Lord Carrington of Fulham (Con)

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, in his Amendment 99A on the training of planning officers to improve the environment and the appearance of the built environment. This is extremely important for lots of reasons, one of which is, obviously, that anything that makes our streetscapes more beautiful is to be encouraged. But it is more fundamentally important than that. If we are to manage to build, as this Government tell us they will—previous Governments made the same claim—300,000 new homes every year, we will need to get local support for the homes to be built in local areas. In other words, it is no good trying to impose housing developments, new towns or whatever from the outside, without support from the local community. Local community support will be heavily dependent on the appearance of the development. If it fits in with the classic way of building in that local area, it is more likely to be accepted. If the buildings are diverse and beautiful, they are much more likely to be welcomed. If they end up being ticky-tacky little boxes all looking the same, I have to say that local opposition will be stirred up and might well be brought to a frenzy.