Supporting Town Centres

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:17 pm on 28 September 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:17, 28 September 2021

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.