| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Steen: The hon. Gentleman is right, and the reason is simply that I have tried to make the Bill as uncontentious as possible and simple for anybody to understand. I knew that if I started talking about jumping over local authority boundaries, the Labour party would jump on me, so I decided to make the Bill so simple that nobody in their right mind could object to it.
I have spent nearly an hour on my feet, and I do not think that that is too long, but there are many hon. Members who want to speak, so rather than go through another 10 pages of well-prepared notes, I propose to short circuit my remarks on the rest of the Bill. The House has got the idea of what I am about. [Hon. Members: "Good idea."] My hon. Friends think that it is a good idea.
Having dealt with the problem of land in urban areas, I want to move on to what happens when all the brownfield land has been filled. I am a little doubtful, however, that the new PPG3 takes such a sequential approach, because it is different from the draft PPG3, which suggested that there would be such an approach. The new PPG3 has weakened that slightly. Let us presume that brownfield sites in the cities and the countryside get filled up, and more housing is still required. That is where the next part of the Bill starts to bite.
First, any developer who wants to develop a site of more than five homes has to have in his application to the planners a statement that he has looked over the district and cannot find a more suitable brownfield site to develop. That is not dissimilar to the legislation introduced by the previous Administration about the impact of new legislation on small firms. There had to be a statement that the impact of legislation on small firms would be nil, or that there would be additional costs because of fire regulations and so on. This measure is similar. There must be an assessment by the developer that there is no more suitable piece of land in the district to develop. That encourages the developer to look for brownfield sites.
The most contentious part of the Bill--although, in many ways, it is the most important part--concerns infrastructure. In any planning application, the developer must satisfy the planners that sufficient infrastructure is available for the people moving in to the new homes. The thinking behind that is self-evident in some parts of my constituency.
In Totnes, the primary and secondary schools are full. In Kingsbridge, the secondary school is full to bursting. In Ashburton, the position is similar. Children from the
new homes in Totnes must travel 20 miles each way in a bus because the infrastructure is not there. In Dartington, the sewer that was built in the 1920s and 1930s is inadequate to deal with floods. When there is a heavy downpour, the sewer overflows and backs up into the basins of the primary school.
The Bill states that new homes cannot be built on green fields or brown fields unless the planners are satisfied that the infrastructure can cope. That means not just school places and sewers, but recreation and leisure facilities. Many new towns have more and more homes, but fewer and fewer facilities for young people.
I believe that the Bill does something that PPG3 does not. Developers must ensure that there is enough room on the roads, and sufficient parking spaces and school places. Infrastructure also means the health service--doctors, dentists and hospitals. More and more homes are going into south Devon, with 12,000 going to South Hams. How do we cope when hospital lists get longer?
Mr. Dismore:
Will the hon. Gentleman join me in condemning any person who, in developing agricultural land in front of their property, encroaches on to the public highways by perhaps a metre, thus reducing the amount of highway available to the public?
Mr. Steen:
I will not condemn anybody; the hon. Gentleman can if he wants to. I am trying to encourage people and make life better, not worse.
Quality of life is also important, not only for those moving in, but for those who live in an area already. Nobody thinks about those people. However, new development on greenfield sites is not all bad news. Some villages will benefit from in-filling and new development. Many rural primary schools have suffered from reduced numbers of pupils, and village post offices have been crying out for opportunities for more business. New housing and in-filling will benefit those schools and post offices.
I give the House a warning. We cannot build new housing on the scale proposed without an enormous increase in the road network. Torbay is hemmed in by a totally inadequate road structure. The failure of the Government to fund the Kingskerswell bypass means that Torbay cannot absorb the number of homes planned for it. People moving in must realise that they may not be able to get their cars out of their driveways, let alone drive on the roads. In the summer, the A38 through Totnes back to Paignton--about 15 miles--is nose to tail on Saturdays. I foresee that, this summer, it will be gridlocked, with cars unable to move in either direction. Already the infrastructure in south Devon cannot cope.
Clause 7 will ensure that we do not go on building more and more housing without ensuring that the road system can cope. Planners have to be able to start saying no. Politicians have to back them up, from the Deputy Prime Minister to the local chair of planning. My Bill will encourage that.
In the past 20 years, the population of South Hams has risen by nearly 20 per cent. The west country has seen charabanc-loads of retired people moving in from the south-east and the midlands. The result is that the population has become out of balance. There are increasing numbers of retired people, and local people can no longer afford to live in the area. That means that the
retired find it difficult to get help in their homes for cleaning, cooking and odd jobs. Local businesses find it difficult to recruit staff, as the young migrate out of the area that they cannot afford.
Clause 7 gives the planners and politicians a real chance to halt and re-direct new development to where existing infrastructure is not overstretched. That will help to reduce the price of homes, and more local people will be able to afford them. If my Bill becomes law, local plans would ensure that new development is not permitted where infrastructure is already under pressure unless the developer or public authority provides the additional infrastructure that is deemed to be lacking.
Developers, of course, will not have the finance for the additional infrastructure if they build just a few houses. If enough developers build a few houses, we end up with hundreds of homes and still insufficient infrastructure. PPG3 is silent on the provision of infrastructure. I suppose that the Government will say that that is because everyone knows that it has to be provided--but it is not, and it has not been.
Paragraph 5.2 of page 19--entitled "The Sustainable Development Strategy"--of the Devon county structure plan, states:
In spite of the laudable and appropriate sentiments, 90,000 new homes have to be accommodated in Devon, with some 12,000 in South Hams. As I explained, sewers are overflowing, schools are packed full, roads are crammed, dentists and doctors are not available and hospitals have ever-increasing waiting lists. Against that background, how can one possibly accommodate more people and more households? My Bill echoes the sentiments of PPG3, but will turn them into concrete rules on planning policy. PPG3 aims to achieve that but it will not.
Here is perhaps the key reason why my Bill is needed; this is the punchline. The Deputy Prime Minister has talked of
If a change in public attitudes is required, legislation is needed. Planning guidance used by developers and planning officers will not awaken the mass public conscience to the problem--or, indeed, to the solution. Mention PPG3 to most people and they will not have a clue what is being talked about. Law made by this House is clear and unequivocal. The public understand law; law is profound, made by the body that represents this country for the benefit of this country. Passing this Bill will send out a message that the Government are serious about saving our countryside and regenerating our cities.
The Minister may well get up and argue that legislation is not required to change public attitudes, but that runs against precedent. When other sea changes in public opinion and perception have been needed--the equal treatment of women, race relations, abortion--law made by this House has been the foundation for such change. I do not suggest that my Bill is on a par with such classic pieces of legislation; I merely use them to illustrate the point that law has been and is used to change public perceptions and values. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister, rightly, wants. We fight attitudes as well as bulldozers. If attitudes to housebuilding and home ownership change, so will our attitude toward what bulldozers should be doing, from turning up our green fields to clearing up our brown fields. Law can achieve our shared goal: policy can deal with policy, law can deal with attitudes.
The development strategy for Devon must be sustainable in environmental, economic and social plans.
Of course it should be, but it is not. It continues:
By explicit consideration of these longer-term issues through each stage of the plan-making process, the principles of sustainability and sustainable development have been carried forward into a development strategy in the policies and proposals which flow from it.
Who writes this nonsense? It has no meaning or effect, and it does not work.
variety and choice in housing to meet the needs of the future.
That may mean moving away from the psyche of the "Englishman's home is his castle". If that is what the Deputy Prime Minister is saying, I am not sure that everyone will like it. However, there will need to be a change in attitudes to housebuilding and home ownership at the national level.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |