Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 12:44 pm on 16 June 2021.
Thank you, Jack, and I'm really delighted to be in this portfolio. It was good to work closely with you in the last Senedd, and I'm looking forward to doing that again. It's really nice to see people in person, I have to say.
So, yes, we're very—. Obviously, the first thing to say is we're very keen to make sure that each local authority does have an up-to-date LDP, that it goes through the process efficiently and effectively and it makes sure that that has as wide a community consultation as is necessary, and that the communities feel very strongly that they have had their say in how their communities should be shaped in the LDP process. That's the whole purpose of the process. And as you know, we're also putting the strategic regional plans in place so that the LDP can concentrate on those local issues. And we'll know what the regional infrastructure plans already look like and, of course, the national plan, 'Planning Policy Wales', 'Future Wales', has made some of the choices nationally for us after an extensive consultation process that will allow those processes to take place.
But I'm very interested in making sure that, for each local area, the local area has a say in what its place plan might look like—we don't call them that in Wales. So, it's perfectly possible to put a strategic plan in place that covers a particular area, a subset, if you like, of the LDP. At the moment, the LDP is required for that to have force, but I'm more than happy to explore what we can do in the interim periods. It is a very difficult position where the LDP has been delayed, as it has in your area, and then you're right, we have speculative planning developments and we don't have an LDP with which to put them in context. So, I'm very happy to work with you on that, but I'd be much happier to see the local council sort out its LDP as soon as possible, in the light of the new planning policy document, so that we can actually get the process under way.