I share absolutely all of the sentiments and views that have been expressed in the Chamber this afternoon so far. Like every Assembly Member and constituency, I also have estates with unadopted roads in my own area, the most prominent of which is the Sandy Cove estate, which the Deputy Presiding Officer will be familiar with. It's an estate of 250 bungalows that were built in the 1930s as holiday homes for wealthy people from around the UK to come and enjoy some time by the seaside in. But unfortunately, over a period of time, those homes have become permanent residences, and the company that built the estate has folded and left this legacy of all of these roads that, now, are in a very, very poor state of repair. It's not ducks we're seeing in those puddles, it's seagulls, predominantly, and unfortunately, many of the people who live on that estate—. There's a public health issue here, because many people who live on that estate are people with mobility problems, people with walking difficulties, other chronic illnesses, and the condition of those roads, the lack of pavements, the lack of drainage, the lack of even street lighting on those roads, is causing them, yes, anxiety, but also difficulties in just getting out. They are living in social isolation, many of them. They feel unsafe because it's dark. And of course this estate, to add to its woes, is also in a flood-risk area, immediately behind the sea wall defences in Kinmel Bay. It's been flooded on multiple occasions in recent years. So, it's in a pretty sorry state of affairs.

Now, to be fair to the local authority and others, they have tried to do what they can to support those residents. They've tried to look at what the cost of bringing those roads up to an adoptable standard might be, and the latest estimate is that it would be around £3 million, which is obviously a significant sum of money for 250 home owners to be able to find. In fact, it's nigh on impossible for them to raise that sort of sum in order to get those roads up to an adoptable standard.

And worse than that, of course, many of the people who own those properties don't actually live in them, they're rented out, because the value of those properties has been depressed as a result of the state of the road. So, obviously, they can be a lucrative source of income for some potentially unscrupulous buy-to-let landlords. So, that further complicates the problem, because of course those buy-to-let landlords, so long as their rent is being paid, so long as the income is coming in, they're not really interested in making any sort of contribution to bringing those roads up to a standard that is even passable for motor vehicles in some places. Frankly, the situation is intolerable and we need to do something about it.

A few years ago, back in 2011, I can remember being in this Assembly when the then environment Minister took a very brave decision to use some powers that she had under the Water Act 2003 to transfer private sewers and lateral drains into the water system, which is of course the responsibility of Welsh Water here. So, they were all basically adopted, whether they had been before or not. I think what we need is that sort of approach, frankly, with all of these historic unadopted roads, in order that we can solve this problem once and for all. Then, absolutely—as Mike and others have said—we need to change the planning system to make it a requirement that if an estate is going to be built, there has to be an adoptable road that is accessible.

One of the things that really irritates me on nearly every planning application I see these days is so-called 'private driveways'. You've seen them—where there's one single link road through the estate, which is adopted, and then you have a private driveway that serves as an access to about 10 or 15 different properties, which is generally brick paved because it looks attractive, but within four or five years is starting to crumble, the dips are starting to appear in it, because it's not been made up to an acceptable standard. So, we're storing problems up for the future, and I do believe that the current review of the planning system that is under way in Wales gives us an opportunity to sort this out once and for all.

One thing I would like—if the Cabinet Secretary is minded to establish a taskforce, which is an idea that I very much welcome—is that that taskforce sorts out, in terms of priorities, which areas might need to be addressed first, because I can tell you now that I suspect very much that the Sandy Cove estate in my own constituency would be right near the top of that list, for the reasons that I've outlined today. So, I encourage people to support the motion.