UK Parliament / Open data

Housing and Planning Bill

My Lords, I must confess that I am a bit confused. I will have to read Hansard carefully. At the moment, we have a pre-application process which is robust and successful, and local authorities engage with that successfully, because, essentially, a good development has the support of the local community. These will be massive housing developments in some cases and they will require the local communities to be happy with what will be on offer. Of course the local authority should make the decision but I hope that we would have some discipline around this so that, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, says, we will not go down a path where less and less influence is exercised by people who have to live alongside or even within these developments.

Having said that, of course I will withdraw the amendment, but this is a very important part of the Bill. I am not certain that I like the idea of your Lordships being entirely responsible for the secondary legislation, as we seem to be increasingly asked to be. We need to know how people who will have to administer this measure feel about it. That is why we need to know local authority views on these things. Clearly, we will think again about the measure before Report. I may seek a meeting with the noble Baroness to see whether we can tease out this issue with some degree of certainty, because it is very important. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

769 c2329 

Session

2015-16

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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