Sustainable Communities Bill

I support the Bill, because local people feel impotent and frustrated. Most of us accept that impotence is frustrating, but it concentrates the mind wonderfully at a local level—I look to hon. Members to support that statement. Local people say, ““What is the point in voting, when we have so little say over changes in our community?”” They feel that so much has been directed at them from on high, and if we can repatriate that feeling of control over the shaping of local communities, they would be a lot happier because they would be much more engaged. People who are involved in local communities, charities and directing good works turn up regularly to events, but they have so little say. If people turn up and present their view, they feel that it is ignored. That situation cannot continue, which is why I welcome the Bill. New clause 6 would provide some clout at a local level. People are heartily sick of being dumped on. In my community, we have problems with road noise. People were promised whisper-quiet tarmac, but four or five years down the line, the promise was dumped and nobody heard anything more about it. If the local council had been able to say, ““Here is the money. It will be used for that,”” repatriating control to a local level would possibly have meant that my constituents in Bricket Wood would not be complaining like mad about the state of the roads and road noise. We should consider environmental sustainability and not just tack it on as a word in front of everything that we do. I want to give the Minister an example of the frustration that local people feel. People feel that they have no control over planning at a local level, because alterations to planning law mean that what the Government say must be implemented. I am sure that this example is not an isolated incident and that similar events have occurred in other constituencies. Only three weeks ago, planning permission was granted for a block of 12 flats with one parking space, which is simply for disabled parking, so that block of flats has no parking spaces. That supposedly makes the block sustainable within planning policy statement 6, which states that parking does not have to be provided in a sustainable location. Local people had their say, but they could not effect a change. If they had been given the control to put in extra transport or extra facilities, they might have accepted that the block was sustainable, but they feel that they have been given more clutter on local roads. The situation cannot continue. I am very concerned about environmental sustainability. I participated in an Adjournment debate on housing totals for Hertfordshire—the Minister was not present—where I pointed out that sustainable communities should be environmentally sustainable. Local people feel that they have much to contribute and that they have been ignored. The Government have not conducted any environmental capacity studies on the Hertfordshire housing totals that have been imposed on us. Anecdotally, local people feel that they can tell the Government much about the state of the M25 and the roads around our area. They can tell the Government what we need to deliver those housing totals, should we have to deliver them. It is worrying that we are given those things to deliver but have little say about how we will deliver them and the impact on our communities. If the Bill means that we will have some say, some control and a way of shaping our community and not just delivering what the Government want us to deliver, then it will be all to the good. Like many hon. Members, I have some concerns about whether there will be failures under the Bill. However, it is the nature of our belief, as Conservatives, that it is no good saying to people, ““Yes, you can have choice. Yes, you can shape your place. Yes, you can determine your community. However, if we think that you are doing it wrongly, we will quickly whip those powers off you and tell you what is best.”” Many of my hon. Friends and I do not subscribe to the nanny state, and I know from my postbag that many of the public do not, too. People do not have a political motive when they write to me and say, ““We are sick of being dumped on. We are sick of being told what we have to do.”” The fallout is that people do not vote and do not attend council meetings. I have been a parish councillor and a district councillor. I remember packed parish meetings, where people debated small things happening in a village. Those people cared about that place and had a sense of place and community that meant that they genuinely cared. Such people would not spend money irresponsibly, and if a parish council or district council were to do that, the council would, as other hon. Members have said, be booted out. The best way to establish accountability and to relieve impotence and frustration is for people to go up to their local councillor and say, ““This is what I value in my community.””