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Gillian Merron (Lincoln) (Lab): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
PETITION
Post Office Closures
5.31 pm
Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con): I wish to present a petition on behalf of residents of Tewkesbury, bearing 1,710 signatures.
The Petition of residents of Tewkesbury declares
That the Petitioners oppose plans to close post offices in the Innsworth, Churchdown and Leckhampton parts of the Tewkesbury constituency.
Such closures would cause inconvenience to a great many senior citizens and others in receipt of Government benefits and in need of various Post Office services.
The Petitioners further declare that these closures would cause people to drive to their alternative branches in order to access Post Office services. That would increase car journeys, thereby causing further environmental damage.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take immediate steps to protect postal services in Tewkesbury and throughout the country.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
To lie upon the Table.
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Travellers (Planning Law)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Gillian Merron.]
5.32 pm
Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds) (Con): I am grateful for the opportunity to bring Travellers and planning law to the House's attention once again.
My concern arises over land that is owned by Travellers or occupied by them with the consent of a landowner and is developed before planning consent is granted. Setting up apparently permanent dwellings by Travellers before anyone knows whether local roads, schools and general practitioner surgeries can cope with such development is simply not sensible. It does not seem to be in the interests of either villagers or Travellers.
Many hon. Members from all parties have experienced the phenomenon. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) explained on 19 November how, in Startley and Minety, Travellers purchased and moved on to agricultural land. My hon. Friends the Members for Billericay (Mr. Baron) and for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) raised similar cases earlier this year.
My constituents in Elmswell and Woolpit have been confronted by a Traveller problem. Travellers moved on to land and made changes to it without planning consent in August.
Very many of my constituents in those two villages are worried about development that has been carried out prematurely before the appropriate planning procedure has been undertaken. It seems to them like a fait accompli, and they want to know why the character of their villages may be changed without their having any real say in the matter at all.
A group of Travellers moved on to a site off Norton road between Elmswell and Woolpit on or about Thursday 29 July this year. They immediately started fencing off plots and laid down a hardcore surface to form an access road. By Tuesday 3 August, the field had been sectioned off into 18 plots, with six caravans already on the site. It was then made known that pipes and sewerage lines would be laid later.
Mr. Bill Olner (Nuneaton) (Lab): I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this Adjournment debate. What he describes is mirrored in my constituency. Unfortunately, he still has a long way to go. Given all the due legal processes, it has taken three years to remove the Travellers from the site in my constituency. That is not the end of the story: they are still illegally camped in the area. Something must be done to stop what is not a breach of planning regulations but an invasion of land, on which they descend in very ugly order and do such things.
Mr. Ruffley:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I hope that I do not have three years of letters to come from constituents. The example from his constituency demonstrates what I want to develop in my argument: we have a set of planning laws that do not seem to address residents' concerns.
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To return to the history of the problem in my constituency, my office contacted the leader of Mid Suffolk district council and was told that a council officer had already visited the site and been assured that it was only temporary and would be vacated in a day or two. That proved completely inaccurate. Subsequently, the Travellers told Mid Suffolk district council officers that they had purchased the site and were the legal owners. Throughout 2 and 3 August, my constituency office received calls from concerned villagers, many of whom preferred not to be identified. During the following week, the issue at Woolpit and Elmswell in my constituency attracted national media attention in The Times and the Daily Mail, as well as coverage in the East Anglian Daily Times and regional TV and radio.
In the light of concern in Woolpit and Elmswell, and the nearby villages of Tostock and Norton, I sent out a leaflet to householders to ask them for their views about the development. I congratulate Woolpit, Elmswell and Tostock parish councils on all discussing the issue very promptly and deciding to oppose a retrospective planning application that the Travellers had made on 10 August. Those parish councils, together with Norton parish council, have proactively and commendably formed a joint forum to keep one another and myself informed of developments.
Mid Suffolk district council set a deadline of 1 September by which affected residents could make representations about the retrospective planning application. Rather unfortunately, although I have received well over five dozen letters to my office and numerous phone calls objecting to the application by the Travellers, many of my constituents have said that they are afraid to make their concerns formal, as all letters of objection to the council are, of course, in the public domain.
