Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 24 June 2020.
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.