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Housing (Aylesbury)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heppell.]
7.26 pm
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury): I am grateful for the opportunity to draw to the attention of the House the concerns of a large number of my constituents in Aylesbury and surrounding villages about the proposals, announced in the Deputy Prime Minister's so-called communities plan, for large-scale additional housing developments in Buckinghamshire—and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire—between 2001 and 2031. Although I shall deal mostly with the issues as they concern my constituency, the Minister will know that the Government's Milton Keynes and south midlands study encompassed many different constituencies, and I am delighted to see my hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) and for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) in their places today. Both have constituents who will be seriously affected by these proposals.
I start by offering the Minister at least one slim olive twig, although there may not be too many in the course of the debate. I accept that there will be a need for some further development, both residential and commercial, in the Aylesbury area, and I will go so far as to agree that some of that development will have to take place on greenfield sites—I hope as little as possible, but some is inevitable. In addition, Aylesbury Vale district council's draft local plan does provide for some 8,600 new houses in the period up to 2011 and Buckinghamshire county council is working on plans for development beyond that date.
However, many of my constituents have serious concerns about the Government's most recent proposals. The Government target for Aylesbury Vale is that there should be 16,400 more homes by 2016, including more than 10,500 in and around Aylesbury itself. Further growth on a large scale is anticipated for the period between 2016 and 2031. Studies carried out by the South East England regional assembly project that as a minimum the same number—15,000 or 16,000—would be built in that period as are projected to be built in the period up to 2016, and that in the Aylesbury area we could be looking at as many as 30,000 additional houses in the second half of the Government's 30-year time frame.
My first criticism of the Government's approach is that it seems to me that the targets for new housebuilding for the whole of the Milton Keynes and south midlands area are not derived from projections of natural growth or local need—they are arbitrary. They are what the Council for the Protection of Rural England has described in its submission as
- "a case of 'Predict and Provide' at its worst".
The Select Committee, with a Labour majority, felt that the Government's plans would not deliver the Government's declared objectives. There is an irony in the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister first announced his communities plan within two week's of his Department's own inspector entirely removing a major development area from the Aylesbury Vale draft local plan on the ground that such additional provision was not needed.
I have to tell the Minister that there is considerable resentment locally, not just about the substance of the plans, but about the lack of adequate public consultation. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a public meeting in the village of Stoke Mandeville—very close to Aylesbury—attended by more than 400 of my constituents. When SEERA published its report on 18 July, it allowed for a consultation period of 12 weeks, which, of course, encompassed the main holiday period of the year. During those 12 weeks, the assembly has done virtually nothing to explain directly to the local people who will be affected, what is being proposed and why it is being proposed. At that public meeting, there was probably even greater indignation about that lack of consultation than about what the proposals would involve.
I am willing to accept that that sort of fault is not unique to the present Government—it is perhaps endemic in Whitehall—but from the experience of this episode in my own patch, I can say that that failure to trust and consult the people affected erodes dramatically the trust and confidence that people feel in the Government as an institution and in the ability of the political system to respond to their democratically expressed wishes.
Andrew Selous (South-West Bedfordshire): I completely agree with my hon. Friend's remarks. Does he agree that that is a shocking way to treat locally elected councillors? What does it say about local democracy, when those very important issues are taken out of the hands of local representatives?
Mr. Lidington: My hon. Friend is right. The responsibility for drawing up plans for future housing and commercial development should rest with local authorities, which can judge not just local opinion, but the future economic and domestic needs of the populations whom they are elected to serve and who can kick them out if they do not like the decisions that those councillors take on their behalf.
I wish to refer to my specific criticisms about the Government's proposals for the Aylesbury area. The plans published by SEERA are far too specific about the location of new developments. Even if one accepted the Government's overall figures and strategy—clearly, I do not—it should still be for local authorities to work out, after proper planning and consultation, how best to provide the housing demanded from them. Yet, to take the most pressing example in my area, there is a proposal for 3,000 additional houses on the last area of green fields that separates the Bedgrove estate in Aylesbury from the village of Stoke Mandeville. Such things should not be handed down from on high from an unaccountable regional office or a Whitehall Department; they should be the subject of local democratic debate and decision.
