Agenda item

Motion A – Call to scrap the Government’s planning White Paper

Council notes:

·         The significant concerns expressed by communities, including at the recent by-election in Chesham & Amersham, over the Conservative Government’s Planning Reforms.

·         The concessions already made to Conservative backbench MPs over concerns about the impact of planning deregulation on home counties.

·         Local resident concerns about their reduced ability to object to building works under Permitted Development Rights which have been extended under this Government.

·         Widespread concern and condemnation of the Planning White Paper proposals across Local Government, the Planning and Architecture Sector and organisations concerned with protecting green spaces and heritage.

·         The high environmental standards being pursued as part of the Golden Valley development at West Cheltenham.

Council is concerned that:

·         The Government is not using the Planning White Paper to improve environmental outcomes from planning and building standards fast enough. This is at odds with the declaration of a climate emergency by many local authorities, including Cheltenham Borough Council.

·         Government proposals to deregulate planning will water down the rights of residents to influence development where they live.

·         The Government's proposals will put at risk the character of Gloucestershire’s city, towns and villages.

Council believes that:

·         Residents have the right to a say over developments that will change the area they live in;

·         Local councils, in consultation with their businesses and residents, are best placed to understand the issues in their area and respond with a housing strategy tailored to that area.

Council calls for the Leader to write to the Government to scrap its Planning White Paper and instead:

·         Undertake a wholesale review of Permitted Development Rights;

·         Introduce rules which enable local areas to achieve much higher environmental standards in planning;

·         Make the Planning Inspectorate more accountable to local people;

·         Implement stronger controls to ensure Ministers making decisions on planning applications are not connected either financially or personally with the developers or related parties to the application;

·         Strengthen the ability of local areas to secure affordable housing from private developers;

·         Calls on Government to ensure that developers build on land with planning consent but not bank on it for their future profit.

The motion was proposed by Cllr. Wilkinson and seconded by Cllr. Baker.

In proposing the motion, Cllr. Wilkinson recognised the limitations on all sides of the planning system, and emphasised that the government had made things worse through the enforced sale of council houses and its failed regional strategies and national policy framework. He had hoped that the White Paper on planning reforms would strengthen local government’s hand to make plans to benefit the local area and bolster their ability to build affordable, sustainable housing and fight climate change. However, Planning For The Future did not do this. The truncated time period would simply not work and the lack of community engagement and climate considerations were worrying. While the council and CBH were pressing ahead with delivering affordable housing across the town, the government was seeking to free the private sector from its local obligations. He stressed that he welcomed change and progress, but the White Paper was wrong for both the town and the country.

In seconding the motion, Cllr. Baker noted that as a long-serving Member of Planning Committee he had seen how the authority struggled to influence and implement developments that properly addressed climate change. Housing accounted for 40% of UK carbon emissions, with some 50 tons of CO2 emitted per new home built. Planning policy must enable the council to deliver new homes, and contribute to biodiversity by actively reducing flood risk rather than just not increasing it. Land banking was a serious problem and should be tackled proactively.

The Mayor moved to the debate, where Members made the following points in support of the motion:

• Developers who had planning consent for homes but were not actually building them should be encouraged to use it or lose it. The proposer agreed to add this to the motion as an additional point.
• Local residents must have a real voice in the planning process, rather than it being a ‘top-down’ approach based on zonal planning.
• The White Paper failed to address many key issues and ultimately raised more questions than answers.
• The number of different Ministers of State for Housing over the last decade had caused a lack of continuity in government policy.
• Donations from housing developers were the major influence on government policy, rather than the public interest.
• The housing crisis was not being caused by local government red tape, and removing restrictions would not solve the problem.
• Housing needed to be built to a high standard, and removing regulations would make it easier for developers to avoid this.
• There needed to be greater oversight of the minority of landlords who exploited tenants, but the White Paper would reduce that instead.
• The White Paper did nothing to fix the structural problems of the housing system, and prioritised private developers over affordable housing.
• Residents had raised concerns about the lack of public engagement in the process.

Members also made the following points in opposition to the motion:

• The motion was premature, as the White Paper’s proposed reforms had not yet become legislation.
• The council should take a more constructive role in the consultation and join the consultation rather than calling for it to be scrapped.
• The motion was cynical politicking in the aftermath of a by-election where the proposed planning reforms had been a key issue.

Cllr. Wilkinson thanked Members for their contributions to an interesting debate and summed up the key points.

The motion was approved.

Motion B – Response to voter ID reforms proposed in the Queen’s Speech

This Council notes that:

·         The UK Government revealed in the Queen’s speech, on 11 May, its intention to introduce laws requiring all eligible voters to show voter ID in all future elections;

·         The UK Government claims this is to tackle electoral fraud;

This Council further notes, however, that:

·         The Electoral Commission has stated that there is “no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud”;

·         That between 2017 and 2019, there were just 6 convictions and 12 police cautions relating to electoral fraud – the majority of which did not relate to ID fraud;

·         That nearly 10 per cent of eligible voters do not have the necessary identification at present, and that previous trials of voter ID saw many hundreds of voters disenfranchised – including 750 people during the 2019 trials.

