I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this important subject, which has been a pressing one for people in my Constituency for many years. I have pursued it through a number of different avenues, so it was with a sense of frustration that I sought this Adjournment Debate. I did so because of the troubling difficulties in obtaining faith buildings in Northampton to serve our multi-faith community. This is an issue not only for Northampton, because faith communities in other parts of the country face similar difficulties in accessing sites and, in particular, obtaining planning consent. A simple search on the internet reveals a host of different disputes about planning applications for mosques, temples and a variety of other faith buildings.

In some areas, lessons have been learned and there is some good practice. For example, in Birmingham there are proposals for needs assessments of faith communities in the city as part of regeneration work, and one borough in London has a unit to help faith communities to resolve their different issues in getting access to buildings in which to worship. However, I must tell the House that in Northampton faith communities have faced continuing difficulties in obtaining buildings in which to worship, despite the growth of those communities and the constructive role that they have played in our town for a good number of years.

The town contains a substantial and extremely diverse Muslim community; people from different parts of the world have settled in the town and played an enormously supportive and constructive role. That community is undertaking its own census, but it is thought that the population is about 5,000 strong and it is hemmed in to two small house mosques-a converted and listed house, which I believe was the town's first mosque, and a converted service station. Although that is being redeveloped in a constructive way, with classrooms and different community facilities, and it is doing a good job, it remains at heart just a service station. It is located on quite a busy street and good relations have been built up with the neighbours, but the parking and street access is not ideal.

The town also contains two substantial and successful Hindu communities. One has a planning application pending on a site for a multi-purpose building with community uses, which in the long run would include some nursery provision and sheltered housing. That would be a big addition to the disadvantaged local community but the planning application has run into difficulties, not least as objections have been made because bats apparently fly across the site.

There is also a small but very active Sikh community that has long since outgrown its premises, which are down a side street in quite a run-down part of town. It wanted to buy part of a former school site for a very inspiring multi-faith and community centre. The county council, which owns the site, would not deal with the community or with me, and referred the matter on to the estate agents, who, after initially saying that they did not have a mandate to subdivide the site, referred the matter on to the property developer who had by then bought the site, who put the price up to such an exorbitant level that the community felt that it could not really proceed. Given that the application from the Sikh community was very much in line with the needs of the wider community of the town and would also bring benefits to quite a disadvantaged area, the county council's actions were at least questionable under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000.

It has been very impressive to see the way in which the different communities-I have listed just a few of them and set out some of the problems that they have experienced-have been prepared to jump over all the hurdles that have been put in their way. They have been very constructive in engaging with the local authorities and the development corporation to try to promote good relations and a good understanding between all sections of society and to work for the common good. Some have also joined together to work on joint projects. All the plans that they have put forward that I have seen include making available significant resources for local communities. The proposals have been outward looking, not inward looking.

Some years ago, because of all the difficulties, I contacted a former Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to ask for some duty to be put on local planning authorities to assess the needs of different faith communities when drawing up local plans for their areas. That was obviously particularly relevant for growth areas such as Northampton, which is part of the Milton Keynes and south midlands growth area. There is a real opportunity to get things right from the beginning in such communities by ensuring that there is an understanding of the needs of the existing community and of the areas from which people are likely to come into town, and that in the planning of an urban area proper provision is made for faith buildings that will meet the needs of a multi-faith society.

I was pointed in the direction of planning policy guidance note 12, which states that the diocesan board of the Church of England should be consulted about development plans and also refers to the needs of faith communities. As I recall, about half a sentence was devoted to the assessment of the needs of faith communities. This was the slightest reference that could conceivably have been given to faith communities-just enough to tick the "Done" box, but not enough to make any difference. Quite soon after that, PPG12 was replaced by planning policy statement 12, and any reference to faith communities completely disappeared. I have trawled through PPS12 several times and I have also asked the House of Commons Library to see whether it can find any reference in any of the planning guidance to the needs of faith communities. The Library says that it has not been able to find anything at all, and neither have I.

Some of the guidance in "Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities" says that faith groups should be key and respected partners of the local authority. That seems to me to be a way of paying lip service to the importance of faith communities without ensuring that they have the one thing that faith communities want-a place, with facilities, in which to worship.