The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Julie James, and amendments 2 and 3 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected.

The next item, therefore, is the Welsh Conservative debate on urban renewal and I call on David Melding to move the motion.

Motion NDM6734 Paul Davies

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes the importance of Wales’s urban areas as engines of economic growth, learning and creativity.

2. Believes that there is a requirement for an ambitious national strategy for urban renewal in Wales which would help make our towns and cities fit for the 21st Century.

3. Welcomes the Welsh Conservative white paper entitled ‘Liveable Cities’, which aims to build cities and urban areas that are socially inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and that are built on the principle of the health and well-being of citizens.

Motion moved.

Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Indeed, I am delighted to move the motion and open this debate this afternoon. For the first time in history, most of the world's population live in urban communities. In 2010 it was calculated that around 66 per cent of the Welsh population lived in its urban areas and this percentage has continued to grow year on year. This really should be no surprise to any of us as cities and towns are centres of enterprise, innovation and learning. They generate wealth and improve living standards, while providing the network and interaction that make us more creative and more productive.

The concentration of talent and creativity makes cities engines of innovation and engines of economic growth—places that we should celebrate, and it is in this spirit that we've brought forward point 1 of our motion this afternoon, which seeks to recognise the importance of Wales's urban areas. For that reason, I'm rejecting the Welsh Government's amendment, which we consider, for this afternoon's purposes, to be too broad. Rural areas certainly need full treatment, and complementary treatment, but that primarily comes through rural policy, and today I really want to focus on the urban challenges and opportunities that are before us.

I would say that, in towns and cities in Wales, we're not yet receiving the level of vision and ambition that we need from the Government to drive our country forward to reach its maximum potential. We in the Welsh Conservatives have recognised this, and we've put forward our vision to create towns and cities that are fit for the twenty-first century. We believe that it is essential to create liveable cities and urban areas that are good for the economy, socially inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and are built on the principle of the health and well-being of our citizens. They need to offer the quality of life and opportunity that not only makes citizens want to live in them, but also make businesses want to invest, and for those businesses to come from near and far.

We have the opportunity to attract highly skilled young people who are currently squeezed out of London and the overheated south-east of England. I really do believe that both the cities along the south Wales coastline but also the urban areas in north Wales have a great potential here when there’s so much talent that is just not going to have the level of economic and social opportunity that they would want in London and the south-east. It is a great opportunity. It’s one of the world’s most overheated economic areas, and we should be seeing it as a resource, as many cities in the north of England are currently doing. We’ve got a wonderful environment in cities like Newport, Cardiff and Swansea, so the great cities of Wales must be centres of excellence for our young people, and tomorrow’s social, creative and business entrepreneurs. We can build new, modern, state-of-the-art, twenty-first century cities that then set the bar for other cities in Europe, Asia and America, if we have a really ambitious vision. Given the optimum size, in many ways, of our cities, we can really stretch the standards that we want to see for modern living.

In Wales, however, we are still yet to see the significant economic growth that has materialised in many other cities across the UK. I’ve already mentioned London, but, more particularly for us, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh, but also I could mention Leeds and Sheffield. These cities are not really our competitors—I think there are so many opportunities there—but they have shown more enterprise and ambition in the way they are moving forward, and we do not want to be left behind.

Now, it is the case that with the advent of the Cardiff and Swansea region city deals, and that co-operation between the UK and Welsh Government, we are seeing greater opportunity and greater ambition, and I do very much welcome that. But whilst these deals are highly significant, and obviously welcome, they also present big challenges, because we need to revamp our urban policy and our vision so that we see the sort of growth that we really want to energise and fully benefit our citizens, and also be sustainable.

Would the Member give way?

Sure.

I thank the Member. I’ll have some kind words to say about what he is proposing later on, but just on this particular issue—he’s mentioned the city deals. Doesn’t he see that the city deals that are being promoted by his own Government in Westminster actually don’t really take into account the sustainability agenda that this debate and, to be fair, the paper that has been published try and address?

Well, it needs to be at the heart of that vision, and I certainly think that the greater scope it offers for planning and regional development is very, very important. But our vision is, as you say, set out in that paper, and we think it’s fully compatible with the co-operation we’re seeing between the UK and the Welsh Government.

But we have seen, perhaps to highlight the concern reflected in Simon’s comments, that in many cities around the world a lack of innovation and sustainable planning has too often left the blight of deprivation, overcrowding and urban sprawl. So, we do need more effective planning policies, and I know that that’s a subject of policy development at the moment, which we are going to play an active part in developing.

So, as I said, our cities need to belong to all the people of Wales, which includes those in the rural areas, and there need to be these engines of growth, creativity and learning, and above all, they must be putting people first. Our White Paper puts forward our policy proposals to transform our communities by enhancing the great urban inheritance that we have had passed to us, but, to add to that, a new sense of ambition for the future, and I use this concept of liveability as being at the heart of an effective urban strategy, and our document is titled 'Liveable Cities: a strategy for Welsh urban renewal'. It introduces 25 policy proposals to transform our urban environments. 

Thank you for giving way. I certainly support the liveable cities agenda, but there is a thorny public policy dilemma we need to engage with. There's good evidence to show that cities grow often at the expense of outlying areas. It often is a zero-sum game. So, what is the thinking on what can be done to help the left-behind areas?

We've not just published a strategy for cities; it's very important that we emphasise urban areas and you can look at the south Wales Valleys area as being, potentially, a more interconnected urban area. If you're looking at Swansea and then stretching across to Llanelli and beyond, it is very important. I accept that there is a danger you can suck too much into the core of these city regions, and that's something that certainly good planning must ensure that we avoid.

So, anyway, our policies cover the short, medium and long term and address four key themes of lifestyle, transport, housing and design. I should say that that detail on our housing policy will be fleshed out in a separate strategy document that we'll publish in the autumn. But, anyway, the areas that we've look at include parks and green spaces, internet connectivity, cycling and walking, electric vehicles, energy efficiency in housing, and increased tree coverage and green roofs. I was delighted that, in Cardiff University's sustainability strategy, they emphasise the need for greater biodiversity across their estate, not just in the green areas and their gardens but in green roofs. So, that's something that we want to see our universities leading in many respects.

