Clause 44
Planning Bill
9:45 am
Clive Betts (Sheffield, Attercliffe, Labour)
No. In the end, the issues of whether the applicant has taken reasonable steps to mitigate and why an applicant does not feel that mitigation is possible because of cost or other reasons are matters for the commission to take on board and determine. In the amendments, we are trying to structure the concerns of the community and the responses to those concerns and make the applicant respond formally to them by saying either that they can be mitigated, or if they cannot, why not. Of course, the commission will have that information to enable it to make a better decision and can, in the end, do so with conditions, such as deciding that mitigation is necessary, despite what the applicant has said.
That leads us to amendments Nos. 327 and 328, which are linked together appropriately. The process of identifying the issues from the community and the applicant’s response with regard to mitigation or non-mitigation continues beyond the initial pre-application consultation into the commission’s hearings. That process continues in the commission’s initial consideration, as laid out in clause 80, and then in the first meetings at which the commission brings the applicant and the main objectors together.
At those stages, the process of identifying the impact that the community is concerned about and deciding for or against mitigation for the applicant are considered as part of the commission’s initial view and the initial hearing that it holds. Having had the first meetings and the formal hearings, that process takes those issues through into the later processes of the commission’s consideration.
The Minister might have views about the appropriateness of that process and the wording of the amendments, but they are an attempt to ensure that communities see that there is less value in simply waiting and using objections as obstructions later in the process, and that there is every benefit in raising objections at the earliest possible stage, when concerns over details can be dealt with more easily and when the applicant is likely to be more responsive in dealing with those concerns. That also means that there is less benefit in simply trying to obstruct, rather than engage with, those opposed, and that applies to the applicant as well. There is much more benefit in trying to engage with the community and address concerns, rather than trying to ignore them and hope that somehow they will go away, be pushed to one side or not be properly focused on.
It would be helpful to target and focus not only at the pre-application stage, but in the remaining stages of the commission’s initial consideration and at the formal hearings themselves. With the amendments and the new clause, I am trying to lay down a process that has two fundamental objectives: one is to make the Government’s approach more effective and focused on the issues of real concern, and the other is to improve the perception, and the reality, that the community is involved. Any concerns that the community has should not simply be pushed to one side and ignored, but given proper attention and a proper response.