Neighbourhood Planning (Referendums) (Amendment) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-09-06
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, first, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and congratulate him on his new appointment and responsibilities. I know that he has been in the job for some time but this is the first time I can formally congratulate him and wish him well in his new position. We will not agree on everything but I assure noble Lords that I will engage constructively with him on all matters in his brief that come before your Lordships’ House. Where we believe that the Government have got it right I will happily say so, and when we offer alternatives from this Dispatch Box it will be because we believe that there are better solutions to the problems being considered. I also declare that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and in general refer the House to my declaration of interests I am a supporter of neighbourhood planning and allowing maximum community involvement in decisions that affect local communities. As I have told the House before, in the ward I represent on Lewisham Council, Crofton Park, we are developing a neighbourhood plan. We hope to be able to submit it to the council early next year and then proceed quickly to a referendum. It is right that a referendum is held as soon as possible and in most cases 56 days, as the order allows for, gives enough time to undertake and prepare for the vote but also means that it is still a fresh and live issue locally and is not allowed to drift. There are a few alterations to that when situations are a bit more complicated, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, outlined, and allowing a group and the council to agree sensible variations to enable the poll to coincide with a local event or an election that is taking place in three months in the same area is sensible and has my full support I agree with the points made by my noble friend Lord Beecham in his contribution to this debate, in particular on the funding proposals that will be made available. I hope that the Minister will respond to those. That brings me to the assertion, which we heard many times from noble Lords opposite during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act, that somehow all these councils are dragging their feet and holding up all these planning applications and all this development. That assertion was made many times and I remember putting a few Questions down, which showed, as my noble friend highlighted, that literally hundreds of thousands of applications have been passed by local authorities but nothing has happened. I know of one in my own ward: an application went in to put some new shops and houses on a big site, but all that has happened is that a sign has gone up which says, "Full planning permission given". Nothing else has happened —it just sits there. So local planning authorities are not the problem; there are thousands of sites that we need to deal with and get on with. I hope that the Minister will be able to bring some solutions to the House in the future I could go on but I am supportive of what is in the proposals here and I am happy for them to be approved.