8. Will the Minister make a statement on how interested parties can inform Welsh Government planning policy? OQ55691

Thank you for the question, Jack. We keep our national planning policies under review at all times and update them when necessary. Interested parties can inform future reviews of policies through correspondence and discussions with myself and with officials, as well as contributing to official Welsh Government planning policy consultations.

Thank you for that answer, Minister, and thank you for also agreeing to meet with Pen-y-ffordd Community Council in my constituency, alongside the Deputy Minister as well. The council of Pen-y-ffordd are truly passionate about their area and are very knowledgeable when it comes to issues of planning. I know that you want communities, Minister, to have more of a role in shaping their own environments; how do we ensure that expertise and experiences like that of Pen-y-ffordd Community Council is listened to when changes to planning rules are being considered?

I'm very happy to come along to that meeting, which I think is very shortly now. One of the things we do, of course, is go out and talk to the community councils in this particular instance about their experiences of contributing to the planning regime and how they can contribute more fruitfully in future. The particular community that you're talking about is in a local authority area where the local development plan is yet to be finalised and that does make things slightly more difficult. But, of course, during the finalisation of the LDP, there are a large number of opportunities for individuals and community councils and other organisations to make their feelings known as that plan goes through the inspection process and other processes designed for democratic engagement in the planning process.

People often ask me whether anybody actually responds to any of these rather dry planning policy consultations, but just by way of example, the latest version of 'Planning Policy Wales' was published in December 2018, and over 210 individual responses were received to the last consultation, which is the highest number we've received on a Welsh Government planning policy document, and that's in addition to organisations, and so on. We're always really interested in encouraging people to come forward and make their views known to me and to the officials, and in fact, the future generations commissioner has recently praised our approach to developing 'Planning Policy Wales', including incorporating the ways of working into the document itself.

During the various consultations that we've undertaken more recently, I've taken great pleasure in engaging with, for example, groups of young people in terms of what they would like to see in their local area and so on. So, we're always very keen to engage in that way. I think that my colleague Hannah Blythyn, in responding to an earlier question from you on a similar point, echoed this in saying that all voices are welcome in the development of Welsh Government planning policy. In fact, we know that Pen-y-ffordd Community Council did in fact comment on the last revision to 'Planning Policy Wales', so, as you rightly say, they are obviously an engaged and knowledgeable community council. So, I'm looking forward to our visit, Jack.

I thank the Minister.