensifies the pressure for development on the other side of it, because that area is within easy travel-to-work distance of the towns.
There tends to be substantial economic and residential development at the centre, a thin green band and then yet more houses on the other side of the green fields. The bizarre result is that mass car journeys are made across the green belt. I am not clear what the straightforward answer to that problem is, but green-belt policies in other areas have avoided that loop problem, which leads to the leaping of the green belt. I would be interested in the Minister's reflections on that subject.
Unless measures such as those that I have described, on which the Government are beginning to take action, are put in place, the issue will not be simply that tens of thousands of homes will be built in Avon over the next few years. What will happen after 2016, or after 2021? Will the numbers continue to rise inexorably, and, if so, will there be anything left of the green spaces that make south Gloucestershire such a special place?
This week, a resident of Thornbury wrote to me to register her objections to the plans to build hundreds of homes on the outskirts of the town, in the following terms:
"The projections for the Avon area say that out of the net migration into Avon, 0.4 per cent. would be female and 99.6 per cent. would be male."
I shall not remark on whether all the football teams in the area are a reason why all those men should flood in, but it is clear that those figures are absolutely absurd.
"Empty homes are neighbours from hell--because they bring down an area."
That is true.
"This sort of development would not only destroy the character of Thornbury, but would stretch local resources to breaking point. As you know, the schools are already full, parking is difficult and traffic congestion in the rush hour is atrocious. In the morning rush hour I can walk from Morton Way roundabout to the A38 faster than you can drive that distance in a car, and the exhaust pollution is horrendous. An increase of local housing on this scale would also have serious consequences for the already badly congested A38 towards Bristol."
My constituent identified the infrastructure problems that I have described. She continued:
"It is vital that the boundary of the town as set out in the various Plans is not altered and that such development is not allowed. I hope you will do everything in your power to ensure this."
As the Minister knows, my powers on such matters are rather limited--but I have had the opportunity and the privilege of raising the issue before him and before the House today. That is one thing that I can do.
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