As to the heart of the commitments that we have—as I said, there are 25—perhaps the core ones could be taken to be to make Cardiff the UK's first carbon neutral city. I do think that by marketing Cardiff in this way and leading the way, rather than waiting 10 years and then do what we have to do because of public pressure and what other cities are doing, we can really be ahead of the game and use it to project Cardiff's image as a forward-looking city. We want to pilot a city-wide single-use plastic ban in Wales and we're open to offers of where that should be. We want to ensure that all commercial developments over 1,000 sq m must have green roofing for at least 50 per cent of the total roof area of the development. A lot of cities around North America and Europe are now doing this and I point to Sheffield in the UK as a leader in this area. We want publicly owned urban brownfield sites to be provided at a discount to develop urban eco quarters. These would be housing developments with shared gardens that are high density, sustainable and provide for a mixture of tenures. I talked earlier about co-operatives, and this would be a key area for them, I think. We want to develop clean air zones in Newport, Swansea, Cardiff and Wrexham. And finally, can I just say that we aim to co-ordinate our urban policies so that more of Wales's busiest streets can become pedestrian zones?

So, that's our strategy. Can I just say that I think we've provided a very coherent vision of the way forward? And, therefore, I will not be supporting Plaid Cymru's amendment 2, but I will support amendment 3, which does touch upon a very important issue relating to urban strategy. We're happy to incorporate that as we find it constructive. So, I'm delighted to initiate this debate this afternoon, Llywydd, and I look forward for Member's contributions. 

I have selected the three amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on the Minister for Housing and Regeneration to move formally amendment 1, tabled in the name of Julie James.

Amendment 1—Julie James

Delete points 2 and 3 and replace with:

Notes the importance of supporting communities across all parts of Wales, both urban and rural, to ensure that they are attractive to invest, work, live, visit and study in.

Believes that supporting inclusive growth and building resilient, liveable communities requires a joined up approach to key interventions including economic development, regeneration investment, transport, infrastructure development, planning and skills.

Notes the Welsh Government’s recent Economic Action Plan, Targeted Regeneration Investment Fund, Valleys Taskforce Delivery Plan and National Development Framework consultation as the basis for a genuinely cross-government approach to supporting inclusive growth and building resilient, liveable communities.

Recognises the importance of working with partners including local authorities, city and growth deal regions, housing associations, Transport for Wales and the Development Bank of Wales to promote effective place-making. 

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally.

I call on Simon Thomas, therefore, to move amendments 2 and 3, tabled in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. Simon Thomas.

Amendment 2—Rhun ap Iorwerth

In point 3, replace 'welcomes' with 'notes'.

Amendment 3—Rhun ap Iorwerth

Add as new point at end of motion:

Calls on Welsh Government to introduce a clean air Act to tackle illegal and dangerous levels of air pollution in Wales’s cities.

Amendments 2 and 3 moved.

Thank you, Llywydd. I start, despite our amendment, by welcoming the debate that we’re having this afternoon. I don’t think it’s appropriate that we formally welcome a paper produced by any party, but I do welcome the debate and I welcome what’s contained within the paper, and I have nothing that I would personally disagree with.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

There are a few areas where I would go further, particularly in terms of renewable energy, but I welcome the fact that we are having an integrated debate on how these various elements build into a healthier urban environment, and an environment that’s more beneficial for our citizens. And I do want to emphasise the 'urban'. The title of the paper talks about cities, but we don’t really have cities in Wales; we have large towns, to all intents and purposes. The people of Cardiff may disagree, but, in terms of the pattern of the development of western Europe, we have large towns in Wales, but, more importantly, through south Wales and in parts of north Wales, we have a series of towns that are interlinked, and the connectivity between those towns and retaining the environmental balance under the well-being of future generations Act is crucially important in that context. There are some ideas in this paper that are new and some old. There’s nothing wrong with old ideas and, if they haven’t been implemented already, then do recycle those, of course, until they are implemented.

The main criticism I have of this—and I will get this out of the way before being more constructive—is that it’s suggested by a party that has been in Government for eight years in Westminster and hasn’t made any progress on some of these points. So, the overheating of the city of London still goes on under the macroeconomic system of the party of Government. The complaints and solutions on developing electric vehicle infrastructure are clear, but we haven’t seen any development or hardly any investment in Wales from the Westminster Government in this regard. And the gulf between the ideas in this paper and some of the actions of the Government and the Conservative Party in Government in Westminster is something to behold. But I would just note that so that people can take a view on it and come to their own conclusions.

As the main Plaid Cymru amendment suggests, we want to add—and I’m pleased that David Melding has accepted that this is a constructive addition—a broader clean air Act in Wales, which would affect all parts of Wales. There are aspects of the paper that I’m pleased to see. Just to take one example, the paper talks of monitoring air quality outside nurseries and schools and so on, which I support and have raised previously. The question is: what do you do once you’ve monitored? What steps will you then take to ensure that the air is cleaned? Because I would suspect that if we monitor real life in real time, we wouldn’t see the monitoring that we see in the figures published. There is very poor air quality outside some of the areas where our most vulnerable people go—young people to schools and older people to hospitals, and so on. But what do you do to improve that? And that’s why we talk of the need to introduce a clean air Act for Wales more broadly, not only to create the clean air zones that David Melding mentioned, but to give rights to communities to insist on having that information and to use that information to seek improvement in local air quality.

We also need to ensure that local authorities, who are very reluctant in Wales to introduce a charge for parking or travelling through cities at particular times—. This isn’t addressed in the paper, although David Melding has alluded to it in the past in the Chamber. If we are truly to tackle some of these issues, then we immediately must get to grips with the fact that large diesel lorries travel through city centres at a time when children are walking to school. We have to stop that somehow, or it has to be penalised in some way until alternative economic options are found. So, that’s why we want to encourage a broader strategy on clean air in that context.

