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3 Sep 2007 : Column 1690W—continued
Ordnance Survey
Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the Ordnance Survey’s targets are for use of 15cm high-resolution pictometry oblique imagery across England. [152820]
Mr. Iain Wright: Ordnance Survey has a commercial agreement with BLOM Aerofilms Limited to act as an authorised reseller of Pictometry data of Great Britain.
It is a matter for BLOM Aerofilms Ltd. to determine for which areas of England coverage of the product is made available, based on customer demand, and acquisition of the data, and on other commercial considerations. It is for customers of the product to determine uses within their businesses. Ordnance Survey does not use Pictometry within its own business processes.
Owner Occupation
Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what her Department's target is for increasing the level of home ownership. [152845]
Yvette Cooper: ‘Homes for the Future’, launched on 23 July outlines the Government's plans for delivering new homes. We are taking urgent action to meet growing demand and address the serious issue of housing affordability. Our new target will deliver 240,000 additional homes a year by 2016.
Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the (a) conclusions and (b) outputs were of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's Home Ownership Task Force. [152948]
Yvette Cooper: The Home Ownership task force published its report, “A Home of My Own”, in November 2003. A copy is available on the Housing Corporation's website.
The task force looked at the routes into low cost home ownership and made recommendations for an increase in the supply in all types of housing, both market and social housing. It also proposed a number of detailed improvements to low cost home ownership schemes and the provision of better information and advice to individuals.
A copy of the report and the Government's full response to the 45 recommendations is available on the Communities and Local Government website.
The majority of the recommendations were accepted in full by the Government and taken forward in the
Housing Act 2004 and in the development of the homebuy scheme, which commenced in April 2006, as well as more generally.
On 23 July we published a Housing Green Paper which sets out our continuing support for the low cost home ownership programme.
Partnerships: Thames Gateway
Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government who the partners in the Thames Gateway project were in each year since its inception; and what the budget for support for partners was in each year. [149745]
Yvette Cooper: The following table details support funding for Thames Gateway Local Regeneration Partnerships.
This funding has supported the creation and delivery of nine local regeneration partnerships in the Thames Gateway, including two urban development corporations, each tasked with co-ordinating the delivery of the Thames Gateway Programme at a local level. These funds have directly funded staff costs,
project development, development briefs, and feasibility studies for key sites and initiatives.
In some cases they also contribute to project management of crucial projects such as the Fastrack bus-transit system in Kent Thameside and Rochester Riverside development in Medway.
These costs are part of a larger programme of investment by my Department, currently some £672 million (2003-08), which we have invested in a range of projects including brownfield remediation, economic development, education, health and greenspace. This long-term programme is set to achieve the delivery of 160,000 new homes and 180,000 new jobs and lever in some £38 billion of private investment in the next 15-20 years.
| £ | ||
| Capital | Revenue | |
| £ | |||||||
| 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | Total | |||
|
(1) Resource consumption figures do not include notional cost of capital and writedown charges for land held by the UDCs. | |||||||
Planning Permission
Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what advice (a) her Department, (b) regional government offices and (c) the Planning Inspectorate have given to local planning authorities who are preparing their local development framework on the process by which supplementary planning guidance and design brief documents previously issued by the authority can be saved either as a supplementary planning document or as a design brief which will continue to have weight in determining planning applications. [152952]
Yvette Cooper: Local planning authorities are being advised that supplementary planning guidance and design briefs are still capable of remaining a material consideration in the determination of planning applications and appeals provided that the policies in local plans on which they are based remain in force. There is no need to save them as supplementary planning documents (SPDs).
Mr. Pickles: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what guidance has been given to local authorities on making submissions from the public on individual planning applications open to public inspection. [153715]
Hazel Blears: We have issued no guidance on the point. For the sake of fairness and transparency, we urge local planning authorities to make comments from third parties open to inspection wherever possible. This helps applicant and authority to understand why aspects of a proposal give rise to objection, and adds to efficiency in the planning system. However, there is no legal duty to make representations public, unless (with certain exceptions) a letter of comment forms part of a planning officer’s report to Committee or the background papers to the report.
A local authority should always have regard to the Data Protection Act: the decision on what to disclose is one for the individual authority.
Planning: Appeals
Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government how many planning appeals have so far been considered and ruled on by the Planning Inspectorate in relation to planning applications for residential development under the new Policy Planning Statement 3 regime. [153503]
Yvette Cooper: The following table gives information on the number of planning appeals concerning residential development determined by the Planning Inspectorate for the period since the introduction of PPS3 in November 2006 until June 2007.
| Number/percentage | |
Mrs. Lait: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what targets were set for processing of planning and enforcement appeals between April 2006 and March 2007; and what such targets have been set since April 2007. [153697]
Mr. Iain Wright: The Inspectorate’s targets are the same for both periods requested and are set out as follows:
Key performance targets 2006-07 and 2007-08—England
Proposals for 10 or more dwellings
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