It is high time that placemaking is placed at the centre of the planning system and I'm delighted also to see it mentioned prominently in the economic action plan. We've seen too many large housing developments created with no local shops, no community centres, no schools—essentially without souls. We've placed the car at the centre of our planning system for the last 30 years and witnessed a dramatic expansion of car-based development. In the time from 1952, cycling, for example, has fallen from making up 11 per cent of journeys to making up just 1 per cent in 2016 and, at the same time, journeys by car have grown from 27 per cent to 83 per cent.

A generation ago, 70 per cent of children walked to school. Levels of walking to school have since steadily declined, sinking to 42 per cent in 2016 according to Living Streets. The planning system and planning policies have supported car-dependent developments, which have been the key drivers behind these trends, and we talk, Llywydd, familiarly about preserving the habitat of wildlife and creating an ecosystem that supports this growth, but we don't talk about planning and preserving a habitat for children to play, for neighbours to meet and for people to walk and cycle.

And today, as we are talking about mental well-being, it's appropriate that we touch upon the loneliness impact of this trend. Seventeen per cent of people in Wales report being lonely today. The Minister for Children and Social Care has recently declared loneliness to be a Government priority. There's been extensive research on the impact of traffic flows on social isolation. A study in Bristol showed that the average number of friends of each resident in a lightly trafficked street was 5.35 compared to 2.45 on a medium-trafficked street, and 1.15 average friends on a heavily trafficked street. Residents on the lightly trafficked street also reported more of a sense of community and togetherness. Yet, we continue to design residential streets that subject residents to constant streams of traffic.

So, it's essential that we place placemaking at the heart of the new edition of 'Planning Policy Wales', and in particular, if I may say in coming to a conclusion, Llywydd, bearing in mind the time of day, the active travel cross-party group has submitted evidence to the review of 'Planning Policy Wales' that points out the paucity of useful guidance and a lack of basic knowledge and skills amongst planners and other built environment professionals regarding how active travel facilities should be designed and integrated within development layouts. We need to build this into the hardwiring of the way we create new communities. It's all very well and good having declamatory statements in our policy documents, but it's the plumbing of it that makes a difference. And for placemaking to really have a practical effect, we need to change the detail of 'Planning Policy Wales' to allow our communities to be friendly to walking and cycling, so that neighbours can meet and talk and children can play without fear of traffic. Diolch.