Clause 42 - Power to decline to determine applications
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
9:45 am
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley, Conservative)
I congratulate you, Mr. Amess, on looking interested throughout the sitting. However, this debate is of interest to developers and to local planning authorities.
In discussing the previous clause, the Minister said, in effect, that he did not know what all the fuss was about, which should apply to the entire clause. I do not know what the fuss is about. Much of my thinking on the issue relates to my experience and to discussions with local planning officers. Having read the discussion papers forwarded by the developers, I thought that I would test them out with the recipients. The reaction of an outstanding local planning director in London was that he did not know what the fuss was about. He thought it was a load of nonsense and he wondered why we were bothering. He made several key points: he said that if an application is similar to another one and there seems to be twin-tracking, ''We take the fee, then we get on with looking at the application, which is much easier if it is similar to the previous one. We get the same money for a fraction of the work, and if there is no real change in the application, then we decline it. There is no fuss, no bother and a large fee in the local coffers.''
That planning director also talked about a warning and used an intriguing example. He talked of a key site, a valuable site on the riverside that had been bought, had changed hands several times, and for which a developer was finally drawing up plans. In the meantime, it had been squatted by one of the green groups. That group was fascinating because it wanted a green atmosphere and a green community, and was growing vegetables to demonstrate it. The fact that the soil was horrendously polluted meant that I would not have gone anywhere near the vegetables the group grew—one might have contracted Pink's disease, from the mercury. So the whole thing became a big smile.
However, the green group got organised and intended, as a spoiling tactic, to put in an application for a development that was not dissimilar to that which it anticipated the developer would submit. If the legislation went through, that sort of spoiling tactic could work, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold said, the word ''may'' applies—the local authority may reject such an application.
Fortunately for the local authority in that case, because it would have caused a storm, the fee required meant that those green individuals—green with a luminous tinge if they had eaten their own vegetables—did not proceed with the application. However, the planning director made the point that that would be a spoiling technique.
The planning officer also agreed that many points made from the private sector were valid. There should be an opportunity to make subtle changes to meet changes in circumstances. A few years ago, there was a glut of office buildings and subtle changes were made as a result. If the twin-tracking idea was stopped, the opportunity to make subtle changes to meet changes in economic circumstances could also be stopped. That would be detrimental to many developers who are paying enormous amounts in borrowed money and would be unable to progress with their plans and their development.
There has been an interesting situation in my area. There are some applications that local authorities would wish, as a knee-jerk reaction, to reject. Nuclear power stations, incinerators, bail hostels, housing for asylum seekers and clinics for paedophiles would be classic examples. There were recently three applications for building incinerators in different areas of Surrey. I want to extrapolate a little, because although my extrapolation is hypothetical, it is quite plausible. Two of the three applications were from the contractor for the local authority for removal of waste, and one was from a second organisation that also has considerable abilities and expertise in that area. One application was to build on green belt—I do not understand why the applicants thought they could stick an incinerator on green belt—and that was rejected fairly promptly. One was an application to build in the countryside and was contrary to the proximity principle, but it was accepted. The third application was for a site near Guildford, and was therefore close to the main source of the rubbish that had to be incinerated. The incinerator would have been built on a site that was already used for collection of rubbish. Everything was in favour of that application, except that the site was not far away from a park.
The local authority was bombarded by a huge and virulent campaign, and, to put it bluntly, councillors of all political complexions bowed to the blast. In my opinion, the reasons given for rejection were pretty pathetic. In essence, it was said, if someone were sitting in the park, the development would be unsightly, though from a distance. I found that amazing because, having seen many incinerator plans throughout the country, I felt that that one was particularly successful. It looked like a church with a steeple. It was a modern design, albeit without the cross on top. It was a dramatically and cleverly disguised incinerator. But the local authority said that it was a little too high—I cannot remember whether it was 5 ft or 3 m too high—and came up with some half-baked excuses.
The hypothetical part is that the developer could have pressed the case in two ways. One way was to
appeal. Judging by a previous successful appeal in Portsmouth, I suspect that there was a high chance that the incinerator application would have been given the go-ahead by the inspector and, presumably, the Minister.
If the applicant were so minded, he could also have twin-tracked: he could have made a similar application in which the development was 5 ft or 3 m shorter and applied pressure on the local authority to reconsider. The developer could have proposed a subtle change or changes that dealt with the problems that the local authority used—I believe incorrectly—to turn down the application.
The word ''may'' is in the measure but, as I have said, in the classic scenario of applications for nuclear power stations, bail hostels or clinics for paedophiles, the local authority would bow to pressure from the local people and reject them, sometimes quite unreasonably. In essence, like the Minister, I do not know what the fuss is about. We do not need the provision, and it will damage progress and development.