Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, there are many issues that I would like to address this evening, not least rural housing, the relationship between the HCA and planning authorities, eco-towns and design. I will resist the temptation to address those issues, because I want to speak about one particular subject. However, on design, I cannot let the moment pass without addressing some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Patten, who is no longer in his place. Noble Lords will recognise that he obviously has a very large bee in his bonnet about something that the leader of the council in South Somerset has done at some time; in my opinion, it is a personal bee. That council pioneered village design statements, and it has a very strong record with conservation planners. I do not think that I need to defend it, because many noble Lords will be familiar with it. Coincidentally, I was having a conversation at tea time with the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, who has just visited Montacute and Tintinhull. She was saying how absolutely gorgeous they are. Those villages and the market towns of South Somerset have benefited over the years from a very considered design. This evening, I particularly want to address something on which the Minister has a very good track record. She said: "““Allotments play a unique role in our community and have done so for many years. Indeed, they are so important that they have enjoyed a special protection in law for a century””." This is the centenary year for allotments. The Minister’s comments were made in the introduction to the Local Government Association guide to good allotment management, Growing in the Community, the second edition of which was published earlier this year. The Minister was right to acknowledge how important allotments are. I am choosing to concentrate my remarks on allotments, village greens and commons because it seems to me from reading the Bill that they are under threat. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in his place, because he will remember when the Countryside and Rights of Way Act was passing through this House the long debates that we had about registering land as village greens. In fact, the amendment on village greens was debated in the rather more energetic days of your Lordships’ House, at 2.20 am of Tuesday, 17 October 2000. It was very exciting that the Government decided to incorporate that amendment in the Bill, and it became law. The Government at the time were quite right to recognise how under threat village greens were. There was news of one a week being threatened by building projects. The situation was dire and the Government reacted strongly. How will organisations like the Open Spaces Society feel when they read Part 4 of Schedule 3 to this Bill, which, to my reading—and the Minister may say that I am wrong—effectively undoes that work? That schedule lists specifically commons, open space—by which it means village greens—and allotments. It states: "““The HCA or any other person may use the land in any way which accords with planning permission despite anything in any enactment””." In other words, the Bill drives a stake through the heart of any protection that allotments, village greens and commons have had over the years. The Minister is shaking her head and I hope that she will tell me that I am wrong. If my interpretation is correct, during the passage of the Bill, I shall seek to change the power of the HCA in relation to protected open spaces. The Minister may say that in the giving of planning permission there has already been enough built-in protection since the Government re-issued guidance in 2001, whereby local authorities are required to demonstrate, before consent is granted, that the allotment in question is not necessary, that alternative provision will be made for displaced plot holders, that the waiting list has been taken into account and that local authorities have actively publicised the availability of the sites. That guidance to local authorities is already in place, but that needs to be at least mirrored by the HCA if it is to become a planning body. My greater principle is that the Bill needs to reflect the importance of community green spaces, but it does not sufficiently do that. While I recognise the importance of appropriate housing units for people in housing need, they are the private spaces where individuals and families live. It is in the open spaces that they become a community, whereby they can come out of their houses and meet each other and do all of the time-honoured things, such as kicking footballs about, growing vegetables or whatever it is that they want to do. Not least at a time of rising food prices and concerns about food security, other good arguments for allotments can be made—and not just for allotments, but community gardens. Demand has increased recently and for that reason we should make more of mentioning this issue in the Bill. I shall save the rest of my fire on this issue for Committee, but I would hope to introduce a few more safeguards in relation to the way that the HCA regards open community space. There is a small mention of it in the Bill as recreational infrastructure, but that is not enough. The provisions for open space need to be strengthened to give it the place of importance that it should have, to reflect what has happened in the past 40 years of the 100 years since the laws on allotments were brought in.