That proposal has some problems. Aylesbury is already a net exporter of commuters. It seems likely that a big development to the south side of the town will be very attractive to people who travel to London to work or to the high housing cost areas of south Buckinghamshire. It has been decided that Aylesbury and Stoke Mandeville should, in effect, coalesce, but that decision was taken without accountability to local people although it will dramatically affect their community. That is plainly wrong.
My mistrust of the regional assembly's abilities is only reinforced when I read paragraph 2.10 of its consultation document, which states:
- "Opportunities to develop higher density mixed-use developments around public transport nodes like Stoke Mandeville station"
Secondly, the Government need to be much more open about the extent of their future ambitions. They published a consultation document, which only takes us up to 2016, which provides for only about 45 per cent. of the overall published housing targets in the communities plan. Tucked away in paragraph 2.13 on page 41, we have a statement that, after 2016, building should be
- "between existing urban area and the proposed southern distribution road and south of Stoke Mandeville".
If those plans go ahead, some practical consequences must be faced, which the local authorities, confronted with those edicts from central Government, must consider now. How will new transport be provided for all those additional people? On rail, I welcome the statement that the east-west orbital route scheme would go ahead. The Strategic Rail Authority, however, has previously rejected it. Is it going to be built? Is the money going to be forthcoming, given the pressures on the SRA's budgets? The SEERA document contains a discussion of a spur line from Aylesbury to Bletchley, which I would support, but the SRA's proposals for the west coast main line envisage not an increase but a reduction in service levels at Bletchley. There seems to be a lack of joined-up government in the proposal.
On roads, I have already mentioned the southern distributor road. What will be the scale of that road? It is causing worry locally. How will it be financed? It is unrealistic to expect developer contributions to be enough. How will the enhanced quality bus corridors be provided as promised when all the main feeder roads into Aylesbury—the A41 Tring road, the A4010 Lower
road and the A413 Wendover road—are too narrow for bus lanes unless severe restrictions are imposed on access by cars and lorries?There is a lack of strategic thinking about what a development on that scale will mean for roads. The A418 Aylesbury-Wing road will be upgraded but not, we are told, until after the houses have been built. There would then be two major roads—the A418 and the A41—linking Aylesbury to the trunk road network, both of which would disgorge their traffic at the end of the town with no link between them. The county council says that the logical consequence of all that is that a major new road link will be needed going around Aylesbury and linking it to the economic centres of the Thames valley to the south. That has a dramatic consequence for the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty and for either the A41 or the A418. It is not even mentioned, however, in the document published by the regional assembly.
I could make comparable points about the other public services. SEERA's estimate is that other public services would require spending of some £214 million for the Aylesbury area alone if these schemes come to pass, and there is no guarantee from the Government yet that that money, or anything like it, will be forthcoming. On health, Stoke Mandeville hospital is closing wards, not opening new beds, and children in the Aylesbury Vale primary care trust area face a 14-month wait for speech therapy. On police, I received a letter from the chief constable today saying that he has fewer officers per head of population than any other force in the country bar one. As for the fire service locally, the chief fire officer believes that the
- "Integrated Risk Management Plan will . . . show areas of unacceptable risk even before the anticipated growth in population".
I am not so inexperienced in this place as to expect the Minister to announce that she has seen the light and that she will reverse all the Deputy Prime Minister's previous statements and proposals on this matter, so I ask for just two things. First, I ask for an undertaking that the consultation now taking place and the examination in public next year will be more than just a bit of spin before the Government's original plans are rubber-stamped and pushed through. I want to be able to tell my constituents that they will be able to influence the shape and scale of the Government's proposals.
Secondly, if the Government are making these plans, I ask that they will guarantee that the money will be provided so that we do not simply get the houses, but
have good quality public services to care for the needs of the people who will live in them and their neighbours who are already my constituents.
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