Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:55 pm on 26 April 2022.
Thank you. I'd like to request a statement from the Minister for Climate Change on the planning appeal process in Wales. Only last week, our local authority granted conditional approval for 49 homes to be built behind Ysgol y Gogarth. This was a very controversial planning application, with democratically elected members at all levels opposing this, and the planning office themselves opposing this. On a further application placed before the committee last week, there was a u-turn by the officers, in which they decided to support it, and one of the reasons cited was that they were very concerned about the costs associated with any appeal process. I've been asked since, and indeed by constituents over the years, as to why it is that developers who can afford barristers and things have an appeal process for when an application is refused, yet there is no appeal process for applications such as this, which, in my opinion, if you look at 'Planning Policy Wales', actually breaches some of the actual PPW guidance. And so I have raised with the Minister previously whether we could have a fairer system, so that the appeal process works both ways—not only just for the developer, but indeed for the communities and, in fact, the democratically elected members, so that the true voices of the community are able to have a second go at this, because I know there are a lot of aggrieved constituents on many planning applications where planning officers feel obliged to allow an application to go through because they fear the costs of any appeal process. Thank you.