The Timely Provision of Infrastructure
68. Our predecessor Committee concluded that, "infrastructure
must run concurrently with housing construction and not follow
it, or fail to materialise at all".[82]
We still believe this to be an essential element of any new community,
made even more important since the publication of the Government's
Response to the Barker Review of Housing Supply in December 2005.
This Response included the announcement that the target of building
150,000 new homes per year by 2016 was to be increased to 200,000.
Clearly this will place further demands on an already overstretched
infrastructure. When we launched this inquiry we asked whether
the Government was doing enough to secure sufficient funds for
the timely provision of infrastructure in the four Growth Areas.
This means the creation of essential new infrastructure, such
as nurseries, schools, hospitals, GP's surgeries and dentists,
as well as the local transport links to enable residents to have
access to these facilities. Equally important is the provision
of transport links that take residents out of their local area
and into their place of work. For the four Growth Areas at least,
this place of work is likely to be London. Speaking to our predecessor
Committee, Sir John Egan, Chairman of the Egan Review of Skills
Task Force, was quite clear that these new communities, and in
particular the Thames Gateway, would exist largely to house those
million or more individuals heading for the Capital to work.
69. Talking about the building of the new communities,
Sir John was clear that there had to be a sense of urgency attached
to the plans for sustainable communities in the four Growth Areas,
and that sense of urgency applied equally, if not more so, to
the provision of efficient transport links into Central London.
Sir John said:
It has to be done very quickly…this has
to be very urgently tackled if we are going to do it well…The
first practical point is that the people are on the way, those
one million people are coming and many of them are here already.
They are not coming to Saffron Waldon, they are actually coming
to London. That is where the huge wealth is being created. The
second thing we have to be practical about is, if you have rapid
transport into Central London, you can develop the community very,
very quickly. You do not need to search for jobs. The jobs are
there. Fifty per cent of the people can get jobs by getting on
to a train. So you develop the community very well indeed.[83]
70. Many of those who responded to our inquiry said
that they felt that the Government could be doing more both to
plan, and provide funding, for vital infrastructure. The Environment
Agency, for example, told us that, "the Government needs
to secure sustained investment, from private and public sources,
for the environmental infrastructure to overcome the predicted
environmental impacts, climate change and deliver good basic services
in water, waste and flood protection."[84]
Yvette Cooper acknowledged the importance of providing "very
different kinds of infrastructure requirements in different areas"
and explained that it was for that reason that no firm decisions
had been taken on the timetable for the increased house building
in the South East. Ms Cooper said that the assessment of the
various infrastructure needs would be carried out as part of the
2007 Spending Review.[85]
We consider that with only ten years left before the Government's
own deadline of 200,000 new homes per year by 2016, to delay discussing
how to fund the infrastructure for much of that development until
the Comprehensive Spending review in 2007 represents a massive
planning failure.
71. However, ODPM has trailed one of the ways in
which some local infrastructure may be funded, which is through
the Planning Gains Supplement, already referred to earlier in
this report. As the consultation on the Planning Gains Supplement
is still ongoing we reserve judgement on how effective this may
prove to be as a way of funding infrastructure. We will, for example,
want to know how much the Government envisages giving back to
the local authorities and what conditions will be put on any funds
provided. We also have other concerns. The Minister was clear
that, if agreed, the Planning Gain Supplement could not be introduced
before 2008. Clearly, without knowing just how much reliance
there will be on the Planning Gain Supplement, without knowing
too how this will sit within the existing system whereby local
authorities capture funds through the existing Section 106 system,
it is difficult to judge what impact the Supplement will have.
Given the Government's intention to build 200,000 new homes
per year by 2016, and the often very long lead-in times needed
for any significant infrastructure to be completed, there would
seem to be a fundamental problem with relying too heavily on the
Planning Gain Supplement as a method of funding.
72. We were not reassured by Yvette Cooper's response
to our questions about the timely provision of infrastructure
in general, and the future of the Planning Gains Supplement in
particular. Ms Cooper argued that as there was existing infrastructure
in place which was not reliant on the introduction of the Planning
Gains Supplement, she "did not think it is right to say that
we cannot do any of the additional increases in new homes that
are badly needed in order to help the first-time buyers or in
order to address problems of homelessness and overcrowding because
we have not introduced yet a Planning Gain Supplement." [86]
We find this argument unhelpful in the extreme, and frankly alarming,
as it would suggest to us that there is indeed every intention
to build homes regardless of the state of the supporting infrastructure.
The answer to the problem of homelessness, overcrowding or
indeed, helping people get their feet on the first rung of the
housing ladder, is not to throw up badly constructed houses in
areas which are poorly supported by essential infrastructure.
To do so would be ignoring the Government's own definition of
sustainable communities as "places where people want to live
and work, now and in the future".
73. Whilst we do not dispute the fact that there
is existing infrastructure in place that will share some of the
burden imposed by these new communities, we are concerned that
there is not sufficient recognition of the strain under which
that infrastructure already operates. One need only arrive at
any one of the mainline Central London railway stations during
rush hour, for example, to understand very quickly that you have
a system which is already failing to cope. Thinking back to Sir
John Egan's comments about the importance of having infrastructure
in place to get people from these new communities into London
where he assumes they will all be working, this would seem to
represent a significant problem. We remain deeply concerned
that ODPM is determined to build new homes first and then worry
later, if at all, about how the supporting infrastructure can
be provided. The communities that are created as a result of
such a short-sighted policy will be anything but sustainable.
82 Housing: Building a Sustainable Future, First Report
of Session 2004-05, HC135-1, page 3 Back
83
Housing: Building a Sustainable Future, First Report of Session
2004-05, HC135-1, Ev185-186 Back
84
EV14 Back
85
Q253 Back
86
Q265 Back
|
