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Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry). When I first heard him speak, he was a Minister and he was addressing a local government conference. He prefaced that speech by saying that he thought that he was the only person who understood the intricacies of both the common agricultural policy subsidy system and standard spending assessments. He certainly did understand both, and he has shown us his knowledge this evening. In the early ’90s, as a councillor in the constituency that I now represent, I was chair of the local plan panel. The task of that august body was to formulate the land use plan for Waveney district. It seemed to me that that was probably the most important function that councillors discharged, so when I became council leader in 1991, I continued to chair the local plan panel. The panel was setting out the future shape and development of our area for the 10 years from the date when the plan was published—it took us several years to formulate the plan. Our biggest task was to decide which large tracts of land to allocate to accommodate new houses. The figure for the number of new houses, which seemed rather high, was handed down to us by central Government, who were Conservative at the time. To listen to Conservative Members today, one would think that previous Tory Governments never did such a thing as hand down the number of houses to be built. As the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon has said, it is the responsibility of every Government to ensure an adequate supply of housing, which is why this Government launched the Barker review. It did not take me and other councillors on that plan panel in the early ’90s long to realise that our decisions were turning the owners of the ordinary agricultural fields that we decided to allocate into very rich people or making them ever richer. The low-value agricultural land was turned into highly valuable sites as we raised our hands in committee to allocate them—it has been said today that such decisions can multiply the value of land by a factor of 250 or 300. Back then, it seemed wrong to me that the communities that we represented got nothing out of that increase, especially in view of the huge sums involved. I cheekily asked the planning officers whether we could invite the owners of suitable fields to bid for the allocations, because we had plenty of fields to choose from—of course, the answer was no. Through development briefs, which were facilitated by section 106 agreements, we required the developers to provide open space and play areas to contribute to community facilities and to provide some affordable housing. However, I felt that that was a meagre return compared with the huge uplift in the value of the land and the lucrative prices that the houses fetched once they were built. Nothing that can be achieved through section 106 agreements addressed the fundamental transport infrastructure weakness in our town. Therefore, when Kate Barker proposed the planning gain supplement in her review of the housing market and its economics, I instinctively thought that she was right and that my instincts all those years ago had been right. Throughout the years when I sat on planning committees, we tried to make the best use of section 106 agreements, but they involved protracted and complex negotiations. Planning officers often told us that what we wanted was outside the scope of a 106 or that it was not linked closely enough to the development, even though the community wanted it desperately. Sometimes the developers refused and went to appeal, or they called our bluff and we had to give in. I acknowledge that there have been improvements in the operation of section 106 agreements since 1997 but, as noted in the recent DCLG publication, ““Changes to Planning Obligations””, they have several key problems and deficiencies. We have already heard about the variations in application by different local authorities, the lack of certainty for developers, the lack of transparency, the delays, and the inevitable accusations, particularly from the public, of the buying and selling of planning permission. I welcome the concept of the planning gain supplement and will follow its development with interest. Yes, some things have failed in the past, but the world moves on. We must be fair to communities which need to gain from development. Many people do not want large new housing developments. Some of them are nimbys who live on the edge of town and cherish their views and their closeness to the open countryside but forget that when their homes were built they took away other people’s views and sense of space. Others make a much more valid objection to large housing developments when they say, rightly, that the constant expansion of a town places more pressure on the community’s basic infrastructure, particularly transport. Nowhere is that better illustrated than in the town of Lowestoft, which I live in and represent. Our town is cut in two by a river. It is not a real river; it is more an inlet that was cut through from Oulton broad to the sea in Victorian times. There is only one bridge in the town over that waterway, which we call Lake Loathing. It is a lift-up or bascule bridge to let the ships into the inner harbour of our port. The only other way of getting across the waterway is by the bridge at Oulton broad about 2 miles down the road. In Victorian times, the bascule bridge was sufficient to serve the town, but it has expanded somewhat since then, and the bridge has become a bit like the constriction between the two bulbs of an hourglass, which continue to grow while the constriction remains the same. We live daily with our notorious bascule bridge, which for many years has been the cause of gridlock, especially when it opens up to let boats through and brings the traffic to a halt. We have long held the aspiration and hope that our salvation would come from something that we call the third crossing—another bridge across the waterway to relieve the strain on the bascule bridge. We have never been able to achieve that through section 106 agreements, and I do not think that we will able to do so in future. To understand what it is like living in the town—a lovely town, but with that problem—one need only imagine London with half its bridges taken away, which would make it quite difficult to get around. The bridge is part of the A12 trunk road system but it is difficult to get Government money for it. It was a preferred route in the early 1990s but the previous Government abandoned it. Since 1997, we have got a southern relief road to it from the south and a northern spine road that will connect to it in the north, but we still do not have the bridge. Our problem is that it is not on the way to anywhere—it is simply in the middle of Lowestoft. The Government recently established an urban regeneration company called 1st East to regenerate the town. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning is familiar with it and we thank her for her good sense in agreeing to setting it up. It commissioned a recent study, which showed that, if we are to regenerate our town, the third crossing is essential. The subject is relevant to the PGS debate because the situation has got worse over several decades as the town expanded. As that has happened, more money has gone to landowners but none of the money or the development gain has gone into what our town needs most—the third crossing. If only a few hundred pounds had been put into a kitty for every house that had been built in Lowestoft in the past couple of decades, we would have a great pot of money, which could contribute to what we need. The reason that I am prepared to run with PGS, give it a go and see what happens is that it could make a huge difference to the future of the development of Lowestoft. Many more homes have come on stream, and further development will take place as a result of the urban regeneration company. All that development could make a huge contribution to our third crossing through a PGS. That would not fund the whole project—we would still need to approach the Department for Transport—but it would make the benefit-cost ratio figure look better and increase the likelihood of funding. I therefore say, ““Bring it on””, because the community, not only those who happen to own the land, can gain from it. It has been said that PGS could stifle development. Clearly, there is a limit to what such a supplement could raise, but there is still room for it. On the plan panel, we allocated one of the pieces of land back because we believed that we could get an important road out of it. We all believed that we would get a dual carriageway but, when the plan was presented, it was for a single carriageway. By then, I was a Member of Parliament and had left the local plan panel behind. I told the developer that I believed that we were going to get a dual carriageway. He replied, ““You could have got the dual carriageway. It would have meant that the landowner got less money but ultimately the county council asked me for only a single carriageway.”” It is clear that more scope exists for getting something out of development. The details need to be worked out for another Bill but I am heartened by the consultations that we have held so far. The 2005 consultation paper stated that the PGS is aimed at financing infrastructure, and that we are considering dedicating money to local communities and"““maintaining the link with local delivery””." It was encouraging that the summary of the consultation responses stated:"““The principle of capturing a portion of the land value uplift created by the planning process, in order to help finance additional infrastructure, received broad acceptance by those consulted.””" There appears to be consensus on that in the Chamber. The Department for Communities and Local Government’s most recent communication refers to"““a fairer way of getting developers to contribute to the costs they impose on the transport network””." Finally, there is a reference in the document to"““the unique circumstances of providing road network””" infrastructure. We certainly have a unique situation in Lowestoft. Nobody else has such a bridge in the middle of their town. Nothing else has succeeded in producing the bridge for us, so let us give the planning gain supplement a chance.