I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend. The actions and behaviour of developers in mid-Sussex have also caused a delay of the plan, which has delayed the building of essential new housing as well as undermining neighbourhood plans.
There is a problem with the measure of the five-year land supply, which should be assessed in an accurate and honest way and not in a way that is capable of being gamed by the developers.
The second way in which neighbourhood plans can be overridden is when local authorities do not have a plan. Clearly, that is not a satisfactory situation, and the Government are seeking to address it. The problem is
that this allows for a free-for-all in the area. Apparently that free-for-all can include neighbourhood plans, in the sense that when the local authority is drawing up its plan, it can override the neighbourhood plans not just with the allocation of strategic levels of housing, as was always envisaged, but with the requirement that neighbourhood plans wholesale are rewritten, as has been suggested to some communities in my area. Neighbourhood plans can also be overridden because the needs of a local plan, which often now have to provide far more housing than was originally intended, are said to come first. Those are problems for the principle of responsible neighbourhood plan making and local democracy.