New Housing Developments

Answer from Christopher Pincher (Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Local plans create the local community's vision for where essential development such as housing should go. Our planning reforms will give communities the chance to be involved meaningfully at the start when local plans are prepared and will make it easier for local people to understand proposals and express their views. This will bring certainty that housing will come forward in areas best identified for growth by the community, while ensuring that valued countryside remains protected. I am grateful to my hon. Friend; he is a doughty champion of his constituents in Bolton West. He will know that rather than allowing suffering from speculative development, local plans give certainty both to developers and to communities in providing the homes that the country needs, and where agreed. It is essential that we get local plans in place to help to put our economy back on track; I am pleased that he recognises that. As he says, Bolton Council, along with eight other Greater Manchester councils, is committed to taking forward the Places for Everyone joint local plan. I will continue to monitor and support the progress of plan making across Greater Manchester to ensure that plan coverage is achieved by the end of 2023 and that my hon. Friend's constituents in Bolton are best protected.

Answer from Christopher Pincher (Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government)

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman likes to cast himself at the court of Keir as something of a witchfinder general—a sort of weird amalgam of Lavrentiy Beria and Mary Whitehouse—but I can tell him that there are no witches to be found here today. With respect to the Sandleford Park application, that was recovered by officials, as many applications are, without recourse to Ministers; we have yet to see any advice from officials on that application. With respect to the Ledbury application, that was a recommendation to proceed made by the independent planning inspector, not least because at the hearing the local authority reversed its position and took the view that the application should go ahead. I took the advice of the planning inspector; I accepted the planning inspector's recommendation. Process and procedure were followed punctiliously.

Answer from Christopher Pincher (Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government)

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Select Committee for his report. We will consider it carefully, as we always do, and I am pleased that he has, with some caveats, been so very supportive of our proposals. He asks about the way in which we can better democratise our planning system. The fact is that 3% of all planning applications are engaged with by the local community, yet 90% of planning applications go through, so only a small number of people are engaging with the planning process and the overwhelming number of plans go through anyway. I do not think that that is particularly engaged or democratic, and we are seeking to bring forward the democratic element of plan making so that local people can have a real and meaningful place and decision-making role in what happens in their communities.