5. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Nature, biodiversity and local places for nature

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:51 pm on 12 October 2021.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:51, 12 October 2021

Diolch, John. Well, on that last one, I'm very happy to say that we've had a great deal of success, with my other hat on, in Swansea. We've done exactly that: we've had graffiti artists and lighting and so on put into one of the big railway arches that connects two parts of the centre of Swansea together, and I'm more than happy to have you come down and have a look at it and have a talk with the people from Swansea station and Network Rail who helped us do that. So, it certainly is possible, and I'm more than happy to talk to them at a strategic level about it as well. There's a lot of greening things that can be done with the arches as well, actually, not just brightening them up, and Network Rail has a large amount of land along the sides of its tracks, of course, that can be used for nature corridors and pollinators. So, I'm very keen on doing that.

The 29 projects that we've just awarded funding to will be used as pilots, so there will be other funding rounds. As I said in response to Janet Finch-Saunders, one of the biggest problems we have is that we don't have multi-annual budgets ourselves. So, I hope that the Conservative colleagues that are listening to this today will urge the UK Government to give us more than a single year settlement, so that we can put multi-annual funding in to assist groups like the one you mentioned in Maindee and, indeed, the Gwent levels group, which could seriously do with some multi-annual funding, because we know that nature isn't a one-off piece, it's about both recovering it, restoring it, but then, of course, maintaining it. So, we need the funding to be multi-annual in order to be able to do that.

And, John, I'm very happy to work with you and others right across the Senedd to help the various community groups that are coming together to green our urban areas, and indeed, actually, to give access in our rural areas to the funding that there is, and, as I said, to come together in different and innovative ways of working to make sure that we can enhance all of our local natural places.