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Parish Councils (Planning)

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I applaud particularly what he said about enforcement, as it is often the parish council, rather than district council planners, that knows that something is not being done according to planning permission, and it should at least be able to instigate an appropriate remedy. On determining more decisions, the one drawback—I agree strongly with him about the need to devolve as far as possible—is that it would not be appropriate if the parish council could take the decision without any recourse to the district council while the district council maintained the risk in terms of cost on appeal or whatever. In the Taunton Deane experiment, there was only one appeal, and that was successfully resisted. That was evidence that parish councils take such responsibilities extremely seriously. A balance must be struck. My last major point, on which I started with observations from Cranmore parish council, relates to village plans, which are an extraordinarily effective tool in many ways. For a start, they are wonderful at developing the coherence and good neighbourliness of the village. The village comes together as the parish council undertakes a genuinely consultative procedure to get people’s views about the future of their village, what they wish to see and what they regard as the difficulties or deficiencies, in order to create a structure for the village’s future. Time and again in villages in my constituency, I have seen the holistic value of that process, which allows people to have a real say in their future. The Government promoted that process in the White Paper ““Our Countryside””, which stated:"““local communities have a real opportunity to influence the nature and quality of future development . . . and providing their Plan is consistent with the Local development plan, and the relevant national planning guidance, the design and land use aspects can be endorsed by the planning authority as Supplementary Planning Guidance.””" That was backed up by planning policy statement 1, ““Delivering Sustainable Development””, which supports the role of parish plans in encouraging town and parish councils to develop full and active community involvement in their areas, and PPS 12, ““Creating Local Development Frameworks””, which urges local authorities to"““consider how best to incorporate parish plans within supplementary plan documents””." [Interruption.] It appears that I am reading out part of the Minister’s speech in advance, which I am happy to do—so far so good. I am therefore concerned that the document, ““Community Involvement in Planning: The Government’s Objectives””, published in 2004, contains no recognition of the role of parish plans whatever. There is evidence that in a large number of cases councils have not adopted well-founded village plans as supplementary planning guidance. Extensive research published by the Countryside Agency saw the merits of village plans as a tool for seeking project funding, influencing changes, strengthening the democratic mandate and providing impetus for local community action, but did not find that they had an effective role in influencing planning decisions by the district council. Most planning departments that were consulted considered it unrealistic to expect parish plans to fit into the development planning system. That is a serious issue. Parishes in my area are frustrated. Many villages that went to much trouble to produce glossy documents such as the Somerton town plan, which I have here—there are also plans for Norton St. Philip and Henstridge—are ignored far too often when it comes to development control planning. A note from the chairman of Leigh-on-Mendip parish council says:"““We completed a village design statement which was duly accepted as supplementary planning guidance. It has not noticeably improved decisions affecting the village.””" That suggests that a hugely time-consuming and relatively expensive process—I read in Local Council Review a week ago that the Government were providing another £1 million to support the development of village plans—that is of enormous value does not affect planning decisions even if it is accepted as planning guidance. No wonder parish councillors, parish councils and the communities that they serve feel frustrated. If the Government contend that parish plans are a significant part of the planning process, as I think they should be, and if such plans represent the will of the local community, which they clearly do, surely they should have a much clearer status in the decisions made by planning officers and district planning committees, so that they are given effect. Does the Minister agree with that? If so, what will he do to change what appears to be the current position? Until the village plan is recognised by the planning inspector as a material consideration, district councils will not take notice of it. As long as we maintain an adversarial system of planning in which the views of the parish council are seen as being simply the views of one contestant in a competition, they will have no effect. If they are seen as the genuine voice of the community, deriving from a partnership between the planning authority and the local community, they will have a real effect. Let me end with a communication from another parish councillor in my constituency, from the village of Hemington. The first sentence states:"““As a Parish Councillor I often get the impression that no account has been taken of any decision or comments that our Parish Council makes on individual planning applications””." That is the view of many parish councillors. I do not think that my constituency is unique in that respect. The same situation prevails up and down the country. I hope that the Minister will say not only that he values the role of parish councils and wants them to extend it in a number of ways of which planning is but one example, but that he will take steps to ensure that the village plan over which people take so much time and trouble plays a real part in the planning process.