Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 24 June 2020.
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.