It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) on securing this debate and clearly setting out many of the challenges we face in our constituencies. I want to focus on one particular planning application in Willingdon, which sits in the constituency of Eastbourne, because it reflects all that is wrong and all that needs reforming in the planning system, and it also reflects my constituents’ many concerns.
On the need for reform, I echo the comments that have been made about the five-year land supply. The planning authority currently has 8,000 approvals that have not been built, and yet it is held hostage by speculative development because there is no local plan. That powerfully demonstrates the very weak voice of local determination, because this has happened despite the wishes and desires of the local community.
The planning application also reflects some of the faultlines in the calculation of housing need. This greenfield site, so cherished by the local community, represents probably the final green space between Eastbourne and Willingdon. The application essentially changes forever the character of the local area, which was once a village but is increasingly part of an urban fringe, and takes important agricultural land out of use. It is well recognised that there are concerns about flooding in the area, and I am absolutely mystified that Southern Water has given its support and endorsement to the planning application, based on the use of storm overflows. That cannot be right.
Congestion and road safety are also in the mix, but I want to focus on due process, and I know that my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), shares my concerns. On
6 September, I spoke at the appeal inquiry and outlined the fundamental and fatal flaws in our local transport models, which were exposed in a 2019 report by the highly regarded AECOM. I argued that if the models are unfit for purpose, the findings based on them cannot be considered in any way safe or sound. Highways are clearly central to the decision to grant or reject this deeply unpopular proposed development, and are the reason it was previously thrown out.
Of most serious concern is the obvious chilling effect that the threat of costs has had on local government bodies and the democratic process. Wealden District Council twice refused the application. Days before the appeal, it withdrew its objection, not because its concerns and principled objections had been answered and satisfied, or because the local residents it had been representing had been otherwise persuaded, but because it had been warned by its legal representative that continuing courted the risk of substantial cost. Willingdon and Jevington parish council, which had likewise stood against the application at every turn and contributed strongly at every stage of the process, was similarly forced to withdraw. That is a damning indictment of the system and a clear democratic faultline.
The decision has now been made, and the appeal has been successful. I urge the Minister to meet me and my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, to look at the application and call it in. I also ask him to look at levelling up as it relates to VAT. New build and greenfield attracts a 0% VAT rating, but conversion, restoration and renovation of my Victorian town centre carries a 20% VAT penalty. It is clear where the balance of interests lies. Finally, I ask him to consider the brownfield-first strategy mentioned today.
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