I will conclude by blowing Plaid Cymru’s own trumpet, as you would expect in such a debate. I am pleased to hear the Conservatives discussing these things; Plaid Cymru has talked of many of these things for many years. But, more than that, we are content, although an opposition party, to have discussions with the Welsh Government on the provision of funding to resolve some of these problems. So, £2 million has been allocated for the development of electric vehicle infrastructure throughout Wales and £0.5 million has been allocated for tackling plastic pollution, particularly through a deposit-return scheme. I do think that actions of that kind are very important in politics. And, as for the party that’s proposed some of these good ideas, I would ask them to also consider what their party is doing as they are in Government themselves.

First of all, can I welcome the debate and the way David Melding brought it forward? I hope it's going to be part of a series that the Conservative group are going to bring forward in a constructive manner, as David has today. 

It is absolutely true that we need to acknowledge the importance of Wales’s urban areas as engines of economic growth, learning and activity. More specifically, it is the large urban centres that generate large-scale employment and wealth. We only need to look at London or, on a world scale, New York and Tokyo, or to look at much less well-known cities across Europe, places like Mannheim and Aarhus. This is why I am so keen on the creation of city regions. Whilst the economy of Cardiff city region involves substantial movement from surrounding areas into Cardiff, the Swansea bay city region involves a lot of movement into and out of Swansea and the other parts of the region.

Successful towns and cities have always been at the heart of economic development and the creation of prosperity. Whether as marketplaces or as centres of enterprise, knowledge, culture, learning and innovation, the economy of the country depends on their success. All urban areas should achieve their economic potential and enjoy substantial growth and rising prosperity. However, fairer sharing of prosperity should be ensured, and that's something we lack at the moment. Wealth and opportunity often exist side by side with poverty and isolation, often within the same cities.

The diverse skills and backgrounds of all people should be used properly, enabling everyone to fulfil their potential and excluding no-one. This is important for a caring and inclusive society to be created. This also makes sound economic sense as it will help to increase the long-term growth potential of the economy. Successful places need to be able to attract and retain businesses, based on understanding their requirements. An analysis of successful and less successful places suggests several factors that are crucial to the economic prosperity of towns and cities. The following four factors are the key to economic success: firstly, a culture of enterprise and innovation, where places adapt quickly to new opportunities and everyone can share in the possibilities and rewards of business success, and this includes embracing the opportunities presented by the revolution in information and communications technology, artificial intelligence and also in life sciences; private investment, including access to venture capital, essential for businesses to start up and grow, and to deliver jobs and opportunity for all; people equipped with the skills employers need, and with motivation and opportunity to work—a culture of lifelong learning, enabling people to fulfil their potential and maximising employment opportunities enabling a flexible response to changing opportunities and encouraging companies to come to, and remain in, towns and cities. Far too often, we have companies coming in, taking the grants and then moving out. Also, an efficient and reliable transport system, enabling efficient delivery of raw materials to industry and of goods to market and providing efficient access to jobs, making towns and cities better places to live in and helping tackle social exclusion.

So, what does this mean specifically for the Swansea bay city region? Economic and transport planning needs to be based on the region. We need to build on the strengths of the university. Too many students, including many from the area, move away the day after they graduate, or the month after they graduate. We need science parks attached to universities so that we can use them as innovation hubs and specialise in key economic sectors, life sciences and ICT being two that have great opportunities for growth. We also need an entrepreneurship and innovation centre that can provide a founder and incubator platform for students, young entrepreneurs and investors to get together and ensure that we grow our economy. We need to provide opportunities for businesses to start, but when they start they need access to capital, not just at the start-up stage but at the two important growth stages of small to medium-sized enterprise and then from medium to large. As we know, too often, medium-sized enterprises sell up to companies outside the area and the economic benefits for our area are reduced. Working with the universities and further education colleges, we need to upskill our population.

Finally, transport, which could be a debate in itself and would keep me going for well in excess of the five minutes I'm allowed. But, briefly, we need to reopen railway stations, and I welcome the comments made by the Minister, or the Cabinet Secretary, earlier today. But we need to have bus-rail interchanges. Far too often, the bus stops in one place and, to catch the train, you've got a 10 minute walk—quite nice on a day like today, but days like today are unusual. When it's cold and it's wet, it becomes an unpleasant journey. We need to have safe cycle routes. It's no good having cycle routes that cover 80 or 90 per cent of the journey; they have to cover the whole 100 per cent of the journey. It's a nice safe cycle route as long as you forget about the 100 yards you've got to go on the main road. 

Will you take an intervention, Mike, if you've got time? 

Certainly, yes. 

Would you also agree with me that when it comes to bus services—and I've found this myself from my own experience coming to Cardiff sometimes—that it's one thing having the bus to get you there in the morning, but you've got to make sure there's a bus service back then after 5.30 p.m., otherwise you're stuck and then you have to rely on taxis and other forms of transport? 

Absolutely. That's what I was going to say: we need bus services linking residential areas, work and leisure, going at the times people want to go to the work and leisure.

In conclusion, to grow our economy in south-west Wales, we need to develop and expand the economic opportunities in the Swansea bay city region and we all need to work together. So, thank you, David Melding, for bringing this debate.

According to the latest census, more than two thirds of people in Wales live in urban areas. As more people cram into our cities, problems of bad planning, overcrowding and poor accessibility become more evident. The challenge we face, therefore, is to create cities where people want to live: places where shops, jobs, social facilities and open spaces are easily accessible; places where planning takes account of social, economic and environmental development. This is why I welcome the proposal contained in our strategy for Welsh urban renewal or urban development. A successful city must balance social, economic and environmental needs. It must put the needs of its citizens at the forefront of all its planning activities. Poorly managed urban settlements will be unable to keep pace with urban expansion, bringing with them more poor health, poverty, social unrest and economic inefficiency.

