Housing and Regeneration Bill

This amendment seeks to restrict the power of the HCA to serve a connection notice on the local highway authority to require that authority to connect a private street to an existing highway only to those circumstances in which the HCA has carried out the development which includes the private street. Clause 21 enables the HCA to serve a connection notice on the local highway authority which will require it to connect a private street to an existing highway. There are several reasons why the HCA may require this. The local authority may be undertaking a major regeneration project and may be working in partnership with a private developer and the HCA. To secure the full regeneration potential of the project it may well be necessary for highway networks to be linked. In those circumstances, I am sure that all noble Lords want the HCA to be able to exercise its power to require the local highway authority to connect the private street to an existing highway. In reality this power provides a means of certainty whereby road networks can be linked where necessary, and that would almost always be done by negotiation. Subsection (4) requires that before serving a connections notice the HCA must consult the highways authority on the contents of the notice, and subsection (5) provides for an appeal procedure. The HCA will be required to consult the highway authority on the connection. The role of the HCA in such circumstances will generally be to facilitate the development by working in partnership with the local authority, the private developer and other agencies. Even in cases where the agency served a notice on the highway authority, Clause 21 sets out the requirements of the notice, who should be consulted and how appeals can be made to the Secretary of State. These requirements, consultations and the ability to make appeals would apply whether the HCA undertook the development or not. Given that those safeguards are in place and given the fact that the requirement to connect a private street to a local highway authority would usually be expected to result from a major regeneration or housing project led by the local authority itself in order to build a sustainable community, I hope the noble Lord will be reassured that this power is designed to facilitate a local authority’s objective. I turn to the amendment. There will of course be circumstances in which the HCA may undertake a development which results in a requirement for a private street to be connected to a local highway. However, the agency would most likely undertake such a development in partnership. It would be unwise to restrict the power of the HCA to request the connection of a private street to an existing highway in those limited circumstances rather than those that I have described. It may be suggested that the HCA could, in theory at least, seek to connect all private streets to existing highways, whether or not they were involved in activities near those streets. It is perhaps worth taking one’s attention to Clause 21(8), which states that, "““the local highway authority … may recover … expenses reasonably incurred””," by making the connection. It would serve no practical purpose for the agency to seek connection of a private street in which it had no interest as it would be paying for connections which were not linked to any of its development activities. In practical terms, we expect the HCA to seek connection only where it would provide a benefit that contributed to regeneration overall. This is a reserve power; first and foremost, matters will be sorted out by agreement. In a very few cases, this procedure might be necessary. A right of appeal for local highway authorities is built in. We do not expect the power to be used very often, but it is needed to ensure that developments give a full return to potential.