2. Will the Minister make a statement on the use of planning regulations in order to support businesses to come out of the current lockdown? OQ55319

Llyr, I think I got the gist of that question, but my translation didn't work, so I'll give it my best, but I hope it does work by the time your supplementary comes around.

So, thank you for the question. Our priority has been to get local planning authorities working again, so business can progress any development proposals requiring planning permission through the planning system. To assist this, regulations were made on 19 May to enable developers to progress planning applications for major development.  

Thank you for your answer. I hope that the translation equipment is working by now. We're all aware—. No, it isn't.

Sorry, Llyr. I'm not getting any translation.

Yes, sorry.

We're very aware that the requirements of social distancing, whether it's 2m or 1m, actually, are causing a great deal of problems for many businesses that either have reopened or, of course, hope to reopen soon. Now, I'm sure we all know of examples where wide pavements outside of shops could be utilised in terms of cafes and coffee shops. There are parking spaces that could be used to prioritise the needs of those businesses over traffic, and there are town and village squares that could be utilised for cafes and coffee shops during the day and, potentially then, restaurants and, when the time comes, pubs in the evenings. So, I just want to understand, really, what you're doing in terms of working with local authorities to not only ensure that they can be as creative and as flexible as possible in allowing some of this to happen, but to actually encourage them, proactively, to make sure that it does.

A very good question. We've been listening to businesses, and I issued guidance in the middle of March in response to concerns expressed at that point by the food and drink sector that required flexibility in terms of delivery times and opening hours. When restaurants, pubs and cafes had to close, we were fortunate that planning regulations in Wales already allowed businesses to operate as takeaways if they wanted to, so we didn't have to proactively do that; that was already allowed.

Part of what you've just discussed there is to do with licensing regulations, and not planning regulations, but we're working very hard with the local authorities—my colleague Hannah Blythyn has been working very hard in terms of town centres, in particular—to understand what is needed, alongside the local authorities. We've just issued a safer public places guide, which is a guide to how pubs and restaurants, cafes, other areas, might utilise outside spaces in a good way, whilst making sure that all disabilities and equalities issues are taken into account, because, obviously, if you have a visual impairment or you rely heavily on other signage, then it's important to make sure that that's not obstructed and that people have clear pathways and so on.

We've been working very hard with the industry, and various representatives of the industry, and with local authorities to get the best out of that, and we're looking to see what combination of national and local regulations we need to put in place to enable that, both on a temporary basis and, for some of the greening issues, on a more permanent basis in our towns and cities as we come out of the crisis together.

Just to let everybody know, the translation connection's just dropped out, so we're checking on the back-up. So, just for the time being, I think we're without translation. Huw Irranca-Davies.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Could I just add to what Llyr was just saying? It's great to see, in the last couple of days, some of the shops along Pencoed and Pontycymer and Maesteg reopening cautiously, and people coming out to cautiously spend money on our local high streets. But it is a real issue over the crowded pavement spaces and so on, and I just wonder what discussions both you and the Deputy Minister are having not just with local authorities, but with town and community councils—big and small—because they are very often best placed to understand the local environment. Now, they could feed into the work that's being done by local authorities to rebuild in a different way towards the new normal in our centres and give viable businesses—and lessen the risk of spreading the virus as well. 

Yes, I entirely agree with you, Huw. Myself and Hannah have been working very hard with both the industry, with local authorities and town and community councils and with other stakeholders in the food and drink industry, and in the regeneration thing, to pull a number of strands together to get a better 'normal' when we finally come out of the pandemic. There are a number of things we're trying to achieve. We're obviously wanting our hospitality industry to be able to be up and running in a safe way that allows them to conduct their business, and frankly allows us to all get out and see our friends and family in a convivial setting while making sure that we all stay safe.

But there's also something about regenerating our town centres and our small market towns and small villages that were already struggling in some respects, and it's about bringing those things together. So, my colleague Hannah Blythyn leads on that, but we've been working very hard across a number of sectors and stakeholders to do that. She's just currently taking part in a rapid review of that, of everything that pulls that together in order to do that. I'm sure she'd be more than happy to answer questions on that another time. She's been working very hard on it.

Good afternoon, Minister. You will be aware that many developments that are granted planning permission are required to start within a certain time frame due to either specific conditions of the permission or through general conditions. They normally have a number of years in which they have to start. And you'll be aware that if work doesn't start, the permission will lapse. Applying for a fresh planning permission is time consuming and costly. One option to solve this problem could be for Welsh Government to introduce a new permitted development right to enable planning permission to be carried forward for a fixed time. I believe it is within competence, and I wondered if you would review this issue, because it's especially important to keep housing developments on track. I don't think that this was covered in your letter of 27 March to local authorities, or in the guidance to planning authorities—not as far as I could understand it, anyway.

No, I don't think it was, but we have been working very hard with local authorities to understand what that might look like, and how many schemes might be caught up in that. We're looking not to have a blanket permitted development right across Wales for particular sorts of development, but to work with local authorities and their local development plans on identified housing sites to see what development rights need to be put in place, either in order to preserve a planning consent or to bring it forward rapidly, because as you know, we very much want to have a green housing-led recovery in that regard.

So, we are working very hard with them, but on the basis of site-specific issues rather than a blanket across Wales, because that's completely unmanageable. So, yes, we have a number of funds and sites that we're looking at, and once we've got to the end of what we're doing, we'll be ready to put a statement out and then I'm very happy to share. But actually, Angela, if you've got any specific sites in question, we're very interested in looking at them, so if you want to just let me know what they are, I'd be very happy to share that with you.