Environmental hazards are responsible for the most common causes of ill health and morbidity among urban poor. Foremost amongst these is air pollution. In 2016, Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, Port Talbot and Chepstow all reported illegal and damaging levels of air pollution. Deputy Presiding Officer, over 143 deaths per annum actually happened in Cardiff in 2013 due to air pollution. Five English and four Scottish cities are leading the way in introducing clean air zones. The considerable cut in emissions seen in Berlin—which is a German city—over 10 years ago demonstrates what can be achieved because now that is one of the cleanest cities in the whole of Europe. We should make improving air quality a priority by introducing clean air zones in Wrexham, Newport, Cardiff and Swansea, and we should go further to protect the health of our children. All schools and nurseries should have air pollution monitors on the busiest roads within 10m of their premises.

Easy access to urban amenities by walking, cycling and public transport can remove the need to use cars and further reduce air pollution levels. One of the biggest barriers to cycling is the safety issue: the lack of cycling lanes. In the United Kingdom, Deputy Presiding Officer, in 2013, there were over 1,700 deaths on the roads, which is totally unacceptable. We propose to develop infrastructure to facilitate growth in cycling through the provision of additional bike lanes in urban areas. Our target is to double the length of cycling routes in urban areas by 2040. A community cycling fund would enable local communities to fund and design their own cycling networks with the aim of accessing local amenities.

Greater use of pedestrian-only streets reduces people's exposure to excessive levels of noise and air pollution. A study in Denmark reveals it can also provide a welcome boost to the local economy and retailers. We already provide concessionary bus passes for travel for our elderlies. I believe young people also need the support required for them to access education, jobs and training. That is why we propose introducing a new green card scheme to provide all 16 to 24-year-olds in Wales with access to unlimited bus travel freely in Wales.

Green spaces are essential to improving quality of life in our cities. Green spaces are essential to protect our environment and to improve the health of our citizens. We need an open space strategy that puts parks and the reclamation of derelict and underdeveloped land at the heart of urban regeneration. This would include a commitment to planting more urban trees. Urban trees not only improve the look of an area, they also produce the benefits of lowering urban temperatures and improving air quality.

Deputy Presiding Officer, the proposals contained in this document are about improving the quality of life of those who live in our cities, and we should be at the forefront in the United Kingdom to give our citizens the best possible clean life to live in. They are about enhancing the economy and ensuring a clean and safe environment for our citizens and our future generations. I believe they deserve the support of this Assembly and of the next generation to come. Thank you.

Thanks to the Conservatives for bringing today's debate. We broadly support what they're calling for today. The motion itself is a little vague, but it does refer us to their White Paper, 'Liveable Cities'. The White Paper is interesting and it focuses on, among other things, the nitty-gritty areas of transport and housing, to which I think they should have also added the related issue of employment. And Oscar Asghar in his contribution just mentioned that issue, so clearly you're aware that that is part of the tapestry you're trying to weave here as well.

You do cover a lot of policy areas in 'Liveable Cities', so I will have to confine myself to commenting on just a few of the areas that you go into. There are proposals relating to undeveloped land becoming parkland, anti-littering initiatives, a plastics ban—all pretty good stuff that we, again, would broadly support—and then there is the encouragement of more cycle routes and more walking. Well, we would all here generally tend to support that kind of aspiration, but the problem is how we achieve it.

The Welsh Government have their own active travel programme that aims to expedite these very things, but the problem is actually turning fine objectives into meaningful action. Cycling was just mentioned in the last contribution. With cycling, there is a problem of space, as Oscar mentioned. Cyclists don't want to ride on busy roads for the very reasons that were just described: the danger of too much traffic on the roads and also heavy goods vehicles among them, which I believe Simon Thomas mentioned earlier today—possibly in this debate. So, because of these issues, cyclists often tend to take to the pavements—understandably so.

Cycle paths in cities tend to merge with footpaths, so then then cyclists are mixing with pedestrians. I do a 50-minute walk to work every day, and back, along a route that is also used as a cycle path. As a pedestrian, I do actually object to having to be put at risk by cyclists who are going too fast without using bells. [Interruption.] I couldn't hear that, Jenny. I do agree with the aim of getting more people cycling, but I don't really, if I'm honest, actually want to be sharing the footpath with them.

I just want to emphasise that whilst cyclists might pose a risk to a pedestrian, that is nothing as compared with cars. So, I think dangerous driving is far more significant an issue than poor cycling.

Yes, the point was made by Simon Thomas earlier, and I would agree that the biggest danger is caused by the cars. I think the point I'm making is that the three different things don't really mix at all. Cars, cycles, pedestrians, the difficulty is trying to find a viable way of cyclists and pedestrians becoming more active and using that mode of transport without everything interfering with the other thing. So, this, I do find, is a genuine difficulty as a pedestrian. I know you cycle a lot, Jenny, so I'm trying to look at it from the perspective of a pedestrian. So, I think there is a difficulty. I think the problem is: where is the space for all of these different modes of transport to be viably promoted?

A major issue is that there are now too many cars on the road. Our current towns and cities were not designed for this amount of cars, so we do need to reduce the number of cars on the road, which takes us on to one of the Conservatives' ideas, which is about encouraging the use of buses, which, again, Oscar was describing in his contribution.

There is a proposal to make transport free for 16 to 24-year-olds on the buses. This would be a bold move. I can see that this might lead to a culture change, and it's worth thinking about this. In the long term, there could be a massive theoretical gain. The problem is, in the short term, what would be the budgetary cost to the Welsh Government of providing this kind of facility. Such a move, if it was made, could encourage many young people not to use cars all the time. It won't encourage all of them, because some of them won't envisage using buses because buses are not cool. The ones that do use the proposed bus cards, these cards will also encourage them to walk from their homes to the bus stop, so it could also encourage the idea of walking, because at the moment a lot of youngsters are only interested in walking, unfortunately, from the couch to the car parked outside the house. Within a few short years, many of these same youngsters could be obese and will be a drain on the NHS, so we do have to look at the long-term potential cost savings. Surely, this is the kind of long-term thinking that tends to be encouraged by our future generations commissioner, so I wonder what she would think about your policy of free bus travel for the young. I wonder, of course, what the Government Minister has to say about it today. Of course, we also need to cost this and think about how on earth it would be funded.

