Planning (Flooding)

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.

That is what this Bill will try to fix, starting by ensuring that where we have an internal drainage board—experts on flooding and flood management—we take advantage of their expertise and make them a statutory consultee on development that is likely to have an impact on flood risk in the broad area they cover. Many internal drainage boards are already contributing to that work by making representations on planning applications, but putting them on a statutory footing would ensure that their advice is given the consideration it deserves and would cost us nothing.

This Bill will make a simple amendment to schedule 4 to the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 to insert internal drainage boards as a statutory consultee in the planning system. It will also ensure that we take the politics out of protecting people from flooding by ensuring that the Secretary of State may remove internal drainage boards as a statutory consultee only if they replace them with an alternative body, which should provide advice on flooding risk.

The Environment Agency already acts as a statutory consultee on planning matters that impact on flood plains, but it lacks the resources to effectively and efficiently identify flooding risk more broadly. That is why internal drainage boards, where they exist, should be brought into the planning process to complement its role and ensure that proper consideration is being given to the flooding implications of developments for current and future residents.

This Bill will also ensure that planning authorities give appropriate weight to flood risk in the planning system and prevent developers avoiding their obligations to build liveable homes rather than just their own profits. It will introduce a simple presumption against development where the lead local flood authority, the Environment Agency and/or the internal drainage board, considers that the development would increase flood risk for existing properties when taking into account sustainable drainage infrastructure and flood mitigation measures.

The Bill would require the Secretary of State to publish statutory guidance, prepared by a panel of experts, for planning authorities and lead local authorities on the minimum expected standards for drainage and maintenance in new developments. It would build on recent Government announcements on build-out rates and give planning authorities the ability to reject future planning applications from developers on the basis of past failures to deliver or maintain sustainable drainage infrastructure.

We must do better for the hard-working people in our communities who want to return from work to a warm, dry home. That is the least they deserve, and I present this Bill for them.

That Blake Stephenson, David Simmonds, Nick Timothy, Mr Gagan Mohindra, Dr Ben Spencer, Sarah Bool, Alison Griffiths, Jack Rankin, Rebecca Paul, Lewis Cocking and Paul Holmes present the Bill.

Blake Stephenson accordingly presented the Bill.