Written evdience from Chris Skidmore MP
(ARSS 84)
1. THE ABOLITION
OF THE
RSS IS TO
BE APPLAUDED
The abolition of regional spatial strategies by the
new coalition Government is extremely welcome and cannot come
soon enough. Returning powers on where to build housing to local
communities and democratically elected local councillors, rather
than unelected quangos and Whitehall bureaucrats, is the right
thing to do. For too long, local people have felt trampled on
by central Government decision making and have felt that decisions
have been done to them and imposed on them, rather than being
made with their consent. For too long, local people have felt
that their voice has gone unheard. The abolition of the RSS will
begin to undo this trend towards increasing centralisation- however
it can only be the start of a longer process of strengthening
local communities and reducing the power of central government
and unelected government bodies that has previously done so much
to frustrate local community engagement.
2. THE ABOLITION
OF THE
RSS MUST TAKE
PLACE AS
SOON AS
POSSIBLE TO
AVOID FURTHER
APPLICATIONS TO
BUILD ON
GREENBELT LAND
WHICH ARE
STILL TAKING
PLACE
In my constituency of Kingswood, there is an urgent
case for the abolition of the regional spatial strategy as soon
as possible. As a direct result of the previous Government's south-west
regional spatial strategy, green belt land in my constituency
is coming under threat from development through speculative applications
in Oldland Common, Mangotsfield and Longwell Green. Two applications-to
build on green belt land on Barry road, Oldland Common, and on
Cossham street, Mangotsfield—have already been fought off
at a local planning level yet a new application to build on green
belt land at Williams Close, Longwell Green, has been submitted,
and will be heard at a local planning level later this autumn.
The application to build on greenbelt land in Mangotsfield had
gone to appeal with the Planning Inspectorate, however this appeal
has recently been withdrawn. Despite the Secretary of State's
letter to planning authorities that they should regard the intention
to abolish the RSS as "emerging policy", developers
are still seeking to use the existing framework as a means of
getting around the government's future plans and build on greenbelt
land. In Kingswood, we have witnessed the efforts of developers
to thwart local democracy in action: thousands of letters have
been written and thousands of signatures against these applications
have been collected. I have been working alongside the fantastic
Save Our Green Spaces groups in Oldland Common, Warmley and Mangotsfield,
whose tireless commitment to saving their local green belt has
been tremendous. Yet we should not have our hands forced by developers
who are continually allowed a right of appeal to a planning decision,
when local people feel that they have none, without recourse to
legal advice which is often prohibitively expensive.
The link between scrapping the RSS and preserving
our green belt is clear. To this end, I tabled early-day motion
168:
That this House notes that regional spatial strategies
removed green belt protection and caused environmental harm; believes
that it was right for the Government to announce its early intention
to abolish regional spatial strategies and to return decision-making
powers on housing and planning to local authorities; welcomes
the Government's clarification that local planning authorities
and the Planning Inspectorate must have regard to this emerging
policy as a material consideration in any planning decisions they
are undertaking; and calls on the Government to bring forward
primary legislation abolishing regional housing targets outright
as quickly as possible.
3. THE ABOLITION
OF THE
RSS DOES NOT
HAVE TO
IMPACT ON
THE BUILDING
OF AFFORDABLE
HOUSING
Local people recognise the need for extra housing,
and more affordable housing, for the future. In fact, there has
been cross-party agreement in South Gloucestershire council to
build 21,500 houses over the next 15 years and at the same time
protect and preserve the Kingswood green belt. It is only due
to the imposition of 32,800 homes in the local area under the
south-west RSS that the green belt has come under threat from
being bulldozed. What is clear is that local councils, and above
all local people, should have the freedom to determine where houses
are built, and should be allowed to protect local greenbelt land
for generations to come.
4. THE PPS3 FRAMEWORK
AND THE
FIVE-YEAR
LAND BANK
Depsite the proposed abolition of the RSS, there
are issues that must be resolved with the current planning framework.
