Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:45 pm on 23 January 2019.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:45, 23 January 2019

I think that the issue with the LDPs sometimes is the speed and the capacity with which local authorities are able to put them together. We have been working very closely with local authorities across Wales to ensure that they have the expertise to put the local development plans in place. It's something we are always keeping under review around the capacity to do that and the way that we have the agreements with the local authorities about the timescale for doing that.

I think personally that there's room for improvement in the liaison between ourselves and local authorities around how they structure their LDPs and what provision we help them with in order to accelerate some of those processes, because a local authority that doesn't have a local development plan in place will find real problems in controlling its development-control functions and being able to resist planning applications outwith its plan. So, it's not a good plan not to have a plan—sorry, that seems really obvious—but it isn't a good plan, and I think we could work with our local authorities better to accelerate that process.