My Lords, this group of amendments is another indication of why we believe it would have been better to bring forward a dedicated planning Bill rather than trying to amend some of the interconnecting pieces of legislation that have overcomplicated the planning scene in the last decade and have certainly had some undesirable effects because unintended consequences have not properly been taken into account. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, has eloquently described some of the impacts of widening the use classes so that local people and local authorities no longer have much control over what takes place in their own high streets. We get a proliferation of betting shops and things that people do not really want to see so much of in their high street.
I will give just two examples of permitted development. In Hertfordshire, over 750,000 square feet of economic and commercial space has been lost to permitted development. These developments are delivered with none of the community engagement and consultation that go on with standard planning applications, and they then often result in the infrastructure needs of the development being ignored. This has had the longer-term impact of alienating communities from development altogether, as they see housing developed in unsuitable locations and with no consideration of the proximity of any local facilities. One of the worst examples of this is in Harlow new town. Harlow, like Stevenage, has a commercial and industrial zone deliberately segregated from its residential areas. This was part of the master-planning for first-generation new towns. A permitted development saw a housing development conversion in the middle of this commercial/industrial area, leaving its residents feeling isolated from community facilities and other neighbourhoods.
The other example has been in relation to the creation of houses of multiple occupation from family homes in residential streets, putting unreasonable extra pressure on local resources and creating often far more transient populations, which has disrupted previously settled neighbourhoods.
There seems to be something very perverse in pursuing this permitted development regime at the same time as withdrawing the requirement to set housing targets. The former allows often substandard housing to be developed without the benefit of infrastructure funding,
funding for social and affordable housing, or adequate consideration of the needs of the local area. It can put unnecessary pressure on public services in that area and create further pressures on housing as local people are priced out of reasonable developments or forced into poor conversions that are totally unsuitable for family living.
My Amendment 312F calls for a review of this permitted development regime to properly gather data on what it has delivered in terms of: achieving housing targets; importantly, the quality of housing delivered; the impact on heritage and conservation areas; the overall carbon impact since permitted development expanded to demolition; the relative costs to local authorities of dealing with processing permitted development compared with full planning consents; and how it is intended that permitted development sits within the role of the national development management policies.
We are also interested to learn from the review how the Government assess that a permitted development has contributed to levelling up. The feeling of the local government community is that permitted development has done the exact opposite of levelling up and driven a coach and horses through the rigour of the planning regime. That is why the Local Government Association’s comment on this issue was that
“if the Government is serious about strengthening the role of Local Plans, they should also urgently revoke permitted development rights”.
Amendment 312J refers to the totally inconsistent way in which Article 4 directions have been applied across the country. Such directions restrict the scope of permitted development in relation either to a particular area or site or to a particular type of development anywhere in an authority’s area. They can be used to control works that could threaten the character of an area of acknowledged importance, such as a conservation area. Article 4 directions are not needed for listed buildings, which are protected under different legislation, but noble Lords will remember the Harlow example that I gave earlier. Stevenage, which also has a segregated area for commercial and industrial uses, successfully argued that an Article 4 direction should apply to that area so that we were not faced with permitted development housing there, isolated from all our community facilities.
However, the Government have threatened to remove the provision of Article 4 directions altogether and have applied them inconsistently in different locations. Our Amendment 312J asks that a statement be laid before both Houses, setting out how the Government intend to achieve consistency in the application of Article 4 directions.