Planning Policy

: I congratulate the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) on securing the debate and for leading the tributes to market towns throughout the country. I shall resist the temptation to tell the House about the market town in which I grew up, and I shall almost resist the temptation to pay tribute to the two market towns in my constituency. It has an interesting market town with sadly hidden Roman heritage, but more visible medieval heritage, including—to match the Banbury cakes of the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry)—Pontefract cakes, which are still enjoyed throughout the country. I also draw attention to the liquorice sweet factories that still exist in Pontefract. I have no doubt about the importance of our market towns not only to the quality of life for those who live in them, but to local economies throughout the country. Many different issues have been raised today. I shall begin by talking about some town centre matters, after which I shall refer to many of the questions about housing asked by the hon. Member for Lichfield. Planning guidance has changed the balance in favour in our town centres, especially retail development. That is the right way forward. It is interesting that even IKEA has started to change its format to cover town centre developments, too. While it is true that many supermarket chain stores say that they prefer out-of-town developments, we know of many cases in which supermarkets are involved in the redevelopment of town and city centres and they are often at the heart of urban renaissance and regeneration. The hon. Member for Banbury made some thoughtful proposals on town centre regeneration, some of which we should obviously treat as Budget submissions to the Chancellor. I agree that town centre living and mixed housing, retail and other developments in town centres are important for the life of a town centre, not only because they make it more sustainable, support the local economy and keep buildings in use, but because they can improve the safety and the quality of life in a town centre. Such areas no longer become the deserted no-go zones in which people feel frightened late in the evening. I was interested in the hon. Gentleman's ideas about the way in which we could support social housing and I shall look into that issue. Local authorities can use a wide range of powers to support town centres and to promote their development and redevelopment, whether they be planning powers, compulsory purchase orders or working relationships with local businesses to support business improvement districts. We have provided guidance and support on how to manage town centres, such as neighbourhood wardens and policing. We certainly need to provide guidance to support competition and the economic life of our town centres. There have been debates about clone towns. Some people are hostile to chain shops, but if Next moved into one of the town centres in the market towns in my constituency, it would be really good. If some big chains moved into the market towns, that would be a sign of economic growth and prosperity. We must inject a little economic reality into our debates on the nature of our towns. We certainly need to support a wide variety of different businesses in town centres. As part of their planning approaches to town centres, we urge local authorities to consider the need to provide different premises. Perhaps they need to provide smaller units, for example, to enable smaller businesses to get going. There must be diversity of provision. At the beginning of his speech, the hon. Member for Lichfield said that the quality of life depends very much on the quality of our communities and our market towns, and that that is a measure of the wealth of the community. He is right, but I am sure that he would agree that, if we do not have enough homes for people or if people cannot afford to buy houses, it says bad things about the wealth of our communities and the nation. When talking about the need for housing development and its nature, whether in market towns or cities, we must be clear about the wider backdrop of housing need to which we must respond. Over the past 30 years, there has been a 30 per cent. increase in the number of households, but a 50 per cent. drop in the level of new homes being built. As for household growth, about 190,000 new households are formed a year as a result of our ageing, growing population with more people living alone, but only about 150,000 new homes are being built. That gap is unsustainable. It is hardly surprising that, faced with that gap, our long-term house prices have risen considerably faster than those in other European countries to the point at which, even though we have 1 million more home owners since 1997 as a result of low mortgage rates, economic stability and prosperity, we have rising house prices that cause particular pressures for first-time buyers. Those pressures are unsustainable. We must respond to such pressures over the long term, too. If we carry on building at the current rate over the next 20 years, research shows that the proportion of two-earner, 30-year-old couples able to afford their own home will fall from more than 50 per cent. as it is today to nearer one third. That is unsustainable. We cannot have a society in which two thirds of 30-year-old, two-earner couples cannot afford to buy their own home on the basis of their earnings. I accept that some of them will still be able to afford their own home because they will receive gifts or inheritances from parents or grandparents, but it is not fair that people's chance of affording their own home is dependent on whether their parents or their grandparents were home owners. It is so important to build more new homes for the sake of first-time buyers in the future and for the sake of being able to deal with pressures such as overcrowding, homelessness and the problems of those on low incomes. We must accept as our starting point the need to build more new homes. Where and how do we develop new homes and provide the housing that the nation undeniably needs? The Conservatives face a challenge. I recognise the point made by the hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) when he said that perhaps we should be developing new towns instead of high-density developments in cities or existing towns. That was an honest recognition of the fact that there are trade-offs. It is unacceptable for people simply to say, ““Yes, we need more new homes, but let us tell you all the places where you cannot build them and all the places where new housing is acceptable””, and not to say, ““Okay, so where should the new homes go?”” The hon. Member for Lichfield said that worries had been expressed about high-density development. There is a lot of high-density, high-quality developments. Let us consider the Georgian terraces in Bath: they are beautiful, extremely high-density developments—much higher than the density levels that are set out in planning guidance. Should we not have flexibility in the density to which we build? Should we not respect the different character of market towns and city locations? That is why PPS3 introduces much more clarity and flexibility in the guidance on housing density.