1. What strategy is the Welsh Government applying to city and town centre planning decisions so that its carbon emission reduction targets are taken into account? OQ55517

National planning policy states that our carbon targets are material in the planning process. They also apply the town-centre first approach that retail and commercial developments should be located in our town and city centres. Creating greener and cleaner communities is an integral part of our transforming towns work.

I fully support that statement, and thank you for that, but obviously the landscape is changing incredibly quickly. The pandemic has exposed many fissures in the town and city centres that we have designed, which no longer look fit for purpose. It isn't just that office jobs can be done from home as easily as in the town centre—and people like the Principality Building Society have already said they need less office space for their headquarters operations—but it's also that we need to create more space for walking and cycling to enable people to leave the car at home as well as to improve public transport lanes.

Equally, more people are buying online, which was happening anyway, but now, with the pandemic, people are less likely to actually want to go and buy whatever it is they need in a shop, and the speculative investment in purpose-built student accommodation now looks like a very risky speculative investment. But all these things have already generated carbon emissions in their creation, so I wondered what your view is about the 15-minute concept of planning decisions, which is being applied not just in Paris and Milan, but also in cities like Doncaster and Cambridge, to ensure that all the everyday services that people need are within 15 minutes of where they live. So—

That's—. You're out of time on your question, so you've asked your question now.

Okay. Thank you very much. So, how are the planning regulations keeping pace with the need to repurpose redundant office and shopping spaces, create more dedicated walking and cycling paths, and, specifically, your response to what look like empty purpose-built student accommodation investments?

I thank Jenny Rathbone for that comprehensive question, which covers a range of important issues, many of which perhaps were there in the background prior to the pandemic, but certainly the need to address them has been accelerated as a consequence.

In terms of foreseeing some of the challenges ahead and how we need to do things differently, 'Building Better Places' was published before the summer, and it looks at many of the issues that the Member raises in her question. I think the issue of this 15-minute city concept is certainly a very interesting one, and one that, actually, needs to be explored, not just in terms of our work in terms of planning but across Government in all the levers at our disposal.

So, it's going to take—in terms of the transforming towns work, all the issues that we announced when we announced that work and the town-centre first approach in January, they were there anyway, but I think the need to address them has become all the more important and all the more vital. So, there are things we can do in terms of actually some radical decisions about some empty properties. Do we need to be bold and be brave and think we don't just purchase them to create more property or more building space, but actually we create more green space in our town and community centres to better connect them?

So, it's something that—. Definitely, I think the Member raised a number of issues and things that we're exploring in actually how we look at town-centre approaches now, city centre approaches— that it's not just about the bricks and mortar, it's about the whole experience in terms of actually not just the energy efficiency of buildings, but actually how it applies in what we're finding is the new normal in terms of actually creating those flexible community hubs that can combine a range of public, private and voluntary sector, but also how we link these and then make them more accessible to communities right across Wales. I'm more than happy to have a further conversation with the Member on her ideas in this area.

Minister, Jenny Rathbone makes some good points. The Welsh Government often talks about building back better after the pandemic, and I think that planning reform and changing the way that the planning system is used to encourage sustainability is all key to this. All applications should be carbon proofed.

I previously raised the issue of an application for an electric-car charging station adjacent to the River Wye in Monmouth, the gateway to Wales, an application that was turned down because it was determined to go against technical advice note 15 flooding guidance. The site is not being proposed for housing or industry and it's never actually flooded. That decision that has been taken is in the past, but it strikes me that electric charging, along with other green infrastructure, is something that we should be promoting through the planning system. Can you look at ways that the planning application system—and, indeed, the appeals system—can be reformed, so that green infrastructure is supported, and facilities such as electric-car charging are made far easier than at present, so that we do get that sort of sustainable green infrastructure in the future that towns like Monmouth in my constituency and other towns and areas across Wales badly need?

Can I thank Nick Ramsay for his question? The Member will be aware that I am unable to comment on individual applications but, more broadly, then, support for green infrastructure is included in 'Planning Policy Wales'. My colleague the Minister for Housing and Local Government is nodding along to me how this is something that we are very keen to take forward as a Government, but also, in terms of actually the whole holistic approach to these things, if we're looking in terms of actually how we're going to tackle resource efficiency to reduce our carbon footprint. Because we know, actually, the goods and products we consume make up 45 per cent of emissions, so we're not going to get to where we need to be unless we tackle the way that we use and consume things. So, when we're looking now, working with local authority partners, in terms of the location of further reprocessing centres to enable us to make use of that high-quality recyclate that we already have in Wales, and to reprocess and reuse them again, to ensure that we can look actually at how we can locate them with other energy-efficient things such as increasing electric charging point infrastructure and also things like solar and other things as well. So, the Member raises a number of points that we are keen to explore and looking at, actually, some practical interventions in the short to medium term.