Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:55 pm on 9 October 2019.
Minister, last week, a planning application for 111 new houses in my constituency, which had previously been approved by the local authority before being called in by the Welsh Government, was subsequently rejected by the inspectorate on the grounds of it contravening the well-being of future generations legislation, which Hefin David has just mentioned. It was rejected on the basis that the development would rely too much on cars, totally in keeping with the legislation.
Now, I'm not asking you to comment in any way on this case, because I know that you're going to say that you can't, and I know how these things work. But I will ask a more general question about this legislation and how it interacts with local planning. Given that the well-being of future generations legislation is having an increasing impact on planning in particular, will you consider better guidance to local planning authorities and perhaps training for councillors and officials involved in the planning process, so that they are fully versed in their obligations under the legislation early on in this process and so that all the complexities and associated costs that we see later on with call-ins and referrals—a lot of that—could be avoided because planning authorities would know full well what their obligations were under that future generations legislation at the very start?