This Council believes that:

·         The proposed legislation is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist and only serves to make it harder for some sections of Britain’s electorate to vote – most notably minority groups and young voters;

·         The greater priority should be encouraging voter registrations within those groups that are typically under-represented during elections.

This Council therefore resolves to:

·         Write to the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Cabinet Office outlining this Council’s firm belief that the voter ID reforms proposed in the Queen’s speech are an illiberal barrier to democratic participation;

·         Work with scrutiny to investigate ways the Borough Council can encourage more people to participate in future elections in Cheltenham – with a particular focus on the next Borough Council elections in 2022 and 2024.

The motion was proposed by Cllr. Fisher and seconded by Cllr. Clark.

In proposing the motion, Cllr. Fisher noted that the motion had originally been submitted by Cllr. Willingham, who was unable to attend the meeting in person. He emphasised that the government’s plans for voter ID would disenfranchise a huge number of people, particularly from marginalised communities, without making elections any safer.

The Mayor moved to the debate, where Members made the following points in support of the motion:

• The reforms were an overblown solution to a problem that hardly existed at all. The government ought to focus on real issues that affected a lot of people.
• The least well-off in society would be most affected by the reforms, especially those unable to pay for ID and homeless people without an address.
• People could easily end up being disenfranchised by circumstances beyond their control, and this would affect lower income groups most of all.
• There are already checks within the system to prevent voter fraud.

Members also made the following points in opposition to the motion:

• It was not unusual to require people to show proof of identity in all manner of situations, and it was a requirement to vote in many liberal countries including France, Germany and Spain.
• Voter fraud did exist and was a real problem which should be tackled head-on.
• ID cards would likely be available for free, so nobody would be disenfranchised by income, and the rules would be enforced in a sensitive and light-touch way.

Cllr. Fisher thanked Members for their contributions and summed up the key points. He stressed that voter fraud was incredibly rare, with only 6 convictions and 12 cautions out of million votes across the 2017 and 2019 elections.

The motion was approved.

Motion C – Call to adopt 20mph maximum speeds in areas where vulnerable road users and vehicles mix

This Council:

·         Believes that 20 is plenty in residential areas.

·         Agrees with and supports the UK Government’s recent endorsement of The Stockholm Declaration, which stipulates in Resolution 11 that a council should “mandate a maximum road travel speed of [20mph] in areas where vulnerable road users and vehicles mix…except where strong evidence exists that higher speeds are safe.”

·         Calls on Gloucestershire County Council, as the Local Highways Authority, to consult the county’s District Councils, Parish Councils and communities to identify all the roads which should adopt a 20mph speed limit no later than 30 April 2025 and to make significant progress towards realising these changes in tandem - establishing 20mph limits in identified places quickly if communities agree.

·         Calls on Gloucestershire County Council to provide the necessary funding to achieve the goal of making our residents safe across Gloucestershire.

The motion was proposed by Cllr. Lewis and seconded by Cllr. Clark.

In proposing the motion, Cllr. Lewis noted that the motion had originally been submitted by Cllr. Brownsteen, who was unable to attend the meeting in person. She noted that it was the council’s job to improve the wellbeing of people in Cheltenham, but every day constituents were travelling on roads that could be made safer, especially for cyclists. She described the issue as being above party politics, and something that all Members could surely agree on.

In seconding the motion, Cllr. Clark emphasised the importance of road safety and the need for the council to do all it could to keep residents safe. She related the story of a personal loss due to a lack of road safety and her hopes that this would not happen to others.

The Deputy Mayor moved to the debate, where Members made the following points in support of the motion:

• It would be a default limit of 20mph rather than a blanket limit, so there would be room for adjustment depending on circumstances.
• The motion did not make unreasonable demands of the county council, allowing them until 2025 to put this in place.
• Residents had been campaigning for lower speed limits for a long time and have been frustrated by the county council’s inaction.
• The county council set up a task group on road safety more than a year ago, but it was still yet to meet.
• Many areas in Cheltenham were largely built before cars were widely available and are simply not designed for high speed travel.
• 20mph limits have been implemented successfully all over the country.

Members also made the following points in opposition to the motion:

• The county council was not against any of the requests in principle.
• Many areas in Cheltenham already enforce 20mph limits, and plenty more do not allow cars to go over 20mph in any case due to the amount of traffic.

Cllr. Lewis thanked colleagues for their contributions to a lively debate, and hoped that the motion would be just one step of a longer process towards making Cheltenham safer.

The motion was approved.