Localism Bill

My Lords, I speak to my Amendment 147M. At Second Reading, I expressed my concerns about the proposed duty to co-operate as a replacement for regional strategies. As I then said, I am not particularly enamoured with the whole idea of regions. Particularly in the south-west, where I come from, the region was far too large to be of any real relevance to people on the ground and their lives. As I am sure we all recognise, we need some form of supralocal planning framework to deal with a whole range of issues for which it cannot and should not be left to each and every local planning authority to come up with the answer all on their own. These issues include areas such as flood defence, where water management in the upstream can impact on flooding and water quality in downstream communities. Equally, unless cross-boundary issues are addressed, pure localism could lead to fragmentation of landscapes and ecosystems. The recent national environment White Paper introduced the concept of nature improvement areas, ecological networks and local nature partnerships to rival or possibly complement local enterprise partnerships. All of these are likely to be transboundary concepts in their application. Some form of supralocal planning is also needed for a strategic approach to renewable energy. While it is important that all local authorities work towards their own solutions for producing 15 or even 20 per cent of their energy requirements from renewable resources—many of which can be built as small, local ventures—each local authority will have different constraints and opportunities for taking different routes towards whatever technology is most suitable for their area. It will be important for everyone to see the bigger picture. Supralocal planning will be about more than just the larger sub-regional infrastructure projects; more than just where to site bad-neighbour developments such as waste disposal facilities or even large housing developments. I am not so worried about local authorities co-operating—they always have co-operated and they always will. I do not see any real need for compulsion or threats. What they need, in my view, is a framework which sets out what they need to co-operate on—as I have already explained, this is probably wider than many councillors might assume. They need a framework that sets out who should be involved and most importantly, who should lead; the outputs and outcomes; and furthermore, having co-operated, how the results should be incorporated into local plans and local transport plans and the application of the community infrastructure levy. In that context I refer to my twin amendment on this subject under the CIL clauses, Amendment 148ZZBA, to which I speak in my current remarks. These amendments require unitary or upper-tier authorities to prepare strategic infrastructure assessments in consultation with planning authorities and other strategic infrastructure providers, including local enterprise partnerships and local nature partnerships. I believe we need to specify these assessments as a necessary result of the duty to co-operate. It is only in this way that the duty would have a clear output that would harness the expertise and capacity of unitary and upper-tier authorities in matching investment with growth and provide a consistent framework to inform sub-regional and local plans. I want to pause for a minute on the words ““consistent framework”” because I believe they are vital for any country that wishes to remain progressive. I spoke at Second Reading on the dangers of uncertainty within the planning system as a result of this Bill for everyone from businesses, through service providers to environmentalists. They all need some form of consistent framework within which to work, plan and to risk their money through investment. We cannot expect businessmen to invest and house builders to build or, for that matter, environmentalists and landscape aficionados to protect what matters if they are all working in a fog of uncertainty. If each development case has to start from scratch, only delays and increased frustration will result. I believe my amendments give clarity as to where the leadership should lie, so efforts can focus immediately on getting on with the work of strategic planning rather than risking delays because no prime mover is identified in the legislation. Obviously, it is platitudinous to say that delays are the enemy of progress but I do not believe that we can afford delays in the current economic climate. Rather, we need a coherent sense of purpose with a simple reference document as a guide for local plans and new neighbourhood plans. I believe my amendments achieve that.