I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the consideration of flooding risk in the planning process; to make internal drainage boards statutory consultees for certain planning decisions; and for connected purposes.
During this Parliament, we have heard a lot about the problems in the planning system. In particular, the Government have spoken about the blockers—those who, for reasons that the Government seem not to understand, oppose developments they see as bad for their communities. This Bill intends to go some way to fix the Government’s problem. In reality, the reason that many people in our communities become blockers is that they have no faith that the planning system will deliver houses that make their lives better. They are hard-working people, but rather than listen to their concerns, the Government have sought to bash them at every turn.
One of the biggest problems in the planning system is the total failure of many local authorities—as a councillor, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—to properly understand and consider flood risk in new developments. Policy that the Government think ought to be sufficient to prevent development on floodplains in all but exceptional circumstances, for example, is being circumvented by developers. Due to lack of suitable expertise in planning, we see such developments often going ahead without suitable drainage infrastructure to protect our communities from flooding.
What does this all mean? It means that many communities in Mid Bedfordshire and across the country who have done the right thing, and taken the houses that the Government want them to take, now find themselves with a higher flood risk, while developers have got away high and dry with their profits. When they stand ankle-deep in water in their once dry living rooms and desperately attempt to stop the next bad development making their situation worse, the Prime Minister calls them blockers. We are letting them down.
This is not a hypothetical situation—it is happening in our communities in Mid Bedfordshire right now. Take the village of Maulden, historically developed as a linear settlement running along the greensand ridge, where developers saw an opportunity to develop up the slope of the ridge. That upslope development has caused a huge increase in flooding in Maulden, to the point that homes that have stood for centuries with minimal flooding have now been reclassified by the Environment Agency as being within flood plain.
Are the developers stopping there? Of course not. Another 40 hectares of land has been put forward for development around Maulden as part of the call for sites for the next central Bedfordshire local plan. Who gains from planning like this? It certainly is not the hard-working people who already live in Maulden, who saved up to buy the house that they had been dreaming about and wish to be able to peacefully enjoy it, without having to worry about getting sandbags out every time grey clouds form overhead. It is not the people who worked hard to get their new-build home in Maulden, only to discover the planning system let them down and allowed developers to get away without building the right protections for their homes from flooding. It is not the Government, who are left puzzled as to why all these people are opposing their plans to build thousands more homes in our communities. The only people who gain are the big box developers who have thrown up the houses with minimal restrictions and mitigations, and taken their profits whilst our communities pay the price. Maulden is just one example, but there are many places in Mid Bedfordshire and across the country where our planning system has failed the people who need it most—the people we serve.