Planning Bill

I too pay tribute to the eloquence of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in moving the amendment—an eloquence which I fear I shall not be able to match. I begin with two apologies: first, that I was not present at Second Reading; and, secondly, that I may have to leave before the end of the debate, although I fear that I do not have as good an excuse as having been summoned to No. 10. I support the amendments, particularly Amendment No. 86, which would lay on the Secretary of State an obligation to exercise his functions with the objective of contributing to good design as well as to sustainable development, and Amendment No. 359 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, which would provide that: "““An order granting development consent must impose requirements on design quality in connection with the development for which consent is granted””." Architecture, planning and environmental design are not natural territory for me, but I have been brought to them by my experience in my neighbourhood of Dalston. Others have come at this through examples of good practice. I am afraid that I rather come at it from the vantage point of examples of bad practice, which I venture to think may be more numerous in our time. I have spoken about this before in your Lordships’ House and would not wish to weary Members of the Committee with a further lengthy account of what is happening in Dalston. I refer to it merely to underline the importance of design. However, I will give an indication of what I am talking about for those who did not hear my lengthier account on a previous occasion. Dalston is certainly badly in need of regeneration. You would think then that we would be glad that Transport for London and the London Development Agency decided to take it in hand. It was said to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Dalston. Instead, we are faced with an assortment of off-the-shelf, unimaginatively designed, indeed brutal, tower blocks of up to 20 storeys, varying in height, and crammed together with little recreational space. What there is consists largely of a sunless wind tunnel. The tower blocks have no relationship either to the Victorian street pattern or to one another and there is little aesthetic coherence. They will not regenerate; they will blight the environment and bring no benefit to the area. Instead of design-led regeneration, which should be the aim of planners, we have the prospect of a sink estate in less than a generation. It is not difficult to imagine the potential for alienation, anti-social behaviour and vandalism. As a criminologist I know that that is not the way to build a housing estate. It is not my purpose to dilate on the problems of Dalston for their own sake. My purpose is to illustrate the need for design considerations to be made central to the planning process in the Bill. Without that, as we have heard, it just does not happen. As a Member of the Committee said, planning guidance, of which there is a plethora, plainly is not enough. Dalston is an illustration of what happens when the need to have regard to the requirement of good design is not clearly and unmistakeably built into the planning process. The RIBA has said that design is about much more than aesthetics. With my noble friend Lord Chorley, I maintain that it is also about much more than buildings. It is about sustainability. It brings social, environmental and health benefits. For that reason, the RIBA goes on to say that design should be one of the most important considerations in new development. The Planning Bill should be used to entrench design into the planning process. As we have heard, both the Barker and Callcutt reviews endorsed those recommendations. There is no incompatibility between functionality and good, exciting design. The Victorians demonstrated it. Other countries show that it can be done. We can look at Chicago or Shanghai. If disasters like Dalston are not to be perpetuated, design imperatives need to be at the heart of planners’ considerations. I very much hope that the Government will agree to these amendments or some form of them.