Speaking in the debate on planning and housing supply
Posted by Stuart Andrew, MP for Pudsey, at 15:12, Wed 30 October 2013:
I have been interested in the subject for a long time, not just because I represent a heavily affected ward, but because I am a member of a plans panel on Leeds city council.
My constituency has seen many significant changes over the past 20 years. It was renowned for its cloth and woollen mills, and other industries, but as those industries declined, their sites became redundant and places such as Pudsey, Farsley and Guiseley saw those employment sites turned into residential areas.
During the first decade of the this century, we were inundated with application after application to build even more houses, and consequently our roads are congested beyond belief at weekends and during weekdays and evenings. Our surgeries have more and more patients and our schools are so busy that children living just across the road from their local school may struggle to get into them.
Most of all, people were exasperated and frustrated that the planning system was something that happened to them, and that they had little say in it. Sometimes, even when the council said no and that enough was enough, an appeal was allowed. I cannot express strongly enough the anger and resentment that that created.
When the Government talked about planning reform, I thought “Hallelujah”. Many of the changes have been welcome and in the right direction. Reducing the guidance and advice to a more manageable document is making life a lot less complex. The ability to create neighbourhood forums to offer real engagement is hugely welcome.
Despite the Government’s work, a problem threatens the intentions of localism and people’s trust that we will have a real bottom-up approach to planning.
Localism is about local communities deciding what, where and when development should take place. There has been a real appetite and interest in my constituency in being involved in the planning process.
Groups such as Wharfedale and Airedale Review Development and Aireborough Civic Society have campaigned long and hard on the issue. In addition, residents have turned up in their hundreds at public meetings when these issues were discussed. Organisations such as Horsforth Town Council, Rawdon Parish Council and Aireborough Neighbourhood Forum have all worked incredibly hard to engage with the whole community, bringing residents, schools and businesses together to develop a vision of future development that is sustainable, realistic and seeks to preserve our natural surroundings.
I am talking not just about building houses but about creating places that people want to live in, work in and play in: real place-making. Something is jeopardising all that work, and is still seen by my constituents as a top-down major influence: housing targets.
We all know that the original regional spatial strategy placed huge burdens on local authorities, but despite abolition of the RSS, little has changed with the targets. In my constituency, the core strategy of Leeds City Council is being examined. It includes a plan to build 74,000 homes over the next 14 years, and it arrived at that figure with a host of scenarios ranging from 27,500 to 92,000. That means that the council has gone for the high end because it believes that the Government expects it to be far more ambitious than can reliably be achieved.
What is the consequence? The council then has to prove that it has the land to supply such high targets. Even with the existing permissions of 20,000 dwellings, there is still not enough land, so the council is now looking at greenfield and green belt, meaning that in my constituency up to 80 per cent of all new homes will be built on green-belt or greenfield sites.
The precious places that are the lungs of our communities, the natural barriers between the towns and villages, and the green borders between the cities of Leeds and Bradford, will all be gone.
Even in the best of the boom years, we never managed to build so many houses, and developers want to go even higher, saying that the brownfield sites in the city centre are not viable. That is because they are lazy and do not want to be ambitious about creating places where people want to live in our city centres.
The other day, I asked what happens if the planning inspector, in the process of looking at these figures, agrees to such a high amount. If it is approved, I fear that the brownfield sites in city centres will be abandoned, that the developers will cherry-pick the green belt and that residents will be stuck between the Government saying that local councils can set high targets and the council saying that the Government expect high targets.
However, if we are saddled with those housing targets, our green belt will be ravaged, and future residents will not be able to do anything, because the period will already have been set in stone.
Worst of all, however, it will send a message that some already believe: localism goes only so far, but not far enough where it matters.
>Stuart Andrew MP speaking in the Planning and Housing Supply debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday 24 October.
For more information on Stuart's work as the MP for Pudsey you can:
Visit: www.stuartandrew.com
Like: www.facebook.com/stuartandrewmppudsey
Follow: @StuartAndrewMP
Contact: stuart.andrew.mp@parliament.uk, 0113 204 7954
Comments
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Posted by Mike Bush, 15:47, Wed 30 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
I fully support your comments Stuart. Our precious greenbelt land most be protected for the reasons you give.
Posted by Andrew and Julie Cook, 16:36, Wed 30 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Many years ago I attended meetings with regard the Kirkstall road development (Morrisons and vue Cinema areas). I argued that the surrounding roads and villages were ill equipped to cope with such ambitious plans to increase the numbers of cars, homes and visitors. The people I spoke to couldn't tell me where Armley, Horsforth, Headingley and Leeds City Centre were in relation to the project. They were unaware of the Lounge Cinema, Hyde Park Cinema and Cottage road. These planners and buyers aren't interested in us. They are driven by the cash such a scheme generates and no more. The more leafy and green they can make a new estate look after digging up the countryside, creating inner city areas in their wake just so that people who love the countryside can live where it used to be - the better. Easier to sell houses when you can see trees and hear owls. I hope our lovely Guiseley doesn't lose it's trees and owls so that it can become a junction and a retail dumping ground as Kirkstall has become but I won’t hold my breath..
