Oral Answers to Questions — Planning (Chelmsford)

– in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 24 Ebrill 2001.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Simon Burns Simon Burns Shadow Spokesperson (Health) 12:00, 24 Ebrill 2001

If he will make a statement on the impact of his planning criteria in the Chelmsford local authority area. [157189]

Photo of Beverley Hughes Beverley Hughes Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions)

The Government's policies are designed to promote more sustainable patterns of development, reconciling the need for new development with the need to conserve the countryside and the character of our cities, towns and villages. It is for Essex county council, in its replacement structure plan, and Chelmsford borough council, through its borough local plan, to ensure that policies in national and regional planning guidance are taken into account in their areas.

Photo of Simon Burns Simon Burns Shadow Spokesperson (Health)

Is the Minister aware that people living in the village of Boreham, in the Chelmsford local authority area, are appalled at the thought of having 2,000 houses imposed on them by Liberal Democrat-controlled Chelmsford borough council—part of the overall amount of housing that the Government are inflicting on Essex and the south-east? Is the Minister also aware that there is bitter resentment of the fact that 2,500 of the 12,500 houses that Chelmsford must take are intended not to meet Chelmsford's housing needs but to relieve pressures in the south of the county? People in Boreham—in my area—are asking why the Thames gateway cannot take the 2,500 houses which, although they are being inflicted on them, are needed because of the increased employment and industrial building in the Thames gateway that the Government require.

Photo of Beverley Hughes Beverley Hughes Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions)

The hon. Gentleman will know my responses to those questions, because he asked them during an Adjournment debate not long ago. He will also know that the question of the land allocated for housing in his constituency is still open to consultation—and that in the regional planning guidance just published by the Government, the annual housing figures for Essex as a whole during the first five years of the relevant period are lower than they were in the 1994 regional planning guidance. Furthermore, he will know that the previous Government directed three councils in Essex to increase their housing numbers, and imposed 20-year figures through their regional planning guidance procedure. Ours, by contrast, is a bottom-up process, involving redistribution of housing on a regional basis.

The people of Chelmsford will know that the Tories' policy on these matters is in complete disarray. On the one hand—as we saw today, when they launched their bus—they propose a Nimbys' charter, giving every local authority the right to veto and to renege on its housing responsibility. On the other hand, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Norman) told Show House magazine only a few months ago: We all live in the real world. I've been involved in development myself and I recognise that unfortunately it is inevitable we will lose some countryside…We're not in any sense anti-housebuilding, we're the friend of housebuilders".