Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 120)
WEDNESDAY 23 JUNE 2004
COUNCILLOR DAVID
SPARKS OBE, MR
DAVID WOODS,
MR MARTIN
BACON AND
MR LEE
SEARLES
Q100 Joan Walley: Can I follow that
up and ask Councillor Sparks, you mentioned the need to have balance,
where do you expect that mechanism to come from? Do you think
that mechanism exists at the moment? You have obviously talked
about local authorities not being part of that balancing mechanism;
where do you expect within government that mechanism to come from?
Mr Sparks: To answer your question
first of all, the mechanism does not exist at the moment. I think
that we are well on the way to constructing such mechanisms in
particular by recognising that a lot of activity needs to take
place at a sub-regional or a local level within regional strategies.
What we need to do is to make sure that we do not have too many
initiatives affecting a locality which are uncoordinated. In relation
to Stoke-on-Trent or the Black Country, the Black Country is the
perfect illustration especially given that there is a Black Country
sub-regional study as part of the regional planning guidance process
where usually development plans are being integrated in relation
to that; I think that is the way forward. It is not a question
of producing plans. We are experts at producing plans; we produce
thousands of plans. What we need is a programme to implement the
plan which is properly funded.
Q101 Sue Doughty: The Energy Savings
Trust this week called the Sustainable Communities Plan "reckless"
and it said that the Government is trying to build houses as cheaply
and as quickly as possible, overriding environmental commitments.
You have also expressed concerns about compromises on environmental
standards. Do you think the Government is at all committed to
ensuring that environmental standards will not be compromised
or do you think it is development at all costs?
Mr Searles: I think there is a
commitment in terms of trying to ensure they live up to the term
sustainable in the delivery of the sustainable communities. Whether
it is actually going to feature in the delivery on the ground
is an open question and I think colleagues from the two growth
areas need to comment on that. There are undoubtedly issues around
the higher capital cost of delivering sustainable construction
at the outset and that can tip the balance. I think I would rather
pass over to colleagues from the actual growth areas to hear what
they have to say.
Mr Woods: From our experience
in Barking in particular there has been in the past no commitment
to meeting future Energy Savings requirements and I think the
danger in the Communities Plan is that it is volume houses fairly
quickly and apart from the lack of community sustainability there
is the danger that we will not be able to meet the energy targets
of the future. More investment now in things like combined heat
and power schemes in much higher standards of construction and
insulation, models like BedZed and so on will in the end bring
lower energy and water costs and so on to everyone, including
those who are in subsidised housing. I do not think you will see
a commitment from government to making those high standards and
those kinds of energy provisions like CHP schemes.
Q102 Chairman: What kind of commitment
is there from local government? You have had the chance to do
it for years and nothing has happened.
Mr Woods: Local government has
had the opportunity but only through things like Building Regulations,
through trying to influence how housing corporation money is spent
and to what standards. Those are really quite modest standards
and where they are enforceable they have been enforced. I can
well remember our first attempts to get lifetime homes built where
developers had to be dragged kicking and screaming but after the
event found that they sold all of those off the plan and wished
they had built more. I think people who are building, investing
capital at the front end, have little or no interest in the running
costs of the property for others afterwards and I think it would
be much better if governments set high environmental standards
as a condition of receiving grant including housing corporation
funding as well.
Mr Bacon: The building control
officers in Ashford Borough Council feel that the regulations
do need to be strengthened to meet the targets that have been
implied in this plan. My staff have met officials from the ODPM
and they say that they are actively looking at amending the Building
Regulations but I do not know any more than that. Secondly, I
think English Partnerships and a whole range of organisations
including the Housing Corporation now do a number of pilots on
trying to make housing more sustainable and so on. The problem
is that these pilots do not get translated into mass production
in the private sector and I think one of the things we have to
find is the link between the two and how we can get there. I think
that is the one we should explore.
Q103 Sue Doughty: Going on from that—energy
efficient homes and climate change—we have no examples of
the need to manage climate change if we are going to build in
the Thames Gateway. Much more does need to be done.
Mr Woods: I would agree with that
and I think the model that the Ann Power of the LSE puts forward
of a longer term development could and would achieve a carbon
neutral development. I do not think that can be said of either
the Treasury model or the plan that is currently being discussed.
Again, the evidence for that is in the report which I will submit
to you.
Q104 Chairman: That is carbon neutral
excluding the carbon emitted during the building and construction
phase presumably.
Mr Woods: I imagine so.
Q105 Chairman: That is quite big,
too.
Mr Woods: Yes, it is.
