Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:50 pm on 14 September 2016.
There is a need to increase the housing supply in Wales, of course, but those houses have to be the right type of houses and they have to be in the right location in order to meet the true needs of the people of Wales. In your statement on the planning Act in July of this year, you stated that
‘The preparation of Strategic Development Plans should be given high priority by Local Planning Authorities in areas which have completed the first round of Local Development Plans and have issues which would benefit from being considered over a wider geographic area than a single Authority.’
Do I read into that, therefore, that you now see the need for the balance to be restored in the local planning system, where population projections have often been swollen out of all proportion and have led to harmful developments, first of all in our urban areas because too much greenfield land is having to be used and, secondly, in Welsh-speaking communities, where there’s a threat to the language balance?