5. What are the Welsh Government's priorities for supporting town centres? OQ56935

I thank the Member, Llywydd. Our priority for town centres is to support the reinvention necessary to secure their long-term future. That requires a new mix of town-centre purposes, including retail, leisure, culture, public services, shared work facilities and living spaces, making these places once again sources of civic pride and identity, confidence and well-being.

I thank the First Minister for that answer. Town centres are, of course, the beating heart of our communities, but some recent reports, such as the Audit Wales report, 'Regenerating Town Centres in Wales', sketch out the challenges that they face. I welcome the robust comments from Welsh Government on how Ministers will address many of these issues through, for example, town centres first and the streamlining of funding processes. However, Audit Wales also noted issues around capacity at local government level. When there are already so many pressures on this tier, how is Welsh Government working with councils and the Welsh Local Government Association to ensure that they can support town centres in their areas?

I thank the Member for that, Llywydd, and I agree that of course local authorities are absolutely crucial to the town-centre regeneration agenda right across Wales. There are many, many fine examples of actions that are led by our local authorities bringing life back into those places.

Now, on a Wales-wide basis, responsibility for this rests with the ministerial town centre action group. It's chaired by my colleague Lee Waters; it met yesterday. Amongst its members are senior politicians from local government, senior officers from the WLGA, and the chief executive of One Voice Wales, making sure that the voice of local government is very clearly heard in those deliberations. The group is now going to focus on the recommendations of the Audit Wales report to which Vikki Howells referred, and also the recent report of Professor Karel Williams, which, as some Members here will know, took a particular interest in towns such as Haverfordwest, and to find a way of securing a vibrant future for them as well. Those two reports will form the agenda for that action group, and local authorities, in the way that Vikki Howells suggested, will be integral to that work.