Q106 Sue Doughty: Referring back
to a point made by Mr Bacon, when you were worried about whether
we are actually going to be building trash, we do have the problem
that if we build trash we will be back to that cycle as I was
saying before of houses built in the 60s and 70s where we have
to go in for renovation. How would we really overcome this whole
problem of short-term gain regardless of what problems are stacking
up for the future?
Mr Bacon: I think first of all
we need a proper master plan for an area. Secondly, as I said,
a proper financial assessment of what the plan costs and where
you are going to find the money for it to implement it and so
on. A very strong planning authority supporting those standards
through the appeal process. An inspectorate lining up with what
the ODPM wants in term of those standards being enforced. We do
not always see that joined-up government between what the inspectorate
are deciding and what is written in the national policy guidance.
I think it is very important that we have that sequence followed
through. We can do it; this is not rocket science. It is done
in other parts of Europe very, very well and so there is no reason
why we cannot do it in Britain but it does need a very firm political
backing for it to happen.
Mr Sparks: You also need the rest
of the master plan to be implemented at the same time.
Q107 Mr Chaytor: In your written
evidence and in your comments this afternoon you use the word
"sustainability" very freely. Does the LGA have a working
definition of sustainability?
Mr Searles: I do not think we
have defined one for ourselves. Obviously the generality of the
term sustainable development has evolved over the years to one
which is now encompassing of wider economic, social and environmental
factors. I think that wider definition is the one the LGA generally
works with. Emphasising Martin's comments from before, in terms
of delivering sustainable communities we mean sustainable in an
environmental sense but also sustainable in terms of having
a requisite social and economic infrastructure to support that
as well.
Q108 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the
current planning guidance and Building Regulations, what are the
main weaknesses that have prevented local planning authorities
from developing sustainable communities and building sustainable
homes?
Mr Searles: I think the main planning
guidance PPS1 is a very common sense framework.
Q109 Mr Chaytor: That is new, is
it not? PPS1 is not in force at the moment, is it?
Mr Searles: It is draft.
Q110 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the
existing raft of planning PPGs and Building Regulations, where
are the main weaknesses there that have prevented local planning
authorities from building sustainable homes and sustainable communities?
Mr Bacon: We have had a development
control led planning system for the last twenty years. We have
not had a development plan led planning system. I suspect you
know about the Egan review and all the emphasis on skills and
getting the planning profession up to a standard where people
want to enter it again and all that sort of thing. A lot of people
have left forward planning and gone into housing or gone elsewhere
because they did not feel it was worthwhile doing. So we have
had a development control led planning system whereby basically
everything is fought out through the appeal process or through
hard graft over the development control table. We have not had
this sort of vision, this sort of standard against which that
development should be set. That has been a major weakness.
Q111 Mr Chaytor: Has that led to
a loss of expertise and a loss of status within the planning profession?
Mr Bacon: Yes it has and a degradation
of skills which I know the ODPM and the RTPI and others are trying
to put right. Another thing is lack of real practical examples
to go, see, touch and feel as to how it works and so on which,
although you have these pilots, they are not being transformed
to the mass production to go into the private sector. Also, I
think there is lack of real bite in the regulations to enforce
sustainability in Building Regulations, in water and energy, all
that area generally, transport particularly.
Q112 Mr Chaytor: Just pursuing the
point about the track record within the existing framework, in
your written evidence in reference to the materials and resources
used in building, you say that the main way that local planning
authorities can control this is through having effective conditions
placed upon developers when permission is granted for a site.
Why have they not been doing that? What has restricted or limited
local planning authorities from placing effective conditions upon
developers? In my seven years on a planning committee we always
had the power to place conditions. Is it not just an issue of
political view or is there something else?
Mr Bacon: It is partly because
you can only place conditions on a planning consent where the
conditions are relevant, appropriate et cetera to the actual site.
Q113 Mr Chaytor: Surely quality,
resources, the design and materials and the volume of waste produced
by the development are relevant conditions, are they not?
Mr Bacon: There are two things
there. Firstly, the skill of the planning officers to negotiate
with the private sector a quality development. I have heard it
argued that there are not the skills in local authorities to do
that any more for various reasons.
Q114 Mr Chaytor: Is this an issue
about the expertise or the skill base within the profession?
Mr Bacon: Yes. The second thing
is the degree to which, within planning conditions, one can enforce
some of the sustainable objectives through energy, waste, so on
and so forth. You can only do it in relation to the development
as it is being built and through the regulations. You cannot go
beyond what might be termed as reasonable to that particular development.
This gets back to my point earlier today about looking bigger
than the site through the master planning process and looking
at the infrastructure that you need to develop sustainability.
You might have a local heating system that you want to establish
burning waste. You cannot do that on a site-by-site basis; you
have to do it through the master plan, you have to establish the
cost of that, you have to say to the developer that it is £X
thousand per house in order to pay for that. That is the way it
works. If you solely do it through a site by site basis you will
not see the bigger picture which is what sustainability is all
about.