I think I've come to the end of my time. There was a lot of stuff to cover. We broadly agree with the Conservatives; on the Plaid amendments, the one about clean air we do support. We know you're doing a lot of Government initiatives, but we do wonder about the effectiveness of them, because the active travel Act, there are lots of doubts about how effective it is, so we are opposing your amendments today. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

I think there's plenty to like in this strategy, but what's particularly attractive is how immediately relevant it is to my own, primarily urban, region of South Wales West, and so I'm going to start, rather bravely, I think, with one proposal that I think could be improved upon, if I don't incur the wrath of David here.

One point three billion pounds is lined up for the Swansea bay city deal, and that's all about economic growth, learning and economic activity, as it says in the motion. That includes investment, specifically, in an internet-themed test bed to support innovation with 5G mobile connectivity. So, I'd like to suggest that the wider metropolitan Swansea area, rather than Cardiff, should be one of the first places in the UK to roll out 5G, because the plans have already started to be developed. The money is there, and of course it reaches beyond the city itself. We are talking about urban, and urban is not the same as civic, which is a point that others have made today.

Part of the thinking behind a digital city region was a reduction in traditional transport needs, and that will be true to some degree, but people will still want to connect with their wider physical environment, I think, which is becoming a less pleasing experience in Port Talbot and Swansea—part of my region—not least due to that industrial pollution combined with nitrogen dioxide from traffic that, as we've heard, has reached illegal and, of course, pretty damaging levels. I know we've discussed it before with the environment Minister.

This isn't just a problem for the very heart of the city. I think it's going to be interesting to see whether the Hafod bypass, for example, reduces the impact on Pentrehafod School, or whether the fact that the trains are left idling for 10 hours or more at Landore wipes out the effect of that piece of urban planning. So, I'm pleased to see the Plaid amendment as well regarding a clean air Act, but I think we could actually get cracking on clean air zones now, as suggested by the strategy.

Connecting with the wider environment means our walking environment too, and the plastics ban, of course, is a very valuable approach to the problem of littered streets, but I was particularly taken by Cardiff's plans for targeted cleaning of frontages and doorways, and gull-proof bags. I'm pretty confident that Swansea's herring gulls have absolutely no idea what a herring looks like. They can get into Styrofoam burger cartons faster than an under-10s football team and most of them seem bigger and far more insolent than the average 10-year-old as well. That's an issue in itself, because we know about rats and rubbish, but when it's nesting time or when it's time for the chicken-nugget-fed chicks to learn to fly, adult seagulls just become dambusters, and they become very dangerous as well. The only positive side to this is that they particularly like cyclists on pavements, but that makes two of us.

Now, before people lose their rag on that, why do some people cycle on pavements? Sometimes it's genuine ignorance and sometimes it's just pigheadedness, but very often it's because of the road surface being too dangerous, as well as the traffic, which we all know about, and, very often, because retrofitted cycle lanes are in the wrong place or because the local authority thinks it's more important to have a bed of New Zealand flaxes in the middle of the road, rather than using that space creatively to create a safe cycling area.

This is why I'm drawn to the community cycle fund—Oscar mentioned it earlier—because it's a fine example of co-production in the first place, because it means that it's local communities who design their own cycling networks and infrastructure like secure bike parks. It also gives cyclists the chance to make a claim for use of some—but not all—existing pavements and pedestrianised areas, because some can be used safely for bikes and pedestrians if the use of that available space is well designed, although I recognise Gareth's point that shared space isn't always great. It's much better if they're designed separately in the first place.

On the point of pedestrianisation, I think we do have some lessons to learn from the past. We have got some great examples in Cardiff, complete with convenient quality parking where it invites shoppers and other visitors to stay for a long period of time and walk—and sometimes cycle—in the area, but there are terrible examples as well, like Bridgend. As well as the impact of the internet and retail parks, the high street there is slowly closing down because of overpedestrianisation. It's become beloved of chuggers. These previously very busy streets are cut off from their clientele, if you like—the top-up shoppers, people going for haircuts, quick coffees. The car parks aren't very central and the busy through-roads cut off residents who might be tempted to actually walk into the town centre, which brings me, then, to the residential space. I don't have time to give this the attention is deserves: intergenerational living, the location and so on. I'll leave that for another day.

I just wanted to mention the green spaces. The well-being effects of those are so well documented, and it's one of the reasons why I find it so difficult to understand Swansea council's determination to build a school on Parc y Werin—the one such town centre green space in Gorseinion—when there is more than one alternative site for that school. 

Most importantly and finally, we must plan with vision not panic. Building nothing for years and then pushing out these huge estates miles away from the urban facilities that Oscar mentioned distorts communities and leads to life in a car, not cycling and walking, when we could be actually living in liveable cities. Thank you.

I very much welcome the debate brought forward by David Melding, and I think there are lots of really interesting ideas in the paper he presented to his own party's conference. Decarbonisation, I'm very pleased to say, is a key priority of the Welsh Government's economic action plan, so I think there are lots of exciting ideas that we can pick up on in delivering what we absolutely have to do to meet our climate change obligations. We've seen what can be done if we're ambitious, as with the recommissioning of the Wales and the borders rail service, which has many environmental features, including some of the lines being 100 per cent eco, and I think that that is a really important indication of what we can do. I absolutely agree that Cardiff is of an optimum size, and we definitely don't want to see it growing into some sort of ghastly urban sprawl, which is what will happen unless local authorities and the planning Act prevent that happening, because certainly that would be what the developers would like. So, we need to fiercely enforce the green belt around our capital city if we're going to avoid the sort of creeping urban sprawl that would simply eliminate everything that we celebrate about Cardiff.

I would love to make Cardiff the UK's first carbon-neutral city, and I think it's fantastic that David Melding is articulating that ambition. I think that the green routes on at least 50 per cent of commercial developments is definitely something we should be aiming for. The flats that have been built above St David's 2 in the city centre are a good indication of what can be done with proper advance planning, because there are gardens in the sky that the residents of those flats are able to enjoy, even though they're in an area that's obviously completely concrete, as it's the middle of the shopping district. But I think that that's the sort of thing we should be expecting of any other further city centre developments—[Interruption.] Yes.

