4. Will the First Minister make a statement on the development of district shopping centres within cities? OAQ(5)0586(FM)

We do promote existing retail and commercial centres as the most sustainable locations for new development. Local authorities should establish land use and regeneration strategies and policies to support vibrant, viable and attractive retail and commercial centres.

Thank you, First Minister. Morriston and Swansea are a major district shopping centre. There are other district shopping centres in Swansea and in other cities in Wales. I’d like to stress the importance of district shopping centres, such as in Morriston, Mumbles and Whitchurch in Cardiff. In Morriston, we have lost banks, public houses and shopping diversity. Will the First Minister agree with me that there should be a major bank in every one of these district shopping centres?

Well, ideally, we would welcome the co-location of bank branches within district shopping centres, but these are ultimately matters for the banks. But it is important that businesses and customers have the ability to pay in money and make cash withdrawals within their communities. So, where the banks are failing to accommodate this, we know that the Post Office is serving an important role, with 95 per cent of all UK banking customers having access to their bank accounts via the post office. What I’d be more concerned about is if there were any announcement by Post Office in the future about closing post office branches, because that removes, of course, the only banking function that remains in so many communities.

First Minister, footfall has decreased in Welsh high streets. By comparison, footfall to out-of-town shopping centres has increased by 4.6 per cent according to information from last year. Now, the Welsh Retail Consortium has called for local authorities and retailers to work together to market a high-street identity effectively. Also, they want local authorities to have more flexibility with regard to the planning system. So, can I ask you: how do you think the planning system can help to be more supportive to high streets?

We know that it’s hugely important that local authorities, when they develop their LDPs, look at how they can assist existing retail centres, including high streets. But it’s about more than that. It is hugely important for town centres to develop their own identity; how many town centres have a website? If I were to go to a town in Wales, can I find out what’s there? Is there a website? Have the traders got their own websites? And, of course, the reason why people go to out-of-town shopping centres is sheer convenience—they’re open. And they’re open particularly on Sundays when most people, these days, tend to shop. So, it’s hugely important that high-street retailers look flexibly at their opening hours as well. This isn’t 40 years ago when people went to shop in the week in the daytime and shops were open. In the main, people are shopping 6, 7, 8 o’clock at night, and they’re shopping on Sundays when a lot of high streets are closed, so there needs to be some flexibility as well with traders to make sure that they align their opening hours—there’s a limit to what they can do as sole traders—with the work patterns that people have now, not the work patterns people had, say, 30 or 40 years ago. It’s hugely important as well, as part of the LDP process, that sufficient room is given in town centres for more living accommodation and more office space. If you have the office workers during the day, you’ve got the footfall during the day to help the retailers.

Mike Hedges mentioned the closure of high-street banks and you mentioned post offices. Another important part of district shopping areas is sometimes the local pub. I wondered if there was any update regarding the Welsh Government’s talks with the Campaign for Real Ale, I believe, about how to protect community pubs.

I have to declare an interest as a CAMRA member at this point. It’s a tricky issue because we know that, in planning terms, it’s not difficult to change the use of a pub to another commercial or retail use. That said, of course, quite often pubs are not sold and they become derelict because they’re empty after a while, so it’s not an easy issue to resolve. We know, and even CAMRA itself recognises, there are still too many pubs, given people’s current social habits. What’s hugely important is to be able to work with the market-leading pubs—there are many of them, some small, some big—in order to provide a good example to others. But, ultimately, it’s a question of ensuring that the pubs are able to offer the widest range of services possible to customers. I’ve been to countries where the pubs double up as shops—in Wales, actually. I think Cwmdu is one example, near Llandeilo, where the pub is also a shop. So, looking at ways in which pubs can also act as business hubs in communities, where the local shop can be, possibly, the post office—that’s one way forward to ensure that pubs have a viable future.