Contribution
My Lords, my Amendment 225 is supported by my noble friend Lord Freyberg and many outside this Room, including the Wildlife Trusts. Similar amendments were tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, will speak to in a moment.
When the Government first talked about the community right to buy scheme, we heard of empowering communities to create new parks and green spaces by helping them purchase and restore derelict land and green space of community value. This was in line with the Government’s definition of “sustainable development”, or the so-called three pillars: the economy, society and the environment. One of those—the specific facility of the right to buy derelict land or green spaces for their environmental value—has slipped out of the wording in the Bill. In the other place, the Minister responded to queries on this by saying that
“environmental assets will be captured within assets of community value … We will set this out in guidance, as we share the determination that environmental assets are captured within the provision”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/25; cols. 323-24.]
However, I do not think that is strong enough. We can see that through the way that the current right to bid, which this schedule seeks to update, has been interpreted. Looking into this—I have spent more time than I expected reading legal judgments—it seems clear that the current drafting of proposed new Section 86B, outlining what land can be determined to be of community value, is very close to the section of the Localism Act 2011 that it replaces, and hence is likely to fall into the same issues when it comes to green spaces that do not include an official community hub or organised activities. I do not think the guidance will be strong enough to overcome those issues.
I know that I do not need to use up your Lordships’ time, particularly at this time of night, by extolling the benefits of green spaces that go well beyond direct economics or narrow social value. This is not just about official sports playing fields; any field can be a place for play. Green spaces can act as important areas of flood mitigation or as filters for air, noise and water pollution. They can be harbours for wildlife that are important to people. They can be buffers and screens between one urban area and another, giving a sense of community—small patches of green that act as spaces where people can plant microforests.
Pride in place is as much about green spaces as it is about built heritage and culture. There is plenty of research showing this, as we have spoken about at length on other Bills, but it is not so easy to put the benefits of communal green spaces into an argument about economics or social value, especially given the need to demonstrate that these benefits are non-ancillary. Adding the explicit reference to environmental benefits to this Bill could allow communities to unlock everything that the Government envisage, and help communities to support the Government in achieving targets such as 30 by 30, which are currently looking very hard to get to. There are plenty of communities keen to look after a local field, river or piece of woodland—even a small strip of green or a verge—and plenty of private or philanthropic money that is available specifically for that purpose, which the country is otherwise missing out on the opportunity to use.
Of course, I recognise that the Government do not want to allow any blockers to their housebuilding plans, so there is an extra line in my amendment to exclude land that has already been earmarked for development in local plans. I can see that the exact wording of this schedule needs to be thought out very carefully to encourage what we want to encourage, and not open the door wide to use outside the envisaged scope. But I gather that what I am proposing works currently in Scotland, so I very much hope that the Minister will give a positive response to this amendment—in line with the Government’s stated determination that this schedule should encompass environmental assets—and bring forward a government amendment on Report.