I agree with what you just said about developments like St David's 2. What's also great about that type of development is that the car parking areas, which are very useful at the moment, are built in such a way that in the future they could themselves be converted into flats; that could all be residential space. So, it's important to futureproof buildings as well, and make sure that that is in the planning system to cater for the world tomorrow, not just today.

That's a fantastic idea. I hadn't appreciated that, but I'll get onto that immediately, because one of the problems we have in Cardiff is that we've got over 1,000 city centre parking places, which is obviously allowing people to do absolutely the wrong thing. They should be coming in on public transport or park and ride, rather than trying to park in the middle of the city centre; it's absolutely crazy. Clearly, there needs to be parking for the people who reside in those flats, but they are very small in number.

I wanted to just talk a little bit about the eco-town planning policy that was launched by the last UK Labour Government in 2008, which was designed to provide both additional housing and mitigate and adapt to climate change. Unfortunately, tragically, the coalition Government that succeeded it tore this up—the famous codicil to the autumn statement in 2015 by George Osborne, where he slipped through abandoning the zero-carbon building regulations that we could otherwise be enjoying today. I do hope that the Welsh Government will look seriously at introducing this so that we're not having to retrofit the houses that we're building tomorrow with further environmental cladding when we shouldn't have allowed them to build at such poor quality in the first place.

I think, three years after that disaster, there are several towns around the UK that are looking to new ways of developing sustainable urban places. For example, Solihull has got a new sustainable urban quarter around the high speed 2 interchange near the M42, connecting Birmingham Airport, the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham International station and the new HS2 station with a completely automated people mover, which is being delivered by something called the Urban Growth Company. In Bristol—closer to us—they've got Grow Bristol, which is not your average farm. It's run out of recycled shipping containers, uses innovative ways to sustainably farm fish and salad vegetables to sell directly to Bristol's consumers and to the city's restaurant trade clients. 'We’re talking about food metres, not food miles', says one of the company's founders. This is something that I know that some of Cardiff Council's cabinet members are looking at closely, because this is a hydroponic, aquaponic system to grow leafy greens and farm tilapia, with the waste from the fish used to feed the plants. Councillor Michael Michael, the cabinet member for the environment, is looking at a similar scheme here in Cardiff because we need to do this sort of thing. With Brexit coming along, we are potentially at huge risk of losing most of the vegetables that we currently import from Europe. So, we need to think very quickly about this.

I appreciate I've run out of time, but I think we have the expertise here in Cardiff, through a lot of the sustainable development expertise at Cardiff University, both to build sustainable housing and sustainable food programmes. So, I think we need to think outside the box and really take forward our climate change obligations.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute in this debate, and I congratulate the lead speaker on bringing forward such an interesting and dynamic policy document, which seeks to address many of the posed questions that we, as elected Members, get from our constituents if we represent cities like Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, or indeed our larger towns such as Newtown, Wrexham, or Barry as well. Because, actually, a lot of the thinking in this document doesn't necessarily have to be exclusively in the urban area; it can carry into our larger towns and our market towns the length and breadth of Wales. One thing that jumps at you straight away when you read the foreword to the document is that nearly 70 per cent of the population of Wales now live in an urban area. 'Define "urban area" and discuss', you could say, but most people have an image of Wales—and rightly so have an image of Wales—as a green and pleasant land, because the vast majority of Welsh land is green and pleasant. But, when you put it on a population basis, this affects a huge number of our countrymen and women who are looking to their politicians to alleviate the blight of many poor decisions that have been taken by previous generations, especially in town planning, especially in the brutality of the 1960s and 1970s, where concrete jungles were created and the solutions that we today say should be put in place for transport measures were just completely discarded, when there was far greater scope to clear sites and create that urban space, that liveability, that David talked about in his opening remarks that we now should grab the mantle of and actually drive forward.

I do think that it is incumbent on the current Welsh Government, and on all political parties, to come up with the solutions and come up with the route-map that this document clearly identifies as, certainly, the Welsh Conservatives' offer to many of these pertinent questions and, indeed, timeline the solutions that you'll put in place, because the document maps out a timeline between 2025 and 2040 of when we, as Welsh Conservatives, would very much like to see a lot of these policies in place to make the difference. Let's not forget that we are falling behind because of the metro mayors and the city mayors in England, right along Offa's Dyke, from Bristol up to Liverpool and Manchester and Birmingham in between—a lot of the city mayors' electability at the ballot box is to make these big improvements, both economically and environmentally, in the city cultures that they preside over now. It's not a central Government policy now to deliver most of these initiatives on the ground; it is for those metro mayors and city mayors to do that.

So, the Welsh Government really does have to get to grips with devolving responsibilities out to our urban areas so that they can utilise the dynamics of the local economy and the local solutions that can be put in place for some of the quick and early wins that we need to achieve, and then the more long-term solutions that need to be put in place with a more joined-up planning system. Time and time again, when I look at the planning environment around Cardiff, which I've had the pleasure to represent in this Chamber now for nearly 12 years—. It's not exclusively Cardiff; the Member for Llanelli touched on the point in his intervention a little earlier about 'what about the outlying areas?' You only need to drive up the A40 in the morning to see the commute into Cardiff, and then drive the other way back and see the commute out of Cardiff, to show that the cities are the engine for growth for the wider region that encompasses that area. So, we must have a planning system that isn't fit for the 1950s and the 1960s, but is fit for the twenty-first century and the third decade that we're going into now of that twenty-first century.

I've sat in this Chamber over the last 12 years and heard various planning Ministers, from the wonderful debates and statements that we used to get from my namesake, Andrew Davies, and the spatial planning—whatever the thing was called. It used to torment us, to be honest with you, the amount of debates that we used to have.  

The Wales spatial plan.

