It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), although he will find that I do not agree with his views on the Bill.
I have to agree with the Local Government Association that the Bill represents a blow to democracy and is at odds with the Government’s localism programme. As a former councillor and planning committee member, I fully appreciate the importance of the links between community decision making and planning. As democratically elected and accountable representatives, councillors are in the main fully aware of residents’ needs, concerns and aspirations in making decisions about how their area should be developed for economic and social benefit. Any legislation that would foster that accountability would be welcome, but in the months since the then Planning Minister, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), promised in March that the national planning policy framework would support growth and allow
“people and communities back into planning”,
quite the opposite has happened.
Instead of offering local accountability, the Bill hands decision making to the unelected Planning Inspectorate and hands increased powers to the Secretary of State that turn localism firmly on its head. In Battle Hill ward in North Tyneside, a ward in which I live and which I represented as a councillor, a planning application for 66 houses on a former school playing field was rejected by the planning committee at the beginning of March. To my mind, the planning committee’s decision was quite right.
The developers have appealed, and the council has now been advised that the appeal will be heard under the new rules and that objections made at the time will no longer be relevant. I wonder what the Minister thinks of that, as many of the objections were made by local people and related to the safety of a school access road becoming a general access road and the fact that some designated open space was being lost. Where is the accountability in that?