Clause 44
Planning Bill
9:45 am
Jacqui Lait (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Beckenham, Conservative)
This group of proposals is exceedingly important. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe for getting to the Clerks before we did on this issue. Unless the Minister comes up with a miracle, I will be pressing the amendments that I tabled. We think, as does the hon. Gentleman, that if we are to make any new system work, the duty to consult must be widened to include the duty to mitigate.
The best developers already seek to mitigate. I referred earlier to the Kent Wildlife Trust’s negotiation on a grid application. It managed to achieve the realignment of cable routes, to have the work timed to avoid the impacts on internationally important populations of migratory birds and protect breeding marsh harriers. It received a commitment to enhance the works to encourage biodiversity. It achieved those things because of its ability to negotiate with a responsible applicant before the inquiry.
My thinking on this area is influenced by a case in which a bottleneck was to be relieved on our overcrowded railways when Eurostar came through my constituency. There was a need to unblock the bottleneck at a point where the railway crossed a busy road with a station immediately on the other side.