I want to make it clear, however, that the Travellers have stated that they wish to have happy and harmonious relations with the villagers. To my knowledge, there has been no incident that would seem to cast doubt on the Travellers' expression of good will, and it is only right and proper to make that clear.
Mid Suffolk district council has advised the Travellers that the works that they have done on site are not authorised and that the council will not rule out possible future enforcement action.
We are all waiting for the council to set a date for a hearing on the retrospective planning application to be heard by the council's planning committee.
My constituents in those villages feel strongly that no group of people, whether Travellers or established building companies, should be able to go into the countryside, occupy land—whether purchased by them or not—and claim a fundamental human right to develop it without following the planning rules. Many constituents say that, whenever they want to build, say, an extension or a large shed in their garden, they sense the full force of the law will come down on them pretty swiftly if they do not stick to its letter.
The Minister will no doubt point out that numerous long-standing powers are available to local authorities in the form of enforcement notices, stop notices and injunctions. But they are time-consuming and costly procedures for councils, especially those councils, such as Mid Suffolk district council, with small budgets that
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understandably have to be extremely careful about taking action that inevitably racks up large legal and administrative costs.
I have to say that—this has been the experience of other Members as described in the debates that they have called in the past year—Travellers seem to be particularly well resourced when it comes to obtaining pretty expensive expert legal advice on planning. That seems to be a growing trend. I venture no explanation as to why that might be. In the case in my constituency at Woolpit and Elmswell, an enforcement notice has not so far been sought by the council. It prefers first to take a decision on the pending retrospective planning application.
The growing perception that Travellers seem to enjoy better rights than those of non-travelling established residents is shown by the extraordinary national reaction in the press to the recent judgment by Judge Weeks QC at Bristol High Court on 2 August this year in the case of North Wiltshire district council v. Toseland and others. In that case, the judge agreed with the council that,
"The establishment of such a large site and the rapid installation of the infrastructure was a flagrant and deliberate breach of planning control and obviously a pre-planned operation. There was no attempt to comply with paragraph 20 of circular 1/94 which encourages gypsies to consult planning authorities before buying land. The planning application on 8 August"—
"was little more than a token gesture."
Notwithstanding his finding in that regard, the judge found in favour of the Gypsies and against the council's application for an injunction. He did so on the ground that the granting of an injunction would have caused immediate hardship and suffering sufficient to outweigh the public interest in having planning law upheld to the letter.
Although he was insistent that that should not be construed as an invitation to flout the law, I and many other people doubt that his judgment will be read in that light. The picketing of the judge's house by affected Wiltshire residents who lost the case—that was widely covered in the national press—suggests that they had similar doubts to mine.
Existing planning enforcement is best able to deal with traditional permanent dwellings and buildings rather than mobile homes or caravans. Powers are available ultimately for the demolition of a dwelling or building developed in contravention of planning law, but that deterrent is likely to be less effective in the case of mobile structures, such as mobile homes or caravans, that can be easily installed and removed at comparatively little cost to the average Traveller if the Travellers wish to stay in an encampment.
I am extremely careful to point out that I do not wish to prejudge the case of the Travellers at Woolpit and Elmswell but, as I contemplate a potentially controversial few months—I hope not years—for my constituents in the affected villages, I invite the Minister to explain one or two things about the planning regime and how the Government view it.
Why have the Government not taken up suggestions for strengthening our planning laws more practically in the following respects? When my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay introduced his Greenbelt
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Protection Bill, it proposed that there should be a requirement on local authorities to provide authorised sites. He suggested that that should be carried out with central Government, regional bodies and county councils. As he pointed out, the allocation for each authority could be met using publicly or privately owned sites. The mandatory requirement in the Bill, which did not proceed, was for local authorities to have an obligation to provide sites, although it seemed rather onerous.
Will the Minister tell us what steps the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is taking to provide more authorised sites for Travellers? How many such authorised sites with full planning permission and the blessing of local authorities have been created in East Anglia over the past two years? Such authorised sites would have gone through a rigorous planning procedure that would have taken account of residents' feelings and whether the local infrastructure, such as roads, schools and doctors' surgeries, could cope with the extra demand caused by Travellers. Above all, those sites could provide decent facilities for travelling people and their families and protect the freedom of Travellers to follow their traditional way of life, which all of us would say should be respected in the modern, moderate, civilised and compassionate society in which we all want to live in this day and age.
