The Future of the Planning System

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:58 pm on 17 July 2019.

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Photo of David Rees David Rees Labour 2:58, 17 July 2019

Minister, clean air, pollution matters and emissions can be helped by planning departments. I understand your answer to Leanne Wood earlier on in saying environmental issues can't be addressed on a sole basis, but the Government can actually help by putting some guidance in place, particularly when it comes to written things like emissions in any applications. If we want to reduce emissions in an area, particularly in Port Talbot, for example, where we are always criticised for the air quality, you could talk about having cumulative levels of emissions written down and, therefore, an application that goes in for adding to that can be challenged and based upon that factor. Will you look at this matter to ensure that we can introduce this concept so that when applications come in that could actually be detrimental to the overall air quality, they can be dealt with as a collective, rather than just a single application?