Sustainable development
49. Development, including housing growth, could
have a major impact on the environment in terms, for instance,
of energy consumption, water demand and transportation usage.
Several witnesses drew our attention to development on flood plains
in particular. Between 2000 and 2005, 11 per cent of all new houses
were built in flood hazard zones. This is not just an historic
problem: ninety per cent of the 120,000 planned houses in the
Thames Gateway development, for instance, are expected to be in
high flood hazard zones.[91]
We do not wish to understate the seriousness of the difficulties
to which these circumstances give rise. This is not only a risk
for individual householders who may be subjected to flooding and,
following revised guidance from the Association of British Insurers
in January 2006, unable to secure insurance against flood risk;
it also makes the task of flood risk management more complicated.
Several witnesses suggested that developers should be entitled
to a discounted PGS rate in respect of developments which meet
high sustainability standards. This would, however, create a perverse
incentive for sub-standard developments to be favoured by local
planning authorities over those matching exacting environmental
standards: only those developments which did not meet the standard
would generate the maximum in terms of PGS receipts for the local
authority. We are in no doubt that the Government needs to take
these issues seriously to protect householders. Indeed, we have
already voiced our commitment to managing the environmental impact
of development and suggested that the Government considers ways
in which the planning system can contribute to tackling climate
change.[92] We do not,
however, believe that PGS is the appropriate vehicle to effect
such change.
Conclusions on exemptions and
discounts
50. The
Government should resist all calls to grant exemptions and discounts
other than for very small-scale developments. To do so would increase
the complexity of the tax and risk market distortions. There is
a risk that financial advantages for developments desirable in
policy terms will have the perverse effect of encouraging local
authorities to permit the kinds or locations of development being
discouraged in order to increase their revenue-take. Where exemptions
and discounts have been sought to drive certain desirable behaviours,
other mechanisms can be used to achieve the same ends. Where exemptions
and discounts have been sought to maintain project viability,
the arguments that PGS threatens viability are not convincing.
The Government should keep PGS as transparent, straightforward
and cost effective as possible.
76 Ev 2 Back
77
Ev 2 Back
78
Ev 12 Back
79
Q 137 Back
80
Q 49 Back
81
Ev 9. See also, Ev 13-4 Back
82
Treasury Committee, Fourth Report of Session 2005-06, The 2006
Budget, HC 994-I, para 111 Back
83
Ev 86 Back
84
Land use change statistics in England to 2004, in Planning-
gain consultation, para 4.4 Back
85
Q 213. See, for example, Q 10 Back
86
Q 220 Back
87
Ev 114 Back
88
Planning-gain supplement consultation, para 4.6 Back
89
Q 6 Back
90
Q 77; Ev 91 Back
91
Ev 1 Back
92
Third Report from the ODPM Committee, Session 2005-06, Affordability
and the Supply of Housing, HC 872, paras 143-6 Back