The Durham Plan goes to Westminster

When councillors reached County Hall on the morning of Wednesday 25^th February to debate the Council Tax we were met by a gathering of business folk and developers led by Sir John Hall protesting about the Durham Plan.  Normally it is members of Unison protesting about something or other but this time it was a more novel gathering.

In the Council Chamber, before the debate on the Council Tax began, we were addressed by the Leader of the Council, Simon Henig and then by the cabinet member, Neil Foster.  They told us that they did not like the interim report on the County Durham Plan and on balance they did not like the Inspector either, especially as he came from Bristol.  Apparently people from Bristol cannot possibly understand Durham.

These comments were the beginning of a well orchestrated campaign led by Sir John Hall and supported by Simon Henig.  They were going to take up the cause in London and tell the government, from George Osborne down, that the Durham Plan was already in perfect shape and should be introduced now without amendment.  Failure to do so would lose jobs across the region and cause general chaos.  It would also leave quite a few developers seriously out of pocket a source of considerable, but unspoken, angst.  Those of us who had contested aspects of the County Durham Plan were no better than Luddites.

After a tete-a-tete with George Osborne had extracted a promise that he would sit down and discuss the ‘unrealistic’ County Durham Plan the campaign moved swiftly on to Westminster Hall and a debate about the Plan on Tuesday, 3^rd March, commencing at 2.30pm.  Hansard provides a full account of this debate but I am including below only the key response from the Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt, Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who joined the debate at 3.42pm.

Over the first 1 hour 12 minutes a string of Labour MPs from around the County had a general rant, often on parochial issues, about what a damaging interim report the Inspector had produced and how upset they were by it.  Not for a moment did they accept that the County Durham Plan, so meticulously examined last October and November by Harold Stephens, could in any way be flawed or unsound.  The Inspector’s report must be overturned forthwith and business allowed the freedom to lead us to the sunlit uplands and prosperity for everyone, especially the developers.  Our own MP was rather more circumspect, skilfully avoiding direct conflict with her more excitable colleagues, pointing out that maybe the Durham Plan was not as yet quite perfect and that the Inspector had drawn attention to some real problems with it.

What follows is an extract from Hansard at the end of the debate, bold highlights and italics being mine:

3.42 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Penny Mordaunt): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Main. I thank the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) for securing this debate, which has afforded all of us the opportunity to discuss the issues in detail and his colleagues an opportunity to get their views firmly on record in response to the inspector’s report.

At the heart of this Government’s programme has been an unprecedented amount of support to enable growth across the country. To name but a few of our initiatives, we have established 24 enterprise zones, two of them in the north-east, agreed 39 local enterprise partnerships and supported an ambitious range of projects through growth deals, from which the north-east has secured just shy of £300 million.

It is worth pausing and reflecting on the second issue raised by the hon. Member for Sedgefield. Government would not invest such sums of public money in a process that is largely competitive unless we had confidence in those local plans; the ideas are generated locally, but they are tested. The private sector certainly would not invest the sums that it is investing if it did not have confidence in and share the ambitions for Durham and the north-east that have been articulated in this debate.

To answer the hon. Gentleman’s second point, I think that the ambition is right. It is good to see ambition, and we certainly think that the job numbers articulated by the Chancellor and mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, as well as the £4.5 billion of investment that we think will be levered into the area, are realistic sums. The question is how, and that is obviously what the detail of the plan considers.

We are fully committed to supporting growth, and I think we all agree that we want widely supported and appropriate plans in place that enable sustainable development. Plans play a central role in involving communities in determining what development is appropriate and where. We have supported authorities across the country in putting robust local plans in place.

[Phil Wilson: The Minister mentioned £4.5 billion in investment. Can we make it clear that £2.7 billion of that is for the intercity express programme? The trains will be built at Newton Aycliffe, but that £2.7 billion is for maintaining the trains as well as building depots in Doncaster, Swansea, Bristol and London, and it is being made available over 27.5 years. Not all that investment is actually destined for the north-east of England.]

Penny Mordaunt: I was referring to the inward investment that would come into the area. The point that I was making is that the private sector would not be investing in Durham and the north-east unless it had confidence that local businesses and the local community could deliver. It is important to put it on record that we have confidence in the local ideas being put forward.

This is an important point of principle. We have supported local plans and made that a focus. Nearly four times as many councils have now adopted plans than at the start of this Parliament, and more than 1,300 communities are doing excellent work bringing forward neighbourhood plans, 26 of which are in county Durham. It is an important point of principle that those plans should come from the communities, which know their local patch best.

I empathise with the situation that Durham county council is in. It has put considerable effort into producing a plan. I want to make it clear that although the inspector has some concerns, what he has set out are interim findings. It is important to note that he says that

“for the avoidance of doubt, this not does not set out a final view”,

The inspector has offered the council different options for how to proceed. They include the opportunity for the council to undertake further work to support their approach.

I must add a caveat to my response: given my ministerial role, I must limit how specific my comments are on certain aspects of the plan as it remains at examination, but I do not think that that will prevent me from answering any of the questions that hon. Members have posed. The argument is that the county Durham plan would enable strong economic growth, significant housing and infrastructure, and represents an approach that has broad local support. In headline terms, those are perspectives fully endorsed by the Government’s planning policy.

The national planning policy framework is clear that authorities should plan proactively to meet businesses’ development needs and base their plans on a clear understanding of those needs. Our policy sets out that authorities should plan to meet objectively assessed development needs and provide appropriate infrastructure as far as is consistent with the policies in the framework as a whole. The Government have made it clear that we accord great importance to the green belt, whose fundamental characteristics are openness and permanence, and that green belt boundaries should be revised only in exceptional circumstances through the local plan process.

