Examination of Witnesses (Questions 743
- 759)
WEDNESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2004
MR ELLIOT
MORLEY AND
LORD ROOKER
Q743 Chairman: Good afternoon. Thank
you both very much for coming. We appreciate that you are both
return visitors so we are particularly grateful but since we last
saw you a number of things have happened on the whole question
of housing and sustainable communities. We have taken quite a
lot more evidence and there are some issues which we would like
to pick up as a result of subsequent information we have received.
During the course of the inquiry, we have begun to look with growing
interest at the Sustainable Communities Plan. What do you mean
collectively by the word "sustainable" in the context
of sustainable communities?
Lord Rooker: It might sound a
bit crude but it is almost a sound bite. It is sustainable if
it carries on going after we walk away, we being the government
plus our agencies and our delivery vehicles. In the past, things
have been done in terms of development, whether new towns or urban
regeneration projects for that matter, that have not been sustainable
because when the scheme has stopped things have not worked out
as intended and things have gone backwards. It depends what developments
we are looking at. If we are looking at the growth areas or the
pathfinders, it is still the same issue, although it is tackled
from a different direction. We want places that people want to
live in, where there is no over-reliance on community, where there
is a good mixture of properties to work in, because it is not
a house building programme, and a good mixture of developments
for living in, both in terms of price and tenure. We are making
the best use of the assets we have—ie, we are building at
higher densities so we are not using land. We are building on
brown field first, as we repeatedly made clear when we came originally.
I would draw the Committee's attention to the 12 points on page
five of the Sustainable Communities Plan about what makes a sustainable
community which are essentially places that people will want to
live in and like living in.
Q744 Chairman: What I am trying to
see is if any relationship exists between the Sustainable Communities
Plan and the principles of sustainable development.
Lord Rooker: There is not a contradiction.
In the Sustainable Communities Plan we would ensure that we want
sustainable development. Those who would argue that they want
all developments to be sustainable could quite rightly say, "We
do not want the communities plan because that implies growth and
extra housing and we want just sustainable development."
Our view is that within the Sustainable Communities Plan our developments
will be sustainable developments. It is approaching it from a
slightly different direction. If you take the other view—and
I am not saying it is wrong or anything—and concentrate
just on sustainable development, you could take a view that, if
that is the case, that is the be all and end all and we do not
think, for example, that maybe there should be any growth. Our
responsibility is to have a look at the wider picture but to make
sure the operation of the practical effect of the Sustainable
Communities Plan and what happens under it is indeed sustainable
development.
Mr Morley: I do not think there
is a contradiction between sustainable development and sustainable
communities because you get an opportunity with new development,
if you approach it in a sustainable way, of addressing issues
such as the potential for reducing transport movements, the
potential for strengthening communities, community involvement,
the potential in relation to energy use, water use. There are
real opportunities in terms of sustainable communities which are
part of the agenda for sustainable development.
Q745 Chairman: To what extent did
the sustainable development strategy inform the Sustainable Communities
Plan?
Mr Morley: The sustainable development
strategy is currently up for consultation.
Q746 Chairman: But there is still
a strategy out there until it is replaced by the new one.
Mr Morley: There is still a strategy
out there and that does obviously influence the Sustainable Communities
Plan, particularly in issues such as water use, energy use and
transport use, brown field use and building standards, which are
part of that agenda
Q747 Chairman: When we last met you,
Mr Morley, you appeared to be at least semi-detached from this
whole process, departmentally if not personally.
Mr Morley: I do not accept that.
There is joint working between Defra and ODPM. There is a joint
ODPM/Defra group that has commissioned further research particularly
into taking forward the Entec findings.
Lord Rooker: The Sustainable Communities
Plan is a big picture. It is a road map. It does not detail sites.
It does not go down to that specific level where you would come
to judge developments. It is not at the regional, spatial strategy
level. You would not be able to apply the test of sustainable
development to developments there because developments are not
in the plan. Everything we are doing from the publication of the
plan in February last year we can point back to flowing from the
plan, but the detail of the operation, whether it is the pathfinders,
whether it is the greening agenda, whether it is the working growth
areas, at that level, when one starts to look at site specific
developments and subregional strategies, then you start to look
at sustainable development but you really cannot pin that down
in the plan. It is too high level in that sense.
Mr Morley: There has been a group
working through the Central Local Partnership between the government
and the LGA looking at the whole issue of defining the aspects
of sustainable development and sustainable communities. It was
jointly chaired by Alan Michael and Keith Hill from ODPM and Defra.
That is another example of two departments working together with
local authorities in terms of trying to flesh out some of these
concepts. There will be a paper published very shortly on this
which is something the Committee might be interested in.
Q748Chairman: It would be helpful if
you could give us a note setting out all the areas where Defra
have been involved in the whole process of planning and rolling
out the Sustainable Communities Plan.