The spatial plan—wherever that went to. Then, all of a sudden, we're getting various announcements now about how the Government is being progressive in its thinking around the planning system. Well, actually, there doesn't seem to be much progress, I would suggest, that residents, certainly in the west of Cardiff, are pointing to at the moment to say that they feel that their voices and their needs are being listened to and we are getting the modern cities that have the environmental solutions, such as the green spaces on the tops of roofs. This document highlights that, in Singapore, for example, there are 100 hectares of green space on rooftops in Singapore. That's 240 acres for the old imperialists in this Chamber like myself, who measure things in acres. That, in the middle of one of the most densely populated cities, shows what can be achieved if you open your mind to some of these solutions.

We can be at the forefront of breaking some of this technology and developing that technology, and I really do hope that the Minister in her response will offer a road map of where the Welsh Government is taking some of these tricky questions and putting answers to those questions. Because, actually, the amendment today gives an indication that there is a lot of activity going on, but like a swimmer who is kicking like hell under the water but not really moving very far forward— that certainly is the sense that I feel when I look at much of the activity coming from the Welsh Government on many of these issues. Yes, there are many groups that you can point to, and think tanks that are advising, but we are not seeing the game-changing solutions put in place, and we need to see that because, as I said, 70 per cent of the population of Wales is written up as living in an urban environment and, if we are going to be a successful and dynamic economy for the twenty-first century, we have to develop those urban environments that have that liveability, that have that economic dynamic, and, above all, are beacons of excellence that other countries look at for the problems that they face. That's why I urge the house this afternoon to support the motion that is down in the Welsh Conservatives' name.      

Can I now call the Minister for Housing and Regeneration, Rebecca Evans?

Thank you very much. I do welcome the debate today and the spirit in which it was brought forward by David Melding. I don't think I have enjoyed a debate as much as the one today for quite some time, because we have heard some really constructive and thoughtful contributions. 'Prosperity for All', our national strategy, makes it clear that communities are a national asset, and we will invest in them, both urban and rural, as our amendment to the debate makes clear. So, we'll be ensuring that communities across the length and breadth of Wales are attractive to live in, work in, invest in, study in and to visit. To do this, it does require the kind of joined-up cross-Government place-based approach that we're pursuing through our economic action plan, our £100 million targeted regeneration investment programme, our Valleys taskforce delivery plan and the national development framework that we are consulting on. So, these are the kind of game changers that Andrew R.T. Davies was looking for in his contribution. It does require close working with our partners, including local authorities, city and growth deal regions, housing associations, Transport for Wales and the Development Bank of Wales. 

But our focus today in this debate is on our urban communities, and in seeking to understand the challenges and the opportunities facing our town and city centres, it's important that we engage with research and expertise. Earlier this year, I enjoyed a really useful discussion with the Carnegie UK Trust discussing their international research 'Turnaround Towns' also their Wales-specific report, which looks at the challenges and opportunities facing our urban areas here.

The challenges are well rehearsed, and many relate to our changing patterns as consumers, but there are opportunities too for our towns and cities to capitalise on areas that can't be fulfilled online: our desire for experiences, for leisure, for culture, our desire to engage, our desire for the personal touch and for excellent customer service, and our need to access good quality affordable housing in a place where we live and work. With our support urban areas can adapt and they can evolve: closed banks into pubs, empty shops into homes, and derelict land into green open spaces.

We know the importance of those green open spaces and delivering nature-based solutions including green infrastructure. This is one of the national priorities in the Welsh Government's national natural resources policy. It's central to our vision for a Valleys landscape park, which has the potential to help local communities use their natural and environmental resources for tourism, energy generation and good health and well-being, and it's why we're investing in our Green Flag awards scheme. It's why evidence on urban tree canopy cover is being shared by Natural Resources Wales with public service boards to influence their local well-being plans.

Liveable urban spaces that promote good health and well-being should be well kept, and the Welsh Government is acting on several fronts to address the use of plastic. We're a world leader in recycling and we want to be the world's first refill nation. We're investing £6.5 million in our circular economy investment fund and, more widely, in the Year of the Sea, we're proud to sign the UN Environment Clean Seas plastic pledge, and a Wales clean seas partnership has been established to create a long-term legacy from our hosting of the Volvo Ocean Race to turn the tide on plastic. 

Liveable urban spaces that promote good health and well-being should also be easier to walk and cycle in, and also to use other forms of sustainable transport. We recently announced an additional £60 million of funding to enhance local walking and cycling networks and Vibrant and Viable Places funding is also being used with active travel in mind. As Simon Thomas said in his contribution, we're investing £2 million in additional electric charging points for electric vehicles with a focus on rapid chargers, and we will seek sustainable private investment for charging points to maximise and build on this public investment, as part of our commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality. Improving air quality is a priority for the Welsh Government. We're consulting on clean air zones, are taking action to reduce emissions in the most polluted locations and we've introduced a new £20 million clean air fund to support improvements needed at a local level. Our wider clean air plan for Wales, which will be about more than road traffic pollution, is planned for later this year.

As Minister for Housing and Regeneration, I'm passionate about housing-led regeneration. Our Vibrant and Viable Places programme has been successful in delivering this in a number of communities, but I see the potential to scale this up through our new £100 million targeted regeneration investment programme. Alongside this, we're investing £90 million in our innovative housing programme— 

Minister, will you take an intervention? 

Yes. 

I'm grateful to the Minister for taking an intervention. Do you recognise that the best way to get the best solutions on regeneration, especially in a local environment, is to devolve as much responsibility down, when it comes to regeneration, to those communities and local authorities and businesses so that they can determine what's important in their own areas, rather than the very centralist model that you currently operate? 

The targeted regeneration investment programme is very much about locally led solutions for local regeneration. It's undertaken on a regional basis, but those discussions are undertaken amongst those local authorities within the region and it is for those local authorities to use their local knowledge to decide how to spend that £100 million. Welsh Government won't be directing how that money will be invested; it will genuinely be decided on the basis of local decisions and local knowledge and intelligence that our local authorities have.