Currently, there is an instruction to planning inspectors in paragraph
71 of planning policy statement 3 to "consider favourably"
applications for housing where the local authority cannot show
a five-year supply of housing land. That requirement is counter-intuitive
in the current challenging housing market and in the context of
the Secretary of State's recent announcement on the abolishment
of regional spatial strategies. Under the PPS3 framework, local
councils are being challenged by developers to make good the housing
shortfall by approving applications for housing, often in unsustainable
locations such as the green belt, on the grounds that the council
cannot demonstrate a five-year land supply. However, even though
many developers are now experiencing low market demand and have
therefore reduced housing delivery, that is not stopping the sector
claiming that the land supply in south Gloucestershire has significantly
worsened, with that claim being used to justify granting permission
for additional housing sites on the green belt at planning appeal.
This unsustainable situation fundamentally conflicts with the
new Government's approach to planning for housing provision and
on protecting the green belt.
PPS3, particularly paragraph 71, is that it fails
appropriately to balance the impact on communities-for example,
village communities-and disproportionately favours housing delivery
above genuine sustainability considerations. It is also contrary
to the Secretary of State's statement that decisions on housing
supply should rest with local planning authorities. The requirement
to provide a five-year land supply was based on the previous Government's
policy to deliver housing supply through a target-driven framework,
of which paragraph 71 represented a key mechanism. The new Secretary
of State has made it clear that that approach is no longer Government
policy, and I hope that he will consider removing paragraph 71,
along with the supporting national guidance on identifying sufficient
specific sites to deliver housing or at least five years.
5. ALTERNATIVES
TO THE
FIVE-YEAR
LAND SUPPLY
TARGET
To replace the five-year land supply target, I suggest
that the Government formally endorse the approach set out in the
west of England multi-area agreement, to enable local authorities
to agree with the Government annually, so that we have sequential
development and more appropriate housing delivery forecasts that
realistically reflect expected delivery. The Secretary of State
should also consider carefully current national indicator 159
on the supply of ready-to-develop housing sites, which I suggest
should be removed. The current NI 159 definition places great
emphasis on the regional spatial strategy as the basis against
which local authorities' housing delivery is to be assessed. That
requires immediate attention in legislation because it is now
clearly not in accordance with Government policy.
6. GREATER POWERS
NEED TO
BE RESTORED
TO LOCAL
PEOPLE
My experiences fighting applications to build on
the Kingswood Greenbelt has demonstrated to me that we must give
greater power back to local people to decide where housing is
built. The right for a developer to appeal against planning decisions
taken by democratically-elected councillors should be limited,
if not removed entirely. Local petitions should have a greater
voice, and we should investigate how local referendums of parish
councils or local communities could be used to decide where housing
is built. Above all, I believe that local people who understand
their community, its infrastructure and what services are required,
are best placed to understand what will work in the long-term
interests of those communities.
7. ENSURING GREEN
BELT PROTECTION
FOR FUTURE
GENERATIONS
In my constituency, the Kingswood Green Belt is a
much-loved resource, acting as a "green lung" for the
local area, and includes areas of outstanding natural beauty.
It also acts as a buffer between Bristol and Bath, preventing
the two cities from merging into one another. The need to protect
greenbelt land is absolutely crucial. However we should consider
how local community involvement might be harnessed in order to
ensure that the Greenbelt is not simply seen as a dividing line
on a map. To this end, we should begin to consider how greenbelt
land might move from simply a planning term to be viewed as a
community resource. In particular, the boundary of greenbelt land
needs greater protection to ensure that it is not eroded over
time. One consideration might be to strengthen these boundaries
by creating new allotment sites, community parks and picnic sites,
wooded areas and nature reserves for community use, which will
enshrine the greenbelt in the local landscape of the area.
These are some issues that I believe need further
consideration when the legislation comes to the House. I congratulate
the government on their decision to abolish the regional spatial
strategy. It is a welcome decision for the people of Kingswood.
It places us on the right track to restore powers to local communities,
to trust local people to make decisions over their own lives,
and above all to preserve and protect our treasured green belt
for generations to come.
September 2010
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