Housing and the Green Belt

Part of Opposition Day – in the House of Commons at 2:14 pm on 29 April 1999.

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Photo of Angela Browning Angela Browning Conservative, Tiverton and Honiton 2:14, 29 April 1999

I shall do so.

Whatever figures were finally arrived at in the structure plan, which is a democratic process involving many stages, my colleague in the previous Government explicitly stated in his letter, which I quoted to the Minister and in oral evidence to the examination in public, that the figures were not set in tablets of stone, but were subject to the scrutiny of the democratic process—namely, the structure plan consultation that has lasted for almost two and a half years.

What I do not understand, and what the people of my constituency do not accept, is that although we gave approval and support to the Government's announced policies of building on brown-field sites, of listening to local people and of following the democratic process, we could not get from Ministers one iota of sympathy or support. Ministers wanted to railroad through the proposals, despite the fact that, as we knew, revised figures would be forthcoming. The Minister quoted the Council for the Protection of Rural England. The CPRE advised the Government that there was likely to be a readjustment of the figures. There was every reason not to railroad through the proposals, but to say, "Let's look at the new figures, revise our decision making, and allow the local people to revise their decision making in the light of local feelings and new information."

The Devon branch of the CPRE stated: The South West Regional Planning Conference is now aiming for the 'lowest technically justified figure' under the new process proposed in the revised Regional Planning rules, and at the end of this year we shall get the new household projections based on the 1995 figures (instead of the 1992 figures currently used) …These are expected to show lower rates of net inward migration, but there are now serious doubts about other aspects of the national"— housing— projections.

The issue was raised in oral evidence at the examination in public. Ministers knew about it, yet they have not been prepared to say that there could be a moratorium in Devon while the figures were analysed and considered further so that we would not have to rush into making decisions about building two new towns—one in my constituency—but would be able to reflect the views of local people based on accurate figures rather than on figures that have been universally accepted as out of date.

The Minister prays in aid representatives of the building industry. I sat through four days of an examination in public, before which the builders' representative in my constituency had already named the new town. What a mockery of democracy it is when a building company circulates literature and names a new town before the democratic process is over.

We do not expect to win this battle, but I do not intend to throw in the towel. We are now looking for evidence that the Minister is genuine in his desire to protect green-field sites, to use brown-field sites first and then to reassess the situation. I hope that if he is, he will accept from me a request by East Devon district council, which now has to produce the plans for the town.

Not only does the council have to produce those plans, but it has been told by the Prime Minister that it has to produce them. After I had presented my letter to Downing street, the Prime Minister wrote back to me, and his final paragraph states: East Devon District Council must now commence work as soon as possible to produce a Local Plan to 2011 which makes provision for the new community proposed in the Structure Plan. That edict from on high before the consultation period was over was not greeted with joy in the county of Devon. It was one more example of the way in which the Government say one thing but, when faced with a situation in which they could have made a difference and stood by their word and their policies, they deliberately fail to honour them.

Will people from the Minister's Department sit down around a table, without press or publicity, with the representatives of the planning authority, East Devon district council, and discuss with them how they are now to apply the planning regulations to the new town against the background of the new rules under PPG3 and other guidance, which the Minister says now represent the way forward?

Why should the people of Devon be deprived of the opportunity to avail themselves of the new policies when the Minister has made such great play of them? We have said that we will support them too, yet he wants to deny them to the people of Devon. If he can answer my question and agree to that meeting today, I shall be most grateful.