Conservative Minister cancels democracy in Spelthorne
The Minister of State for Housing, Rachel Maclean, decided that local democracy should be suspended in Spelthorne to prevent a vote on the previous Conservative administration’s Local Plan. The local elections in May changed the political makeup of the Council, and many of the new members were elected because they are committed to the amendment and improvement of the Plan.
The intervention by a Conservative minister is completely undemocratic. In her letter the minister claimed that Spelthorne’s Local Plan was uniquely out of date and that the current process had already taken too long. There are many Tory-run councils with older plans who have also decided to suspend work on their plans until there is clarity on government policy. The minister is the 15th to hold the post since 2010 and Conservative policy has been highly volatile since the Chesham and Amersham by-election was won by the Liberal Democrats in June 2021, with several announcements by the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, having a direct impact on Local Plans. These announcements have reinforced the importance of beautiful places, local agreement and the place-shaping role of local plans. The minister’s intervention has denied these opportunities to Spelthorne residents.
The long-promised update to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) is a vital document as it sets the rules for planning, and will have a direct bearing on how a local plan might be structured. Liberal Democrat councillors are committed to looking at all opportunities offered by changes of policy to improve the Local Plan. The minister’s decision prevents any opportunity for improvement by incorporating government policy shifts.
With just four hours notice, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) intervened to ban Spelthorne Council from making a democratic decision. This was done for spurious political reasons and to impose the highly damaging Conservative Local Plan.
It is well understood that the current Local Plan will be damaging to Spelthorne, but this is a direct consequence of the housing target set by central government of 618 home per year for 15 years. This means that more than 9,000 new homes have to be built, with more than 50% in the Staines area and almost exclusively flats in high rise blocks. This will completely change the character of the area and which an overwhelming majority of the local residents are opposed to.
The Plan also requires the Council to allow building on a small number of Green Belt sites. These have only been offered on the basis that there was no other way to meet the target in an environment which is highly constrained by the river Thames, water bodies and flood risk.
In June the Council voted to pause the Plan to allow the 22 new members elected in May to get an understanding of the Plan and to get an external view on what impact recent changes in government policy may have. The report set out options that the Council could take and what changes might be possible.
The Plan was sent for examination by the Planning Inspectorate in November 2022. Once a Plan is in the examination process, only limited changes that can be made to it. To make any significant changes would require that the Plan is formally withdrawn, and any changes consulted on before being incorporated. This would be a lengthy process and during this time the borough could be vulnerable to predatory development applications, exploiting the lack of a Plan and the inability of the borough to keep up with the imposed target - not building enough homes is a reason for preferential treatment of development applications.
The risk of proceeding with the Plan in its current form is that Staines will be developed without any enforceable design controls, meaning that Staines will be littered with uncoordinated high-rise blocks across the skyline. This is already evident on the site of the old telephone exchange in central Staines where two 14 storey blocks are under construction. The opportunity for Staines to be a beautiful riverside destination will be lost forever. The Plan also allows some areas of precious Green Belt to be sacrificed in order to meet the imposed targets.
Whether or not you support the existing Local Plan the action of the Minister of State, Rachel Maclean, was anti-democratic and overtly political. The minister even re-Tweeted an article from the right-wing website Guido Fawkes which described her actions as “Maclean’s crusade against NIMBYISM” and it attributed (wrongly) the attempt to withdraw the plan to the Liberal Democrats.
The majority of Lib Dem councillors were in favour of withdrawing and improving the Local Plan. We understand that this is not a simple choice with an objectively right or wrong answer, but is a balance of risks, with valid arguments for both a quick implementation of the current Plan and for making changes to avoid damage to the borough. As it stands many residents believe that the Plan is unacceptable and whatever the circumstances, as Liberal Democrats, we will work to improve it and fight for the best possible outcome.