Many Members here will be familiar with the specific local background to this petition, which concerns Womanby Street in Cardiff city centre. A vibrant campaign has been undertaken during the first half of this year, in response to local concerns about the implications of new developments planned in the heart of one of the cultural centres of our capital city. Womanby Street, in the centre of the city, has long been one of its foremost cultural and creative hubs—perhaps it’s most famous for the live music venue and Welsh language club, Clwb Ifor Bach. I’m sure other Members here would wish to share their own experiences, or at least some of them, of the street in their own contributions to this debate.

Earlier this year, several planning applications in and around the area and fears over the impact these could have on live music venues there prompted the establishment of the ‘Save Womanby Street’ campaign. The campaign, in turn, gave rise to this petition. This issue has been raised previously in this Chamber by my colleague on the Petitions Committee Neil McEvoy, and a statement of opinion has also been signed by a number of Members here.

Before I open this motion up to wider debate, I want to outline briefly what the committee has heard about the specific proposals made by the petitioners. The agent-of-change principle is promoted by this petition and elsewhere as a way of protecting music venues from closure. It is argued that complaints made by residents of new developments about noise levels from established music venues have been a major factor in the closure of a number of music venues across the UK in recent years. The petition argues that adopting the agent-of-change principle would help to protect existing live music venues by stipulating that anyone seeking to develop or redevelop property nearby would be responsible for mitigating the impact of that change. That means that if, for example, housing or a hotel were built next to a live music venue, it would be the developer’s responsibility to mitigate the potential impact and noise from an existing live music centre.

Supporters of the agent-of-change principle argue that it would represent an important shift from current planning policies, which hold that whoever is reported as causing a nuisance is always responsible for that nuisance. This position is held irrespective of how long the noise considered to be a nuisance has existed or whether someone has moved into the vicinity of the noise in full knowledge of it. It is also important to note that the principle operates in both directions. So, where a new music venue is proposed near an existing residential building, the agent of change, the music venue in this case, would need to ensure they included appropriate measures to reduce noise.

The Petitions Committee first considered this petition on 23 May. Given the high level of support garnered by the petition and its timely nature, the committee decided to request this debate at the earliest opportunity. The indications are that the Welsh Government has also taken notice of the strong campaigning on this issue. Shortly before the committee’s first consideration of the petition, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs announced that she intends to revise national planning policy to support live music venues. We understand that in the review of ‘Planning Policy Wales’ taking place this summer, the Cabinet Secretary has indicated her wish for the agent-of-change principle to be explicitly referenced and also that national policy be updated to allow for the designation of areas of cultural significance.

On the face of it, this appears to be a victory for the petitioners and, potentially, a step forward for live music venues across the country. I look forward to hearing from the Cabinet Secretary and from other Members about this and how this Assembly feels we should be protecting the future of live music in Wales.

As a result of the timetable involved, we haven’t been able to undertake detailed investigations into the propositions and the Cabinet Secretary’s announcement. Therefore, we present this petition to the Assembly without making recommendations in any direction. The committee hopes that the contributions we hear from all Members today will support the Cabinet Secretary and her officials to further consider the merits of the changes proposed by the petitioners.