When the Minister answers my question about more authorised sites, which would represent a positive way forward, will he tell us whether he agrees with the Country Land and Business Association, which said in its submission to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committee's inquiry on Gypsy and Traveller sites that a predict and provide approach on sites is rather problematic? It makes the point that the demand for authorised sites from Travellers is difficult to quantify. It is hard to predict when groups of Travellers are likely to move to an area and where they will go.
St. Edmundsbury borough council, which is also in my constituency, told me this week that it reviews the need for sites for Travellers from time to time. Its last review was conducted 18 months ago when it was determined that there was no need at all for the provision of authorised sites in the council area, which covers the town of Bury St. Edmunds, Haverhill and the areas in between. It told me:
"Travellers tend to pass through St. Edmundsbury stopping for only relatively short periods."
That is the council's recent experience, but no one knows whether that is likely to change with more travelling families coming to the area and setting up permanent or semi-permanent sites.
The matter is topical because I note that the Commission for Racial Equality has this week inspired amendments about authorised sites to the Housing Bill, which is going through the other place. The amendments would put a statutory duty on local authorities to facilitate the provision of sites for Travellers. There will clearly be a public resource implication for increasing the number of authorised sites that are managed in a proper and controlled way, but when the case for such sites is considered, any such costs must be netted off against the current cost to councils of wrestling with the current system, which many believe to be inadequate.
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According to the House of Commons Library, the Cardiff university Traveller law research unit has estimated that the cost to councils and constabularies across the UK has amounted to as much as £18 million. Those costs are associated with moving Gypsies and Travellers on from illegal encampments. I gather that when a group of Travellers were moved on from a site in Chelmsford earlier this year, the total cost to the local authority was reported to be more than £300,000—a staggering sum which excluded the cost of officer time.
What about other practical solutions? Perhaps the Minister could turn his mind to the following proffered idea. As planning policy guidance note 18 on enforcing planning control explains, it is not an offence to carry out development without first obtaining any planning permission required for that development. However, if there is a wilful, premeditated and deliberate breach of planning laws, with development being undertaken in the full knowledge that planning permission should have been sought in advance, does the Minister think that there is a case for criminalising that activity? Has he considered that? If the Government and his Department have discounted it, will he share his thinking with us?
As for other practical solutions, will the Minister reconsider the proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner), who during the course of discussions on the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill last year sought to introduce an amendment to restrict—not abolish—the use of retrospective planning applications? He wanted to place a duty on local planning authorities and those ruling on appeals to consider any retrospective application as though no development had taken place. That would remedy the situation in which planning applications are viewed with consideration of what has already taken place on a site.
Clear messages must be sent out to those who wilfully flout planning control. The Town and Country Planning (Enforcement Notices and Stop Notices) Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar, was specifically designed to address the problem of residential caravans or mobile homes being stationed on land with the consent of the owner but in breach of planning control. His Bill did not proceed, but it would have allowed caravans to be removed much more expeditiously from a site if they were on land in breach of an enforcement or stop notice. Does the Minister think on reflection that the Bill's proposals should be reconsidered?
In a timely question in Prime Minister's questions yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay highlighted
"the growing problem caused locally by Travellers buying land and then immediately developing it."
The Prime Minister gave the honest response:
"I will go back and have a look at the issue again, but it is worth pointing out that we have strengthened the law and the advice we are receiving—although I will check it carefully—is that the law is sufficiently strong . . . to deal with the problem . . . I will look into it carefully myself."—[Official Report, 15 September 2004; Vol. 424, c. 1265.]
I hope that the Prime Minister does that. I suggest he starts by expediting the Government's much vaunted policy review on the position of Gypsies and Travellers. That was set up in 2002, yet we do not appear to have a firm date for the publication of its no doubt important
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conclusions. There has been far too much delay in making those conclusions known. I hope that the Minister can give a specific date when publication will occur and undertake to create parliamentary time in this place for a full debate on the review's conclusions because the issue is exercising many hon. Members on both sides of the House and many thousands of our constituents.
In conclusion, residents and Travellers alike feel that not enough is being done by the Government and by the political process to address their respective needs. I hope that the Minister will respond with a set of constructive solutions to meet those needs.
5.54 pm
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