Posted by Adam Hosker, 17:57, Wed 30 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Stuart, I see you outlining the problems and that you don't want to build on greenbelt.
What I don't see is any proposed solutions to the housing shortage? that will eventually force the youth of Leeds out of the city and pudsey due to affordability requirements.
For instance, you call developers lazy. A better description would be capitalists and unless that site is a good proposition, they will go elsewhere. This is where Social Housing comes into play, or should do.
I shouldn't comment, if the housing shortage continues as a Leeds Mortgage Broker I should benefit from increased procreation fees.
Posted by Stephen Walford, 18:10, Wed 30 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Stuart, thank you for highlighting this issue, fully support your comments. There should be a mechanism whereby local community groups can block any vested interest decisions occurring.
Posted by Tony Schofield, 19:37, Wed 30 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Stuart, I thoroughly approve of this statement, apart from your comment about developers being lazy. I don't think that calling people names furthers any argument. It's the nature of companies to seek the fastest and easiest ways to maximise profits, and they're probably working very hard to do this. They'll view the destruction of our green spaces as no more than co-lateral damage in this process. Their good intentions need to be curbed for the benefit of our communities, and setting realisable targets seems to be a step forward in this direction. Best wishes
Posted by peter carruthers, 20:34, Wed 30 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Hi Stuart, I agree with most of your comments, especially here in Pudsey. I disagree with your comment that developers are 'lazy' they are simply trying to maximise their profits - which they should do. It is governments local and national whose function is to protect the environment, it is time to stop passing the buck, you have the power to enforce building on brownfield sites as a priority, as a council you have the power to refuse to accept central governments insistence on high targets. Until governments of all political colours get to grips with rampant immigration the situation will just get worse. Lets also get rid of this dubious figure of 'net immigration', old people going off to live in Spain does not cancel out young people coming in and, quite reasonably having children. So lets have a bit of honesty about the huge rise in our population.
Posted by Andrew and Julie Cook, 09:09, Thu 31 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
I've lived in social housing all my adult life. I've lived in Harehills, Seacroft, Gipton and now Guiseley (very lucky). For many years I worked as a Private hire driver in those communities and let me say as the sheltered Son of two Military Police Officers I was very naive about life on Council Estates until I was made redundant and chose Taxi driving for a living. I know how to free up some housing (but it would cause homelessness somewhere else). I'm a middle aged Foster Carer now. I've witnessed neighbours who live on benefits with undeclared partners (there are estates full of families existing like this). People who we've been forced to move away from through Anti-Social-Behaviour linked to undeclared partners and criminal activity. Support and time was on the side of the perpetrator not the victims. I lived on one street in Seacroft where we were the only working family. The Police didn't come even when we saw stolen goods being loaded into a back garden (they told us it was circumstantial and any finger prints would be as a result of passing curiosity and not those of the thieves. So they didn't come). A drunk neighbour burst into my home shouting "you don't get jobs around here." On another occasion some men came to my door asking for bread because their benefits didn't come. Did you know you can become alcoholic and not be expected to look for work and if Social Services are also involved you can forget trying to get them evicted on ASB grounds. They are supported and offered all kinds of help.. The unknown men who live with their girlfriends without contributing to cost or maintenance who make estates undesirable get away with it. They can ride ride mini motor-bikes up and down the pavements day and night with impunity. Living nocturnal lives without meaning or purpose. Cars used to blast out music on every sunny day that we tried to enjoy but couldn't and drunkenness on a daily scale that started when our neighbours popped open a can in the front garden as soon as they got out of bed (assuming the amphetamine had worn off for them to have been to bed). My point is, if these people were dealt with properly and swiftly (not by giving them a new home that has had thousands spent on it to bring it up to decent home standards and not by moving the victim to sweep it all under the carpet) there would be housing and less hard-to-let properties. Kick bad tenants out of our social housing estates and offer the homes to deserved families who will look after the house and gardens. Free up the housing stock and stop the housing priority preferring single tenants who saturate areas with worklessness and undeclared partners and dogs. My 4 Children don’t have a hope of being housed by our Local Authority and neither will my Grandchildren because they are good people with no prioritising problems so they are forever pushed down on the list of applicants. You have to live there to know it's true. There's lots of housing but lots of undeserved people in many homes.
Posted by Pam Harris, 09:42, Thu 31 October 2013: (Is this post abusive?) #
Dear Stuart, Pleased to see you are speaking out on this. There seems to be a total lack of understanding on all sides that green spaces are needed to foster a feeling of well-being in people. Our green spaces are so precious and they need to be protected at all costs. I do wonder if there is any such thing as a housing shortage - go down the Ring Road and look at the number of For Sale and To Let signs posted outside the Mill development at Woodside roundabout!