My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, in this debate. My contribution is quite modest compared to their overarching and sweeping criticism of Clause 99 but, just by way of flanking fire, perhaps I can say that it covers eight pages of the Bill, which is more than the whole of Part 1, which sets up the mission statements. That seems to me to be a wholly disproportionate application of drafting time, when we consider the level of detail not present in Part 1 and the level of detail here. That is perhaps the only point at which I would wish to challenge the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, in her request for yet more detail. I honestly do not think this Bill needs any more detail on street votes.
Nevertheless, I have tabled Amendment 253A, which aims to ensure that where approved neighbourhood plans are in place, they cannot be overturned by a street vote. It is, to that extent, rather in the same vein as Amendment 248, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Young.
He set out that there should be a clear hierarchy between street votes and development plans so that local development plans trump street votes. My amendment takes a different approach to neighbourhood plans. It simply adds to the list of places where street votes cannot be held—which exists in the Bill—those areas that have valid neighbourhood plans in force. In other words, within areas where there is an approved neighbourhood plan, street votes are not to be an available mechanism.
Like the two previous speakers, I do not really get what value there might be in street votes as a concept. I see some places where they may create or might enable some worthwhile flexibility at a micro level below the reach of borough-wide development plans. However, I admit that I am struggling to imagine what a good example of that might exactly be. It has been suggested, by the Minister, apart from anybody else, that it provides the opportunity for low-level densification of homes in a street. I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, commented to some extent on that, but I will just pick up a point made by the noble Baroness about biodiversity.
One of the things that recent planning changes have brought into view is that gardens should not be paved because of the need to maintain natural drainage. The more the footprint of buildings is increased, the bigger the run-off and the bigger the risk of local flooding at the least. Therefore, that connection will sometimes be a consideration which needs to be taken into account.
It is easy to imagine some less benign examples of street votes, such as perhaps a west London street agreeing that sub-basements with cinemas and car parks would be perfectly fine there. If that was done on the basis of a referendum, the result of which—just to pick two figures out of the air—was 52% to 48%, there would not just be some discontented people living in neighbouring streets but perhaps substantial levels of discontentment in that street.
That brings me to ask a question about who gets to vote. Presumably they are people registered on the electoral roll. That is just as well, because in that west London street the big houses probably also have five or six servants—chauffeurs, cooks and chefs—and, of course, the let-out as far as the voting goes is that they are probably not UK subjects. The noble Baroness made a good point on behalf of renters: in a community, particularly an inner urban area where a transient population is normal, who votes, when they vote and what the qualification is to vote is important.
One of the many pluses of a neighbourhood plan, particularly the process leading up to its adoption, is that all those nook-and-cranny micro details can be considered and a consensus built as part of that plan. That is itself subject to a public endorsement and a referendum. It seems to me fundamentally wrong to have a situation in which such an endorsed, publicly recognised and approved plan, with a level of local public participation that far exceeds the adoption of a local development plan by a planning authority, could be overruled or subverted by random revocation of bits of it in the street votes.
My argument is straightforward. Essentially, where a valid neighbourhood plan is in force, all the work on microsites and flexibilities will have taken place already in drawing up that plan. Whatever the merits of the
principle of street votes, they would be an unnecessary duplication of effort and expense within a neighbourhood plan area. My amendment avoids that overlap and the inevitable confusion it would cause in the local community if its democratically prepared neighbourhood plan was set aside, even if only in one part. I hope to hear that the Minister agrees with that and will accept my amendment.