Planning: Green Spaces

1. What steps her Department is taking to ensure that the planning system provides green spaces for communities.

rose—

Welcome back!

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am delighted to have been appointed Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and it is great to be back answering questions from this Dispatch Box—in fact, I like it so much that I thought we would do a statement straight afterwards as well. I pay tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), and his team for their hard work. Our new national planning policy framework strengthens support for green spaces by requiring local plans to set standards for green infrastructure and increase support for new and improved community facilities and public service infrastructure.

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State and her team to their places. It is fantastic to see my right hon. Friend back at the heart of Government. This summer’s relentless wildfires have brought home to us in Cannock Chase the vital importance of green spaces and woodlands. However, I have heard from residents of new estates such as Norton Hall Meadow in Norton Canes that their woodlands have been badly neglected by private management companies. Will the Secretary of State ensure that, as we build new homes across the country, the planning system ensures that green spaces are available to all and maintained properly for decades to come?

My hon. Friend is right to raise the subject of private management companies; I recognise the situation he is describing and how unacceptable it is. It is clear that the current system is not delivering for ordinary people, and the Government are committed to reducing the prevalence of private estate management arrangements and ending the injustice of fleecehold. We consulted on the proposals—I think that was in March—to increase the adoption of amenities and new estates, and we will respond in due course. It is the wild west at the moment, and the Minister for Housing and Planning, my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), is undertaking important work to tackle it.

The Secretary of State has doubled housing targets for Maldon district, causing it to fall behind on its five-year supply; that is putting green spaces at risk in villages such as Tollesbury. These villages are building more homes but, importantly, this is affecting their ability to plan their strategic infrastructure and community growth. Will the Secretary of State meet me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) to discuss the targets and the impact that they are having on the community and on green spaces?

I thank the right hon. Member for her question. We have set out our targets within the national planning policy framework and local plans, and I encourage authorities to make sure that their local plans are up to date. Natural England’s standard on accessible green space stipulates that everyone should have access to good quality green and blue spaces close to home for health and wellbeing and contact with nature. Hopefully, the right hon. Member will be able to see that we are putting things in place to ensure that we have the housing and the green spaces people want.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

I welcome the right hon. Lady to her place alongside her team. Guildford borough council’s latest green-belt assessment found that 92% of its green belt now meets the Government’s grey belt definition, and its assessed housing need has been doubled by the Government from 562 to 1,168 homes a year. That has left many of my residents worried about the loss of green spaces, about unsustainable development without appropriate infrastructure and about the loss of the distinctive historic character of their villages. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the potential impact of planning policy on green-belt land in my constituency, which falls within the Guildford borough area? Can she outline what steps her Government will take to protect green spaces for communities by ensuring that developers are directed towards genuine brownfield sites first, rather than development being concentrated on land around Guildford that was previously protected by the green belt?

What we have been doing is making sure we are strengthening and clarifying the rules around the release of grey belt, but brownfield has to be first. We are also strengthening policy provisions to support local authorities in planning for green space at a strategic level, to ensure that green space is available and that we have the housing and infrastructure people need, but brownfield has to be used first. I encourage the hon. Lady to work with her local authority to look at its local plans.