So, alongside our investment in innovative housing, we are using that programme to support schemes that will stimulate the design and delivery of new, quality affordable homes to increase supply as part of our 20,000 new affordable homes target, and also to speed up the delivery of homes to market. It's also allowing us to trial new housing models and methods of delivery that address issues such as the pressing need for housing, fuel poverty, demographic change and climate change. For the first time, I've opened this fund up to SMEs and also the private sector, but I know it will be particularly interesting to SMEs, which have a strong track record of taking risks and of being the first people to innovate. That, alongside our stalled sites fund and our property development fund, will support them to return to house building in a way that they haven't been able to before recent years. It will be particularly important within our urban areas in infill sites and windfall sites, for example. 

We're also supporting a £27 million town centre loan scheme to assist in bringing empty sites and buildings back into viable use across 34 town centres. I've already seen some fantastic examples of use of this funding, bringing about real change. The exciting thing about this investment is that it can be recycled many times over, supporting more great regeneration projects over a 15-year period.

Business improvement districts enable local businesses to work together and bring additional private sector funding and investment into our urban areas. There are currently eight BIDs across Wales, and they will generate over £500 million of private investment during their term, which is a really significant return on our £240,000 investment. I recently announced funding of a further £270,000 to support the development of up to nine new BIDs. This is really exciting because the business community is well placed to be leading regeneration and economic development in their local areas, working closely with wider partners in a spirit of creativity and innovation. 

Will you take an intervention? It's on that specific point about BIDs, and it's a key point. I know that they work very well in many areas, but certainly in my area, I know that Abergavenny was given the option of having a BID and rejected it. So, would you agree with me that, when you're setting up a business area like that, it's important that you get buy-in in advance from the local businesses and from the local people? Because if you don't have the buy-in of the people it's supposed to help, then you won't really get anywhere with it.

I agree that it has to be locally led and locally delivered, which is why it's important for areas that have the opportunity to become business improvement districts to look at the success that has been generated in other parts of Wales, where the local members and local businesses have decided to opt in.

I can see that time is running out, so I will bring things to a close by talking very briefly about the fact that we continue to use EU funding in support of regeneration activity through our £50 million Building for the Future programme. Their first project was announced recently in Pontypridd and I look forward to making further announcements soon. It's really important that we don't try to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to regeneration. Every place is different and everywhere will require a bespoke approach. Our support is flexible and it does enable just that to happen. So, in that context, it must be undertaken in partnership and that was really well recognised in the Carnegie work, which I referred to at the very start of my contribution. Promoting strong, urban centres can't be done by national Government alone. Although we will show leadership, it does need to be owned by the communities involved, and that is the spirit very much in which we will continue.

I now call on Nick Ramsay to reply to the debate.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. The Minister was very generous there in taking my intervention, given that I was just about to stand up. Feel free to take some of my time, if you want.

No, I think the Deputy Presiding Officer was more generous in allowing it to happen.

Of course, yes. Thank you.

I'll get on with my comments. David Melding's highly constructive introduction to this debate set the tone for this debate—and can I thank everyone who has contributed? You spoke in a fine fashion, as ever, David. You used a number of key terms such as 'cities as urban engines' and 'centres of innovation' and you spoke about the need to boost urban renewal, and also to recognise the importance of the city region as not just about the urban core, but about everything around it as well. I think it was Lee Waters's intervention on you where he raised the point about the need to make sure that everything is not sucked into that urban core, but that, in this modern age of the city region, we recognise the importance of it as the heart of the area, but not the ends of it.

David referred to our urban renewal policy, launched recently, and some of our key objectives to make Cardiff a carbon-neutral city. We can do that; we can really set the agenda. We can get ahead of the curve with regard to Cardiff and setting that new tone. If you are going to be forced to do that in the future anyway, then why not try and set the agenda here in Wales? And Welsh Government will have our support in trying to do that.

You also mentioned the idea of how people in the future—. We often talk about the problem of housing and the shortage of housing. In the future, people don't necessarily need the same types of housing and the same types of urban spaces as they had in the past, and certainly the idea of higher-density homes with shared gardens would certainly suit not all people, but would certainly suit young people, particularly some younger people who want to get on the housing ladder.

Look, whether you support the Welsh Conservative policy in this area or not—and I got the feeling from the debate that many people did—I think that all Members agree this was a debate that was worth having. We've had this debate in various forms over the years, and this is another aspect of that, and I know that all parties have their ideas and their policies and their strategies, which can all dovetail with the Welsh Conservative policy in this area and really get on with the job of what we want to do, which is to make our urban areas a better place for those who live in them.

I think one thing is clear: we cannot simply leave urban areas to get on with it themselves and hope that somehow they will magically develop in the best way possible. We saw back in the 1970s and 1980s the first signs of what will happen if you did that—in the United States with cities like Los Angeles, and Californian cities in particular, where the car became king and you ended up with doughnut-type cities, where you had retail developments on the edges and then, eventually, nothing in the middle at all, a kind of wasteland. And we started down—in fact, we did start down the line in some of our towns and cities in Britain in that, but we made sure that we stopped along that way to disaster and we tried to improve things. We need to make sure in the future that that certainly doesn't happen again.

So, key themes: planning, public transport, air quality. As Suzy Davies said in her contribution, planning with a vision. The announcement of the new Transport for Wales franchise recently can, of course, be a key component in this renewal process. There are some very good objectives in there; we need to make sure those objectives are actually delivered on. But, certainly, the direction of travel with regard to Transport for Wales is a good one. And transport is key. I intervened on Mike Hedges, because I've tried myself—. I would dearly love to travel from my village in Monmouthshire to the Assembly by public transport, which I can actually do very easily by bus from Raglan to Newport, then by train from Newport to Cardiff. But you try getting back after 17:30 from Newport to my village. And I'm not out in the sticks; it's on the A449. But it's virtually impossible to do. So, there are areas here where planning and Welsh Government really can make a difference in the future.

I appreciate that time is short, Dirprwy Lywydd, and you have been very generous with me today, so I will not witter on. But take this debate—

No, please don't. 

I knew you wouldn't let me. Take this debate where it comes from: it is, as David Melding said at the start, an attempt at a constructive contribution to a debate that I know we all want to have, we all need to have, and let's get on with the job of making our urban areas in Wales a better place for everyone who lives in them.

Thank you. The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Therefore we defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.