Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 24 June 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:17, 24 June 2020

We've been working very hard with local councils across Wales, both with LDPs and without, more particularly those who are in the formative phases of the LDP, to ensure that they were first of all able to function at all—and that goes for all planning authorities across Wales. There is a series of regulations in place about allowing virtual meetings for planning committees, virtual site visits, and all that kind of stuff, different notification procedures, and so on, and then, at the LDP level, to understand from them what effect the pandemic was having on the timetable and to put in place better plans to bring that forward. That's a piece of work that's ongoing and, as we ease out of the lockdowns, we're working with each local authority to make sure that we get a reviewed and properly resourced plan to get their LDPs in place. And the reason for that, Mark, is exactly what you pointed out: that authorities that don't have a plan in place tend to be subject to speculative developments that they find more difficult to fend off, because they don't have an adopted plan. So we've been working very hard with them to do that. Flintshire is not the only authority in that position, so we're working with a number of authorities across Wales to get there. 

And then, at the same time, we're encouraging them to work together with partners across north Wales or the particular region that the authority happens to be in, to put a strategic plan in place, because where a strategic plan is put in place, we will work with them on what we're starting to call 'LDP light' procedures, so that they're not duplicated from the strategic plan. We're very much hoping that Flintshire, alongside a number of other authorities, will come along with us on that journey.