One Planet Development Policy

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 2:54 pm on 14 October 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:54, 14 October 2020

So, it's very much part of 'Planning Policy Wales', however, which has only very recently been reviewed, and, as I said in response to Adam Price, One Planet development planning applications are determined in accordance with the approved or adopted development plan for the area, unless there are material considerations that indicate otherwise. And, as you've just said, they're routinely turned down where they don't conform. The planning system isn't there to prevent people from making planning applications; local authorities are responsible for determining those planning applications in accordance with the rules. And I'm not sure whether Suzy Davies was implying that only people from outside an area can make a One Planet development application, but, of course, that's not so; anyone can make one if they want to bring one forward. So, I'm not quite sure what the implication of that was.

Obviously, we have a large number of other planning policies in place, including policies that allow individual houses to be built where there's a need for an agricultural family to be able to expand its dwelling. So, typically, where a farmer wants to retire and a son or daughter of that farmer wants to take over, we have applications for dwellings on the farmhouse to enable us to accommodate that, and the policy is perfectly capable of looking at that. So, I'm not entirely certain why One Planet developments attract the kind of criticism that Suzy Davies has just outlined, but there are, of course, a large number of other ways of making sure that our young people stay in our rural communities and our communities in general, and one of those, of course, is this Government's plan to build a range of social and shared equity housing across Wales at some scale and pace.