5. Welsh Conservatives Debate: Urban Renewal

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:39 pm on 6 June 2018.

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Photo of Nick Ramsay Nick Ramsay Conservative 3:39, 6 June 2018

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—