I think I agree with absolutely everything that everybody’s said. I think, on this issue, it is important that we do have consensus because tackling air quality is a fantastically important subject. There is no such thing as safe levels of particulates and, frankly, some of the things that we’re going to need to do will require us to tackle the holy motorist, and that will obviously be quite controversial with some people in our community.

I think some of the issues that have just been raised by Gareth are very important, and whilst there is a role for parking for a BBC cameraperson who is carrying thousands of pounds worth of equipment—they have got to go by car—it is obviously not the case that those who are doing a desk job need to come into the city centre by car. That’s something that needs to be reflected in the Cardiff development plan.

I mainly wanted to concentrate on other aspects that are much less controversial but nevertheless extremely important. I represent the most urban and built-up constituency in Wales, I think, in Cardiff Central, and therefore making more green spaces is absolutely essential to improving the quality of air. Simon’s already mentioned the importance of trees, and I would just like to highlight one fact, which is that one tree can remove 26 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, which is equal to 11,000 miles of car emissions. Two thousand five hundred square feet of turf releases enough oxygen for a family of four to breathe. These are really important figures, and it really should be concentrating our minds on the way that we approach our town planning, because all communities need to benefit from this. In terms of tackling climate change, if we have green spaces, it counters the warming effects of paved surfaces, recharges groundwater supplies, and protects lakes and streams from polluted run-off. It reduces soil erosion—a dense cover of plants and mulch holds the soil in place, keeps sediment out of storm drains and roads, and reduces flooding, mudslides and dust storms. These are fantastically important issues for all of us, whichever part of Wales we are in.

A healthy sodded garden will absorb rainfall six times more effectively than a wheat field and four times better than a hay field. I think that these are really important issues, because water is the new gold; we cannot survive without it. Green spaces reduce stress and boost children’s attention span. There’s other research that has found tha, attention deficit disorder symptoms in children are relieved by contact with nature. Greenery in a child’s everyday environment, even views of green through a window, reduces their ADD symptoms. As that is an increasing presentation amongst pupils, this is, potentially, a very important finding and something we should be thinking about in all our schools.

So, what are the levers that Government can use to do more of this sort of thing? I was interested to recall the community grown food action plan, which was launched in 2010, I think by the Presiding Officer, to promote, support and encourage community-grown food in Wales, and to improve food security by increasing the availability of locally grown horticultural produce, connecting people to the food chain, increasing the number of people interested in growing food, and improving health and well-being in the process. I recall that lots of excellent LEADER projects were funded by the previous EU programme, which really transformed some of our most disadvantaged communities, but were never mainstreamed into other disadvantaged communities, which was really a lost opportunity.

I recall that, sometimes, there are lengthy waiting lists for allotments, and, in any case, they’re often inaccessible to people without a car. So, finding land for new growing projects is a challenge that I feel we all need to rise up to. I pay tribute to some of the organisations and communities in Cardiff that have helped overcome these difficulties and got more people growing their own. We’ve got the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, which has 49 community growing projects across our city. And the Riverside community allotment project, an integral part of which is the Community Market Association’s activities, has a growing space just north of Cardiff, where people can learn how to grow food in a sociable and supportive atmosphere.

Farm Cardiff is a community-led mapping process, which has identified over 400 public spaces for growing food and other plants. I recall that the Welsh Government funded the Cynefin project, which led to herb planters being put on Albany Road, which is the town centre for my constituency and probably the most urban environment anywhere, in that there is almost no green space immediately around. There’s a strip of land called the Mackintosh community garden, also in Plasnewydd, which started very modestly and is now developing growing tunnels and helping to educate whole cohorts of school children whose school is a concrete jungle, about where food comes from. My office is working with schools in Llanedeyrn and Pentwyn, which, in contrast to Adamsdown and Plasnewydd, are well endowed with sizeable plots of land, but, to date, there’s not much growing going on on them.