I'm really pleased to be able to just contribute a few minutes on this, having spent my previous life working through, on the Conwy County Borough Council planning department, with them and their LDP. It was a nightmare. We had to take so many evidence sessions, we had to prove the Welsh Government wrong when they sent two Government officials up, and told us the numbers of houses we had to have. It wasn't about placemaking at that time, and we're now living—. It was a previous Welsh Government Cabinet, but we're now living with some of those problems. And the annoying factor is, not only have we deposited our LDP here, applications are now coming in thick and fast for areas that have never been identified in our LDP, and of course the finger of blame is pointing to TAN 1. When you speak to some constituents of mine, they probably think TAN 1 is about a particular shoe leather colour, but when you actually look into the actual implications of TAN 1, it has turned around what we had, which was an 8.1 year supply, I think, now, to three, and it's all about residual building house numbers. I won't bore you with the detail, but if ever you want a one-to-one lesson on TAN 1, and the mess that it is at the moment—. And the Cabinet Secretary, to be fair, has said to many questions that I've raised on it that she is listening and that she's going to be looking at it in some further detail.

On larger planning applications, we've heard, 'Oh, brownfield sites must be used first', but yet, we still see this good agricultural land, good-quality grade agricultural land, coming forward, and the policy of where it shouldn't threaten the well-being of the farm. All that seems to be is that we say one thing here in policy, but in real terms, it doesn't apply. And the latest application—in September, I'll be speaking at a planning inquiry again. That should have been in March, then it was put off until May. And this is an application that has raised well over 1,300 objections. It has local councillors, it has the ward members, cabinet members—it has everybody saying, 'No, no, no, we cannot take any more infrastructure on this particular piece of land.' But when planning members were trying to defend it, they were trying to use the Welsh language and make relevance to it in policy, and actually wanting assessments. And on the ground, literally, it's not coming through. As stated in the draft 'Planning Policy Wales' edition,

'when identifying sites to be allocated for housing in development plans, planning authorities must follow a search sequence, starting with the re-use of previously developed land and buildings within settlements'.

It isn't happening. I've raised countless times in this Chamber about the changes to methodology for calculating the housing land supply. This was proposed in 2014. Seventy-nine per cent of planning authorities, including Conwy, disagreed with the proposals, with those opposed favouring the past build rates methodology instead. As a result of the subsequent changes to the methodology outlined—as you can see, I'm keen to get this on the record—under TAN 1 guidance in 2015, many planning authorities have seen their housing land supply figures absolutely skewed now. And this is placing a huge amount of pressure on the local authority planning officers, and it's actually setting them at a disadvantage with elected members. And let's not forget, in a true democracy, it is the elected members who are there to represent their constituents, who should really be able to be part of the decision process.

I know that there's been strong sentiment here today about getting rid of the Planning Inspectorate. I've even been asked recently on some applications that have gone forward why there is a planning inspection for failed developments going forward that could be overturned at planning inspections, but there's not an appeal process for people who have things granted that they don't agree with. So, maybe that needs to be looked at. There needs to be some balance to the planning process full stop.

'Planning Policy Wales' paragraph 2.14 states that if

'policies in an adopted LDP are outdated for the purposes of determining a planning application...local planning authorities should give the plan decreasing weight in favour of other material considerations such as national planning policy'.

TAN 1 paragraph 6.2 states that

'Where the current study shows a land supply below the 5-year requirement...the need to increase supply should be given considerable weight when dealing with planning applications provided that the development would otherwise comply with development plan and national planning policies.'

Now is a very timely moment for you to be looking at this in a most strategic manner, Cabinet Secretary. I'm fully behind and back a lot of the proposals in the well-being of future generations Act, and I think that the planning policy of our communities is a really good way to start to implement a lot of not just the aspirations, but the goals and ambitions of that Act. So, thank you, and just make sure you listen about TAN 1. Thank you.