This petition was submitted in March 2020 by Sara Pedersen, having collected 2,080 signatures online and 3,442 signatures on paper, and I'm sure that budding mathematicians across the Chamber have already calculated the total of 5,522 signatures. Llywydd, the text of the petition says:

'We call on the National Assembly for Wales to urge the Welsh Government to protect the former Intermediate School for Girls’ in Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan. This was the first intermediate school to be built specifically for the education of girls in Wales (and England) and is the subject of a planning application for demolition. Failure to protect it will lead to the loss of a nationally important historic asset.'

As Members will be aware, the Petitions Committee doesn't get involved in planning issues, but the issue of whether the building should have been listed by Cadw and the petitioner's call for an independent review of that decision was one we could act on. During the fifth Senedd, the previous Senedd's Petitions Committee, under the sterling leadership of my predecessor Chair, Janet Finch-Saunders, agreed to request a debate, but, as the Senedd business was restricted due to the pandemic, it was not possible to hold said debate.

Supporters of the petition argue that the school, designed by architect Robert Williams, is, and I quote,

'a prominent and attractive testimony to a pivotal moment in Welsh history and the equal opportunities afforded to underprivileged girls of the time'.

Llywydd, the committee has written to successive culture Ministers, who have defended Cadw's decision and their process. Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas in 2020 wrote, and, again, I quote:

'My officials have very carefully considered all of the arguments put forward for listing the building but I am afraid that it does not meet the criteria to be listed at the national level.'

Following further requests by the campaigners for a review of the original decision by Cadw, the Minister, and, again, I quote,

'obtained independent advice from Richard Hayman, a building historian and archaeologist with particular expertise in historic buildings in Wales'.

The Minister went on to support that decision not to list the building. In this Senedd, the new committee wrote to the current Minister, Dawn Bowden, who will be responding to today's debate, to see whether she would change anything as Minister. Dawn Bowden, the Minister for culture, replied and said

'there has been no new information presented that would reverse the decision not to list the building.'

I know Members from right across the Chamber who are more familiar with the particular building in question today, and the area in question, and they will want to talk more about its architectural and historical values, and, again, the claims made for its significance beyond the local area. But, Llywydd, if I may, I want to come to a wider point in my contribution today: there must be more we can do in this Senedd to support communities to preserve buildings they value. Cowbridge school isn't an isolated case. As a committee, we've recently seen campaigners in the north petitioning to preserve Coleg Harlech—P-05-1130, 'The Welsh Government should re-purchase and refurbish Coleg Harlech'—another educational building seeking new purpose. I know that the clerking team of the Petitions Committee regularly reject other petitions where local people are seeking to challenge planning decisions that will result in the demolition of local buildings and the memories and the meanings that they represent. I look around the Chamber and at those online and I'm sure each of us in our own constituencies and regions have a building in own constituency or region that clearly fits this pattern, a building that doesn't make enough money or a building that has become too costly to maintain, but nonetheless holds that cherished place at the heart of our towns and villages and in the hearts of the people who live there.