New clause 22 - Revocation of planning permission
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
4:15 pm
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test, Labour)
I intend to make something slightly more extensive than an intervention, but that is essentially what it is. Does the hon. Member for Isle of Wight consider the following to be an example of misleading information? Activities have been carried out on a site over a period of time such that the owner of a site who has obtained planning permission has started to develop that site, has laid foundations on it, but then appears to have no intention of completing the site. He could then have a completion notice served upon him after a long period of time. He makes a rather disingenuous protestation that he could go and build what was supposed to be put on the site in the first place, but after a long period of time that may not be relevant.
I have in mind a case that my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Peter Bradley) raised on
Second Reading. He referred planning permission given for the building of a new pub in his constituency a long time ago. The nature of the land around it did not turn out as originally intended, but the people who had permission to build the pub put the foundations down and let the ground go derelict for a long period of time. When the local authority eventually got round to asking them to put in a completion notice, they said they would build the original 1960s pub along the lines of the original design, when there were not houses or other things around the plot. That was clearly disingenuous due to the effluxion of time. The discovery of great-crested newts on the site eventually persuaded the owner of the land not to go ahead with that plan, but that is another story.
The matter in hand is whether there are more complex issues relating to the misleading of a planning authority than the case outlined by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight. He may consider that his proposals cover the broader issues, which I suggest cause planning authorities some difficulties in the way that I have described.