Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 12 October 2022.
Thank you to Sarah Murphy for welcoming the investment, including that which the Welsh Government provides into schools in Bridgend, as elsewhere. It was good to visit Bryntirion Comprehensive School with her recently. She is right to say, of course, that it is important that we make sure that schools and other public services are aligned with developments in housing. Our planning system is key in this in helping us to ensure that, as new housing developments come forward, there is sufficient school capacity available within communities. Authorities should take a strategic and long-term approach towards provision of community facilities, which obviously includes schools, when they are preparing their development plans. Those plans set out how places will change over a 15-year period—how many new houses will be built and where they will be located. And so, as part of that, we would expect for infrastructure, including school provision, to be a crucial consideration when planning those new housing developments. But I recognise that, sometimes, there is a gap between provision and the need arising, perhaps inevitably.