Planning Policy

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 12:42 pm on 16 June 2021.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 12:42, 16 June 2021

Yes, thank you very much. So, it's a development of what I was saying in answer to the previous question. So, national planning policy, as I've already said, places a strong emphasis on placemaking and the steps we need to take to create places that meet everyone's well-being. The national planning policy also ensures that we think about how our places make us both healthier and improve our well-being. I'm very confident that planning policy will help us create the places that COVID has highlighted we need and that provide good-quality housing for all, support local services, shops, jobs and facilities, and reduce the need to travel.

But, of course, we also have a climate emergency, so this comes together very much with the learning that we've had during the pandemic about the importance of place. We need to encourage people to find new ways of working, including some home working or remote hub working, to provide opportunities for active travel in your daily life, to create healthy, accessible green spaces, and they are all supported by both strong local and regional planning that gives the tools and the power to local places to help shape their own future. So, the whole essence of this is very much to put communities at the heart of what they would like their community to look like, and, as I said, to build the right houses in the right places, to build the right infrastructure in the right places, and to make sure that our communities can access the services and support that they need within a reasonable distance of their place of—you know, where they live, so that their community feels like a well-being-of-future-generations community should. Through the suite of documents we've put in place, we are confident that we can achieve the Wales that we would all like to see.