1. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of any negative repercussions from the implementation of the active travel action plan for Wales? OQ57458

Llywydd, in our assessment, the positive gains of the active travel action plan far outweigh any negative repercussions. It's a requirement of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 that it be reviewed by the end of 2022. That review will identify any implementation issues that need to be addressed.

Thank you, First Minister. I have recently been contacted by several groups who are extremely concerned about the active travel plan and the impact that its implementation is having where it is causing safety issues and difficulties for people in terms of their health and well-being. A particular issue that has been raised is that designated cycle lanes are either being incorporated into the pavement, or are adjacent and at the same level as the pavement. For those with eyesight issues or are registered blind, this can be a terrifying situation, especially for people who use white canes or use guide dogs to help them. When the curb has been removed, guide dogs are unable to distinguish between what is road, cycle lane or pavement. A notable and local example is the bus stop along Dumfries Place in Cardiff. When you step off the bus, you're immediately stepping on to a designated blue cycle lane not a pavement, and people with sight loss risk collision with cyclists. Not only this, but they have no way of determining where the road or pavement starts, which has led to incidences of those suffering sight loss walking directly into the road. For someone with sight issues, this is a very disorientating and frightening experience.

There are also issues that horse riders face. For example, bridleways have been downgraded to footpaths and cycle lanes for the active travel plan, forcing horse riders onto the roads in order to access suitable riding routes, which in turn brings them into contact with heavy road traffic, sometimes with deadly and dangerous consequences, such as the recent collision of a van with a horse and rider in Tonyrefail, which has left the rider in hospital with multiple injuries. 

I'm sure that you will be as deeply concerned by some of these negative consequences as I am, and with this in mind, First Minister, what assurances can you give that the Welsh Government has adequately assessed the needs of everyone when it comes to the active travel plan, because, clearly, there are groups that are not being factored in? Thank you. 

Llywydd, I thank Joel James for identifying an important issue, but an issue very well known to the Welsh Government. Shared use of space on the highway, on the pavement, is a matter that has been raised and discussed in our own engagement with groups representing disabled people, including those with issues of vision. The actual implementation that the Member refers to, of course, is carried out by local authorities, not directly by the Welsh Government. We provide the plan and the guidance, and then local authorities have to make sometimes complex decisions, where space is at a premium, as to how it can be best used. And sometimes that does mean that the use of space has to be shared. That is true of horse riders as well.

A new version of the highway code, Llywydd, is due to be published in February. That, of course, is a UK-wide document, and it does now directly address these issues and sets out a hierarchy of users in shared space, so that as people take their driving tests and become new users of the road, they will have fresh guidance to make sure that where more than one use is required of any space on the highway, on the pavement, there's a clear hierarchy of whose needs must be attended to first. And the principle that has been used in that redrafting of the highway code seems to me to be a sensible one because it puts the needs of the most vulnerable users at the top of that hierarchy. Now, the review that I mentioned in my first answer, Llywydd, will be an opportunity to look at these issues again. And I can assure the Member that we will seek the views of those people who have identified those implementation issues and seek to address them again as part of that review.

First Minister, I'm glad to see this question, and, certainly, the cross-party group on active travel has set up an expert panel to help inform the Government of stakeholders' views in terms of the review as well. But can I just thank the Government for their engagement on this agenda? They've really pushed it up the agenda. The investment has had a significant uplift, and many local authorities are making the most of this by successful bids for active travel funds and safer routes funds for schemes in their areas. In my own area, Bridgend to Pencoed—[Inaudible.]—Bettws to Bryngarw country park, and this builds on several years of successful bids. But this is my point, First Minister: what can we do as a Government to help those local authorities, which he just referred to, who may not have the in-house expertise, may not have the track record of successful bids for safer routes or for active travel networks and mapping, to help them have successful bids as well, make sure that we spread the benefits across urban and rural areas as well, and also, finally, maintain that investment in footpaths, pavements, and also the road network, which are also key to walking and cycling as well? Diolch yn fawr.

Llywydd, I'd like to thank Huw Irranca-Davies for those questions.

I think one of the ways in which the funding that we provide to local authorities has been developed in recent years is that we now provide a core allocation to local authorities, as well as the project money that they can bid in for. And because there has been such a sustained rise in investment in active travel, the provision of a core allocation does help local authorities to build up the in-house capacity and expertise to allow them to draw down further central funding for the best-quality scheme. Now, I recognise this important point that Huw Irranca-Davies makes—that there are sometimes specialist skills that are needed beyond the scope of an individual authority. We've been working with Transport for Wales to see how they can make some of their expertise available to local authorities, but with the Welsh Local Government Association as well, in case there is an opportunity for some shared expertise, across local authority boundaries, that local authorities can draw on when they are looking to develop schemes that need those additional skills.

Llywydd, can I thank the cross-party group for the work that they do, and in particular for what its Chair indicated they would be doing to help make sure that the review of the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 is as well-informed as it can be by the views of people who use these services? I am quite sure that they will talk about those everyday journeys that are made in rural as well as in urban areas, and the importance of footpaths, pavements, and so on. The Welsh Government did provide £7.8 million in further funding to local authorities last summer, specifically for quick improvements that could be made in conditions for safe walking and cycling. And we plan to press ahead with our plan to tackle pavement parking—another issue that the groups that Joel James referred to often raise, I know, with Senedd Members. If you are partially sighted, if you're trying to take a buggy, if you're in a wheelchair, then pavement parking is another one of those active travel barriers that we need to tackle. And I'm sure that these issues will come through strongly in the engagement work that the cross-party group has committed to leading.