Q115 Mr Chaytor: Coming back to PPS1,
are you confident that PPS1 is going to remedy the defects and
what is it particularly in PPS1 that could provide the evidence
for this?
Mr Searles: From my perspective,
having been involved in discussions about the planning bill, planning
reform for three or four years now, I think PPS1 came as confirmation
of what we all understood so I do not think there was a very excited
reaction from local government or many of our partner organisations
about what PPS1 said. What it has done is place sustainable development
at the heart of the new system which is a really good thing and
good design is an important element in that system. I think the
big opportunity from the new planning system which obviously PPS1
alludes to is the link between the land use plan and wider considerations.
There is an opportunity in taking forward a community strategy
or local strategic partnership or just wider activity with other
partners who are active in the local area—businesses and
other public services—to tie that up with the land use plan.
There is an opportunity to have that kind of debate bringing in
these kinds of considerations and wider issues that are outside
the traditional scope of land use into a debate about how to achieve
our objectives, not just where and what but how we are going to
do it, when we are going to do it. Issues about things which perhaps
would normally be considered with the system can be brought in
to discussions about materials, resource use et cetera. It stands
a better chance of being brought in. I think it is a positive
agenda.
Q116 Mr Chaytor: Will it be possible
to refuse a planning application on the grounds that it is unsustainable?
How will planners have to phrase their reasons for refusal? If
we talk about Milton Keynes, for example, if there is a planning
application for 5,000 houses in Milton Keynes and the judgment
is that there is not the transport infrastructure to sustain 5,000
houses, will lack of sustainability be a valid reason for refusing
permission?
Mr Bacon: I do not think there
is any problem for the planning system on refusing development
on a physical side—lack of infrastructure, in terms of transport,
social facilities and so on—if there is a political will
to do so. I think, as I said earlier, it is on some of the other
aspects—energy, waste—where really the conditions
on planning are more difficult for planning authorities and that
is why PPS1 as a guidance allowing us to look at other strategies
and rely upon them as part of the overall planning justification
is welcome.
Q117 Mr Chaytor: In terms of PPS1
you are saying that it will provide the powers to refuse on the
grounds of lack of sustainability in respect of the broader infrastructural
reasons, but in terms of design of building or materials or emissions,
it will not.
Mr Bacon: At the moment it will
not. There are test cases and one goes through them. That is why
I think that if the Government set down a firmer framework it
would be a lot easier for us to move that issue forward.
Q118 Mr Chaytor: You have set yourself
against the idea of a national strategy for housing in your written
submission. The reasons you give do not seem to me to be terribly
convincing. You actually go on to say that there is a real danger
of construction resources being diverted from the north and the
Midlands to the south east to cope with the overheating of construction
activity there. Is that not the very best argument for having
a national plan? I can see that every electrician in my constituency,
once he learns he can earn £60,000 a year on Terminal 5 at
Heathrow or £50,000 a year in Milton Keynes or Thames Gateway
will get on a Virgin train at Manchester and it would be economically
worthwhile for him to commute to Milton Keynes every week given
the kind of work and wage rates that will be available for him
there. Is this not the very best argument for a national strategy?
Why are you so opposed to it?
Mr Sparks: We are fundamentally
opposed to it because we are fundamentally in favour of individual
regions and localities and sub-regions or whatever working out
what is best in the circumstances of that particular locality.
Our fear is that a, quote, national plan could end up with a national
plan that develops everything in the south east; it does not necessarily
follow that Manchester will be best served by a national plan.
Q119 Mr Chaytor: We have a national
plan now which does focus development in the southeast but if
the national plan had focused more on regeneration in the West
Midlands, east Lancashire and west Yorkshire, would you not be
happy with that kind of national plan?
Mr Sparks: No, because we can
plan it better than any bureaucrat in Whitehall. If we are planning
them on a sub-regional basis in a regional framework with a properly
funded programme it will end up being done and being done to a
more sustainable level. It is as simple as that.
Q120 Joan Walley: I suspect we are
going to be beaten by the division bell. Could I just say that
I wanted to ask about the Egan report and about the skills shortage
not just in relation to planners and understanding sustainable
development, not just in relation to contract management, but
in terms of skills as well? Could you perhaps write to us if you
have any particular further evidence about where you see genuine
shortages of skills and ways in which the recommendations of the
Egan report could help us deliver those skill shortages?
Mr Sparks: With pleasure.
Chairman: Thank you for your evidence
today which has been most helpful.
(The Committee suspended from 4.30pm to
5.20pm for divisions in the House)
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