The Heads of the Valleys

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 9 December 2020.

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Photo of Lee Waters Lee Waters Labour 1:46, 9 December 2020

Well, I agree with that. I think towns are facing a swirl of change. There's no doubt that digital disruption has had a huge impact, was already under way before the pandemic, and the pandemic has certainly accelerated that. But on the other hand, as Alun Davies rightly points out, there are opportunities from changes in attitudes and behaviours. It's one of the reasons why, when we set our target for 30 per cent of people working from home after the pandemic, we've identified alongside it an opportunity to place some of those workers within town centres into core working hubs. People will no longer have to travel to commute to work. Many will choose to do so, and it will be a mix of remote and flexible working, we hope, but there's certainly an opportunity for towns to have a different role, and I think that's what I would say here—that all people involved in the sense of place and the role of town centres have a responsibility to rethink what towns are for. We're certainly putting a significant amount of infrastructure investment in place. We've committed £6 million to Blaenau Gwent alone under the transforming towns fund, which will unleash a further £4 million. That's a £10-million pot to regenerate the towns just in Blaenau Gwent. We have adopted a town-centre-first principle in public sector investment decisions. Certainly, we know from the foundational economy projects that the public sector can have an anchor role within town centres to draw in other activity. But he's right—all of us need to think strategically about how to marshal these forces for the good of towns.