Our policy is clear that local plans should as far as possible reflect a collective vision and set of agreed priorities for the sustainable development of the area. The Government’s commitment to sustainable development, green belt protection and community involvement in planning is not in dispute. I reassure hon. Members who have raised concerns, as the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) did, that the absence of a plan will open the floodgates. Perhaps it would be helpful if I wrote to hon. Members in detail outlining some things that I think will give them comfort. There are clearly material considerations that need to be taken into account, even in the absence of a local plan.

I have mentioned the green belt and neighbourhood planning. A neighbourhood plan, of course, does not have to be ratified to have legal weight in the planning process. There is the “town centre first” policy—an issue that the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) raised—and “infrastructure first”, which the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) mentioned. Perhaps it would be useful if I wrote to hon. Members to outline matters in detail; that may give hon. Members’ constituents some comfort.

I turn to the issues that the inspector raised. It is true that the plan would enable growth, but the inspector is not convinced, on the basis of the current evidence, that the level of growth proposed would be achievable, and that it would not adversely affect the council’s other city-centre strategies and the world heritage site status of Durham. The inspector is also of the view that more could be done to show how growth in Durham would interact positively or negatively with the growth being proposed by other north-east authorities. In summary, the inspector explains that, at present,

“the failure to fully assess the social, economic and environmental implications of lower growth options…is a serious omission”.

Let me be clear: that does not mean that the inspector has suggested that Durham should be less ambitious in its plan; it means that Durham needs to show clearly why the approach it proposes is the most appropriate strategy.

The plan clearly seeks to enable more housing than past trends would indicate, but the inspector has indicated that there are shortcomings in the methodology for establishing housing needs; for example, there is the question of whether the predicted in-migration levels are realistic.

In relation to housing provision, the inspector’s view is that the plan could do more to take into account the contribution that could be made to housing delivery by reusing brownfield land, potentially for around 2,000 homes; I hope that addresses the issue that the hon. Member for City of Durham mentioned. Based on these assumptions about housing growth, the plan allocates some 4,000 homes in the green belt. On this point, the inspector is clear that

“The process and evidence relating to the proposed amendments to the Green Belt boundary are flawed, particularly in relation to the release of sites to accommodate some 4,000 unnecessary dwellings…A full review of non-Green Belt sources of supply should be undertaken.”

The plan further advocates two relief roads in the green belt, but the inspector also has concerns about their justification and impact. Although planning inevitably involves difficult decisions that will not please everyone, the inspector points to significant concerns raised by a broad section of the public in relation to the proposed strategy.

The shortcomings identified in the current version of the plan may yet be resolvable at examination, as the inspector’s report sets out. I understand that the council is due to meet the inspectorate in March to discuss options for how to proceed, and I am pleased that the inspectorate is engaging openly with the local authority.

I can reassure hon. Members who have spoken today that the Planning Inspectorate is as pragmatic as possible when it comes to examining local plans. However, this is the crux of the matter: the inspector would not have arrived at his interim findings if there were not significant grounds for concern.

In summary, hon. Members who have spoken today have expressed their support for a plan that the inspector considers is not currently supported by robust evidence. In the absence of such evidence, the plan advocates a strategy that is potentially unrealistic or possibly detrimental to Durham, its sustainable development and in particular its green belt.

[Mr Kevan Jones: I take exception to the Minister saying that, because what has been put forward is an ambitious plan. She seems to be saying that on the one hand we need economic growth for the north-east, but on the other the plan is not achievable. The problem is treating County Durham as a small market county; it is a large county. If housing is not put in my area, it will be put somewhere else, which means my area will suffer as part of this plan.]

Penny Mordaunt: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I am simply stating the concerns that the inspectorate has raised. Clearly, I hope that we have a local plan in place for his area sooner rather than later. However, that plan needs to be based on good evidence if it is to be successful. I hope that, if the dialogue with the inspectorate is successful, the plan that emerges at the end of the process will be stronger for it.

[Phil Wilson: The objective of trying to generate 30,000 jobs between now and 2030 is in line with what the Chancellor said on Friday about generating 50,000 jobs between now and 2020. If the figures for the county over 15 years are out of kilter, so are the Chancellor’s figures. That is why the Government need to look at this matter closely; it affects not only the growth patterns for the county, but those for the whole of the north-east, as laid out by the Chancellor.]

Penny Mordaunt: I will come on to answer the first point that the hon. Gentleman raised. In answer to his second point, there is no doubt that the ambition is the right one. The figures, both on jobs and the inward investment that we expect, are absolutely right. The issue at stake is how that growth in jobs and investment is achieved. I have just given one example. Based on current evidence, the inspectorate feels deeply that building on the green belt is not justified, and that the plan would benefit from a piece of work that examines the reuse of brownfield sites. We do not want to slow down progress; we want to keep up momentum on this issue. I am pleased that the inspectorate is due to meet the council.

Let me turn to the first point the hon. Gentleman raised, which was about Government assistance. I will write to hon. Members in detail about planning policy, which may give them some comfort. I will also follow up on the issue that he raised about the Hitachi business park and the science innovation park; I will certainly seek to get him some answers on that issue and will write to him about it. We have already been of assistance in setting up the meeting that is due to take place in March. We will assist in any way we can, not only in my Department but across Government.

There is one other area that is worth exploring. When I looked at the local plan that is being proposed, and mapped it to the plans and priorities of the local enterprise partnership, I saw that there is perhaps a job of work to do that would strengthen the position that the hon. Gentleman is setting out. I am one of a number of Ministers who could help to facilitate that work, which may yield further evidence to support the plan as currently set out. Of course, the Chancellor has also offered his assistance and offered to work with local stakeholders.

In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s first point, therefore, we are ready to assist in any way we can. Clearly, the area will benefit from having a strong, robust, evidence-based local plan, and I hope that we will see one before too long.