4. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs: The National Development Framework

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:05 pm on 1 May 2018.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 4:05, 1 May 2018

I'm very pleased, and I very much welcome the hardwiring of the well-being goals and the ways of working of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 into the planning policy for Wales, and into the national development framework. In the light of that, I wonder if you can say a little bit more about its development plan status and whether it enables you to do some of the following. For example, does it enable you to make it clear that out-of-town shopping centres will not be welcomed in the future because of the damage they do to place making in city centres or town centres? Does it enable you to insist that significant new housing developments will only take place where there is also decent public transport links, as it's impossible for us to meet our climate change obligations unless we control development to areas that are properly connected? Does it enable us, for example, to repeal the Land Compensation Act 1961, which is one of the main barriers to the development of new land for housing where there is housing need, as it enables people to hold on to land in the hope that at some future date it might become considerably more valuable than it is in its current status? So, I'd be keen to understand a little bit more about what levers this new national development framework gives you to really deliver on the well-being of future generations Act's aims.