Examination of Witnesses (QUESTIONS
300-319)
MR KEITH
MITCHELL, MR
NICK SKELLET
AND MR
BILL BRISBANE
12 DECEMBER 2005
Q300 Mr Betts: Can I pick up on what
you have been saying to us. Perhaps because I am a Northern MP,
I can recognise the syndrome. You have said already there is a
constituency in your region of people who would say, "No
housing growth at all". We have all got normally fairly well
housed people in our regions who cannot see a reason why anybody
else should actually have a house built for them. It seems you
are going to have to go one step beyond that. You could be saying
as local authorities, "We want to sit down and work with
Government to provide the infrastructure that is needed to build
the homes that we know are needed" but you seem to be saying,
"Because we do not believe the infrastructure is going to
be provided we are going to resist new homes to the maximum amount
we can, in other words we are only going to agree to the minimum
amount of new housing we possibly think we can get away with".
Is that a fair construction of what you are saying?
Mr Mitchell: That is unfair. We
consulted on 25,000, 29,000 and 32,000 houses, so we have not
gone for the bottom end of the consultation option, we have gone
for the middle. We have proposed a concordat with Government through
GOSE to look at infrastructure planning together as a joint exercise.
Yvette Cooper has made encouraging noises about it but it has
not yet moved forward. I am now needing to press Yvette for another
meeting to try to take this forward because the Assembly has taken
very seriously the concept of concordat between the region and—
Q301 Mr Betts: So infrastructure is the
actual key to this concordat?
Mr Mitchell: Yes.
Q302 Mr Betts: So if the Government came
back with sufficient infrastructure you would agree to a higher
number of houses, would you?
Mr Mitchell: I have told you,
when I see the cheque in the bank and it is cleared—
Q303 Mr Betts: If Government comes and
meets all the problems you are identifying in terms of infrastructure,
whether it be transport, sewerage, water or libraries, all of
the things we have heard, then you are prepared to see a far greater
number of houses built than currently?
Mr Mitchell: Government has not
got the money to build them.
Q304 Mr Betts: I did not ask you whether
Government had got the money, I asked you the question if Government
came up with that infrastructure and committed itself to it, would
you be prepared to commit to a much higher level of housing?
Mr Mitchell: I understand the
question but I am not willing to answer a question that is based
on something that cannot happen because there is not enough money
in the foreseeable future to meet the whole of the infrastructure
requirements in the South East.
Q305 Mr Betts: It seems, which is the
point I was trying to make, that you are rather hiding behind
the fact that infrastructure will not happen in your view to defend
a position of lesser housing growth than the need for housing
would justify.
Mr Mitchell: It is a process and
when we see the infrastructure come we can negotiate levels of
housing, but the two have to sit side-by-side. I am not giving
a blank cheque until I see, on behalf of the South East, that
infrastructure investment taken seriously. I do in ODPM but I
do not see it extending from ODPM to the Treasury who I think
see a nice new tax in planning gain supplement, and I want to
see the small print of how it is divided. I do not see Department
for Transport signed up yet to linking housing need to transport
need and to the funding, I just do not see that. We need more
joining up.
Mr Betts: I think ODPM might be interested
in knowing what your view of it is joined up.
Q306 Anne Main: Can we come back to the
environment, which was where I thought we were at, because we
have gone back to infrastructure. I did ask you even if the infrastructure
was met, do you have major environmental concerns? I also want
to know, I am a Hertfordshire MP, and there are air quality management
areas, increasing levels of people suffering, as they believe,
from poor air quality, noise quality management. Do you have concerns
that even if infrastructure is met these would be unsustainable
communities in terms of environmental impact? That is what I want
to know.
Mr Skellett: The position at the
moment is untenable and it is getting worse. There is twice the
national density of traffic in Surrey and probably in Hertfordshire
because of the M25. The hotspots for nitrous oxides and particulates
are worse around London and the Home Counties. The present position
is not tenable. We are talking about infrastructure for the future
development and growth. There is insufficient investment now to
repair the South East from the problems we have already had. The
trend in funding is looking worse. For example, because most of
the large authorities in the South East are now on the floor,
it is probably questionable whether they will have the resources
to fund or approved borrowing in local transport plans and the
expansion of schools because there is not the support from grant
to those proposed investments. The clear picture at the moment
is getting worse. How do we make up for that? Certainly we should
reverse the trend of moving grant away. I dispute the fact that
a population increase to 800,000 with 600,000 homes—
Q307 Chair: Can I pick you up on this
point you keep making about moving grant away. You are not losing
grant, it is just that you are not getting as much extra grant
as other parts of the country. Is that not a correct way of describing
it?
Mr Skellett: The underlying grant
to Surrey in a recent settlement was cut by 40 million.
Q308 Anne Main: You said they were on
the floor, I would like you to explain that.
Mr Skellett: What I meant was
that in approved borrowing requirements for transport plans and
schools, normally in the old SSA system you had capital grant
to fund the interest repayments but, because most of the large
authorities in the South East are on the floor, that has now disappeared,
so even if we do get good settlements for the local transport
plan or through education it is only where there is a specific
grant from Central Government for that capital investment that
we will be able to proceed with it without question.
Q309 Chair: I think, Mr Skellett, once
you get into the intricacies of local government finance you will
find that almost every Member of the Committee would have an argument
with the view you are projecting.
Mr Skellett: I do apologise.
Q310 Mr Betts: We know from your paper,
and from other sources as well, that there is currently planning
permission for 90,000 homes that has been given on various sites
around the South East and in your plans you have got an allocation
for another 109,500 new homes. You would not have any problem
if that could be speeded up and those homes could be delivered
more quickly, would you?
Mr Mitchell: No, we would be delighted
because it would mean the Highways Agency would be providing some
of the improvements that they currently will not provide that
are holding up, for example, 3,500 houses in Didcot from being
built.
Q311 Mr Betts: So you would have no problems
at all with any increase?
Mr Mitchell: Providing that infrastructure
investment comes with that quantum of housing. I am not enlarging
that from the numbers you have quoted to me to anything beyond
that. I am not giving you a blank cheque, Mr Betts.
Q312 Mr Betts: What are local authorities
doing to get that land?
Mr Mitchell: They are making the
case every time they see ministers about the Highways Agency not
being joined up with the rest of Government in the context of
meeting those needs.
Q313 Mr Betts: You are saying all of
those 90,000 new homes are not being built because of the Highways
Agency?
Mr Mitchell: No, by no means all
of them.
Q314 Mr Betts: Builders are actually
sitting on some of that land, are they not?
Mr Mitchell: Some of the land
is builders sitting on it, yes, and some is local authority—
Q315 Mr Betts: What are you, as a local
authority group, doing to get the builders to release that land
and develop it?
Mr Mitchell: You can lead a horse
to water but you cannot make it drink. If developers want to sit
on land banks—
Q316 Mr Betts: Have you collectively
approached developers at all?
Mr Mitchell: We are working with
developers, or the housing authorities—
Q317 Mr Betts: Have you collectively
approached developers at all?
Mr Mitchell: No.
Q318 Mr Betts: You have not?
Mr Mitchell: I have discussions
with housebuilders' representatives, they are very keen to see
the housing numbers grow. At a national level, the housebuilders
are very keen to promote higher housing numbers.
Q319 Mr Betts: But in your evidence you
said you believed you could not get the land to be released any
more quickly because that would damage the profits of housebuilders
and you felt there was not a chance of getting that to happen.
That contradicts what you said just now.
Mr Mitchell: The national federations
at a national level are very keen to push up the numbers. What
individual builders are choosing to do with their land banks is
for them and it is not something that local authorities can influence.
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