Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:33 pm on 23 October 2018.
Leader of the house, I raised with you on a number of occasions a similar example to that my colleague Hefin David has raised, and that is the Dyffryn y Coed development, which is a Persimmon development, which I think is a classic example of some of the failings within our planning or our development system for housing. This is a new development in Llantwit Fardre, where the first phase has, of course, had fibre broadband fitted, and the second phase hasn't, and, of course, the buck passes backwards and forwards in terms of whether it is BT or whether it is the developer who actually has the responsibility. It just seems to me that there are a number of things that we do need to look at, and we do need to somehow implement, in all developments. It seems to me that, in a modern, developing Wales, there has to be—. There has to be, I think, a requirement—as close to a statutory requirement as possible—that the highest level available broadband is provided in the same way as water, as gas, as other public utilities are, and the presumption should be that all new-build homes are fitted, and it should be a prerequisite of development.
Of course, the other problem we have is that the situation now is that, with superfast broadband and whatever is the successor to that, the issues of retrofitting are going to come in. It seems to me that that has to be built within the system as well. One of the problems, of course, that the estate that I referred to, the Dyffryn y Coed estate, has is, of course, the complex system of now actually getting fibre broadband actually implemented, the length of time it takes, and I'm very grateful for the help that your department has actually given in at least getting the system going, the grants system and so on. But it is, nevertheless, an incredibly frustrating burden. You see people who, operating their businesses, are having grave difficulty with something that they assumed was going to be there. And I just really wondered what your view is as to whether it's feasible to look at our regulatory or legislative process to ensure that, in future, this happens, at least. And perhaps—I agree very much with what Hefin David said as well, that this must be a primary function and responsibility of the developer. They make enormous fortunes out of this, and if Persimmon can pay £75 million as a bonus to their chief executive, I think they can afford to give the people they sell their houses to decent broadband.