Planning Policy for New Housing

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:56 pm on 9 October 2019.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:56, 9 October 2019

Yes, I'm happy to agree with that. Actually, my colleague Ken Skates and I attended a meeting of the housing building federation—I can't remember the exact title; just to confuse poor Ministers, they all have almost identical names—but the housing building federation, only this morning, in which we undertook to work together with the leads for planning and highways in the WLGA to do exactly as Nick Ramsay has just suggested.

So, this is a relatively new planning policy, introduced by my colleague Lesley Griffiths, just as she left that portfolio, inherited by me very happily, and is a step change in the way that we look at planning. I'm delighted to hear it taking effect on the ground, but you're absolutely right that we need to make sure that we have the hearts and minds of all of the people implementing the process, including our builders and developers, on board. And that was the purpose of the meeting this morning that we attended—to make sure that everybody has an unequivocal understanding of where our policy direction lies so that they can be both more effective and efficient in implementing it.