Lord Rooker: It is not just Defra.
We can provide you with the role of other government departments.
This is not just an issue between ODPM and Defra. This is a government
plan, not an ODPM plan with Defra tagging along. It does not work
like that. There is a host of other government departments involved.
We are quite happy to give you a list of a brief overlay of how
other government departments are working in concert, in co-partnership,
to deliver the communities plan.
Q749 Gregory Barker: Jonathan Porritt,
appointed by the Prime Minister to bring his expertise to play
on these issues of sustainability which can descend into meaningless
sound bites, is on record as saying that the aspiration to be
less unsustainable is not the same thing as the aspiration to
be sustainable. If you measure the environmental footprint of
a sustainable community, would you not agree that it is very far
from being sustainable? They are poles apart.
Lord Rooker: I have not got a
clue what that question is about.
Q750 Gregory Barker: Is it not about
mitigating one project and saying it is less bad than others?
Making something less bad is not about making it sustainable.
Lord Rooker: We are not starting
with a clean sheet of paper as far as the communities plan is
concerned. This is not an issue just for the growth areas. It
also includes pathfinders up north. Here, we have communities
that have become unsustainable. They were sustainable in the past.
The towns of east Lancashire were absolutely sustainable. They
have become unsustainable because of changes in demography and
manufacturing.
Q751 Gregory Barker: You are talking
about economically sustainable, are you not, not environmentally
sustainable?
Lord Rooker: No. It is either
sustainable or it is not. I do not pick and choose. Being environmentally
sustainable means it is very important but some of these collapses
in areas where we have non-sustainability both of people and the
environment are because nothing has been done to clean up what
has happened in the past on the brown field sites. Part of the
communities plan is to address that. I do not really understand
the quote you give from Jonathan Porritt. You could ask for particular
examples and I will get you a note on specific examples. Okay,
we are not 100% perfect in every area where we are working, but
we are working to a set of goals set out in bullet point 4.1 on
page five of the communities' plan which I made sure everyone
was provided with. We are not going to hit a strike rate of 100%
on every occasion.
Q752 Gregory Barker: If you are talking
about your sustainable communities in the south east the Environment
Agency has said in their State of the Environment Report in 2004
that, because of the impact on water supply in the south east,
it is going to be like a time bomb. By 2015, there will be a huge
water deficit. There is no way that building something that will
add to that deficit could in any way, shape or form be described
as sustainable.
Mr Morley: They said that on the
basis that there would be no improvements. What the Environment
Agency is talking about there is that you have to put advance
planning in in relation to water supply and water infrastructure
and also improve water use in relation to building design and
standards. All those aspects are part of the plan. It is not as
if it is standing still. If it was standing still with no improvements,
that would be a problem but that certainly is not the intention.
The Agency is right to point that out.
Q753 Gregory Barker: You are saying
that your improvements will mitigate above and beyond the extra
houses that are being built?
Mr Morley: Extra houses will not
be built without the infrastructure provisions to service them,
including water supply and a long term water strategy on which
there is a 25 year plan in terms of making sure that is in place.
Q754 Gregory Barker: What good is
a 25 year plan if the crisis comes in 2015?
Mr Morley: Because that is part
of planning now in relation to looking ahead. There is probably
not an immediate problem in relation to water supply now but the
south east is a water stressed area. Therefore, you cannot be
complacent about the future demands, taking into account things
like climate change. All those are factored into long term planning
which in water supply is over a 25 year period which does not
start from now, incidentally. It goes back some considerable time,
so we are working towards a long term strategy in relation to
water supply.
Q755 Gregory Barker: Bringing you
back to the stage of 2015, this is the Environment Agency for
which you are responsible that has described it as an environmental
time bomb.
Mr Morley: It was a regional office.
It was not the Environment Agency centrally that said that.
Q756 Gregory Barker: You are not
responsible for that?
Mr Morley: I am not responsible
for the regional offices of the Environment Agency. They are an
independent agency accountable to government. They are free to
give their opinion but if you look at that press release which
I have in some detail you will see that is on the basis of not
forward planning. That is not going to be the situation.
Q757 Gregory Barker: You do not accept
that adding hundreds of thousands of extra houses is going to
add to the demand on already water stressed—?
Mr Morley: Of course it is going
to add to the demand but you are suggesting that we are not going
to do anything about it and ignore the situation. I am telling
you that is not the case.
Q758 Chairman: There may be a misunderstanding
here. The quote about the time bomb goes as follows: "The
development of 800,000 new homes in the south east could set off
an environmental time bomb." It comes from the Environment
Agency's State of the Environment 2004 Report, not from a regional
agency at all.
Mr Morley: I accept that. My understanding
was that it was a regional press release.
Q759 Chairman: There was a regional
press release as well which also provided some robust advice about
over-development in the south east.
Lord Rooker: Everything is a time
bomb if you do not do anything about it.
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