New clause 52 - Planning: Retrospective Applications
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
11:00 am
Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold, Conservative)
I apologise to you, Mr. Pike, and to the Committee, for not being present when my hon. Friend started to introduce the new clause. Some of us were outside discussing matters to do with the Committee through the usual channels.
My hon. Friend's new clause would strengthen the expectation that retrospective planning applications would normally be refused. On Tuesday, the Under-Secretary of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) stated:
''The success rate for retrospective applications is slightly lower at 85 per cent. than that of 88 per cent. for applications submitted before the development has taken place.''
I replied that
''an 85 per cent. success rate for something that is otherwise unlawful seems to me to be a very high percentage.''—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 21 October 2003; c. 247.]
We should move towards a situation in which retrospective planning applications are not automatically granted; in fact, the expectation should be that they would not be granted. In the Cotswolds and elsewhere, canny developers carry out developments that they know perfectly well would
not get planning permission, and once they are built, the planning committee is more sympathetic because the development exists and it would be difficult to take it down.
I give as an example the very first constituency case with which I dealt. A constituent had built an entire house without having the materials approved by the local planning authority, which was a condition of the planning application. I supported the local authority in telling him that he had to pull the house down. He did so, and rebuilt it with proper Cotswold stone, as had been required.
Legislation to that effect should be on the statute book. Local planning authorities should get tougher with people who carry out unauthorised developments. Apart from anything else, there would be less need for retrospective planning applications, because people would not carry out such developments if they knew that sanctions existed that could be enforced by the local planning authority. I have a great deal of sympathy with the new clause, and hope that the Minister will, too.