Local Development Plans

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 26 June 2018.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:08, 26 June 2018

It's hugely important that we have a planning system that works as effectively as it can. He's right to report that a consultation has taken place on the disapplication of paragraph 6.2 of TAN 1. We're considering the evidence on that now. But there is here a responsibility on local authorities as well, because it is important that local authorities agree governance arrangements to move on rapidly to progress a strategic development plan.

The difficulty is, of course, that local authorities will look at producing a development plan for their own areas. The reality is that people will live in their area and work somewhere else. If you look at my own constituency, many thousands of people work in Cardiff and happen to live in Bridgend. To suggest that, somehow, you can have a development plan in Bridgend that's wholly separate to that of the Vale of Glamorgan or Cardiff really doesn't work, because in reality it's one large area.

So, it is important now—. He will know the pressures, of course, in Caerphilly, as he's mentioned them many, many times. It is hugely important now that local authorities do now get together and do decide who is going to take forward the strategic development plan, in order to make sure that there's a greater distribution of people around the area. Otherwise, it's right to say that most of the development, I suspect, will fall on Cardiff, it'll fall on southern Caerphilly, and we need to make sure that a strategic development plan is in place to make sure that there is not overdevelopment in some parts of south-east Wales when, in fact, there might be opportunities elsewhere.