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National Planning Policy Framework

My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner on the issue of wind turbines in his constituency, and I know that he will continue to campaign. That was an excellent point. I shall return to housing, which is the big issue in my constituency. The draft NPPF aims to give local people a real say via their local plan. As I have said, people in my patch have to suffer a Labour-run Kirklees council hellbent on development, whatever the cost to our countryside and environment. All of this suspicion, fear and rumour has led to numerous community groups getting together to have their say on the flawed local development framework and the NPPF. I have fully engaged with those groups, especially the Kirklees community action network. I have spoken at meetings in Slaithwaite and my home village of Honley, and will be doing so in Meltham in a fortnight. Like many hon. Members, I have received numerous e-mails and letters and, as I said, I have met local action groups, which have copied me into their submissions to the consultation. They have spent many hours on their consultations, and they have made some excellent points, some of which I shall summarise. I urge Ministers to take note of them. First, we should change the main presumption statement to read: ““presumption in favour of sustainable development on brownfield sites or those of lesser environmental impact.”” Basically, we should adopt a brownfield-first policy. Secondly—and Opposition Members will not like this—we should stop councils using the old top-down housing targets. I appreciate that the Government have tried to do so through the courts—they have been frustrated—but we should get this in the NPPF, because the problem, as I said, is that my Labour-run local council is sticking with the regional spatial strategy target of 28,000 homes even though no one has any idea where it got that figure from. Thirdly, Kirklees council has more than 11,000 empty homes. It is madness to keep building on green fields when we have those empty homes. We should try to get as many of them back into use as possible, and there should be more mention of that in the NPPF.