REGENERATION - A PROCESS NOT AN EVENT

With spring and an important election (in Wales) approaching there is a whiff of regeneration in the air…

Let’s be honest, if you live in Newport or various parts of Gwent and are reasonably familiar with your home community, then over the years you may have noticed that redevelopment / regeneration comes and goes over the years, in many shapes and formats, in any particular community or town at any given time.

Regeneration schemes will have cleaned areas up, built in cycle routes, created transport plans, pedestrianised streets, reopened them to traffic, re-pedestrianised them and (as is the case in Newport and no doubt elsewhere) made certain streets shared space with both cars and pedestrians (which is actually not as crazy an idea as it sounds, and it actually works) and so on. 

In Newport we have seen parking has been restricted, created and removed, made free and charged for, we have seen bus lanes created, removed and been given limited and varied hours all within a few tier software local government.  

Now this is all well and good and while it may from time to time reflect the latest trend in regeneration and redevelopment, at the end of the day has it made the places where we live, work, socialise and shop and visit actually any better? 

The one question that tends not to be asked, and hence not answered is: Has the regeneration process or scheme increased or generated wealth in our communities or provided people with the opportunities to get jobs, to go into business for themselves or generate wealth? 

One of the unintended features of redevelopment is that quite often it can be perceived as being driven from the top down i.e. by elected bodies whether they be County Councils or the Senedd or Westminster government.  

Regeneration should never simply be a process that merely consults after the plans have been drawn up - thats not consultation thats simply window dressing.

Real and meaningly consultation should take place before, during and after - any process not run this way runs the real risk of becoming deeply flawed. 

Local communities and towns and cities of South Wales have over the years has been the recipient of much grant aid, development and redevelopment schemes and initiatives - how can we measure success? 

Measuring a regeneration schemes success should be a key factor in any regeneration scheme. 

This is the key question that needs to be asked - after the cement and the paint has dried, after the development / redevelopment / regeneration professionals have banked the cheque and moved on - have the various schemes made a real difference to our communities and our lives. 

I mean beyond any immediate physical improvements to the environment, have they made a real difference when it comes to wealth generation in the area affected by the regeneration scheme and can the people who live here actually see and benefit from the change? 

If the end result is in reality a makeover, and the targeted community is no better off, save for being bereft of the 'regeneration funds' that have been effectively hoovered up by professional regeneration companies - some of whom make a good living out of regeneration - then we should ask is this success? 

How do you make regeneration projects work beyond the tick box list of the regeneration schemes managers? 

One key component that is often ignored or marginalised during the regeneration process is the communities greatest resource - its people.

If we really want to develop strong sustainable communities, then any regeneration scheme should from the start and at every stage of the process involve the people who are going to live and work in the redeveloped area after the scheme has been completed. 

 

We don’t need regeneration professionals coming into an area and engaging in a largely token consultation process. They should directly talk to land listen to local people (who are an asset to the process) rather than at them, and actually find out what they would like to be done, what they actually want for their community and their town.

If you are reusing or renovating old buildings then any regeneration scheme needs to ensure that old buildings can make a sustainable contribution after the regeneration scheme is finished. 

If we do this rather than merely making a token gesture towards public consultation, then any regeneration schemes will, with hard work, really begin to deliver tangible benefits to our communities. 

Regeneration schemes and projects should be bottom up rather than the top down. 

The bottom line should be when spending public money, it needs to be worked extra hard and every single possible benefit should be squeezed out and we ned to maximise the impact locally of the regeneration process and make every effort to build in local benefits into the tendering process - whether by employing local people, using local resources, local skills and local input. 

Now a plea for a more people focused and community driven regeneration is not driven by nostalgia or about living the past - we have to re-image our urban spaces for the 21st century - but not at the expense of the people who live and make their living within them. 

 

As had been said elsewhere, regeneration should be a process rather than a cash extracting event, that delivers unmeasurable success. 

LABOUR ‘BUILDING IN’ INEQUALITY IN HOUSING

Plaid Cymru have accused Labour of ‘building in’ inequality through their failure to support families through the housing crisis faced by Wales.

Statistics show that almost one third of people living in permanent accommodation in Wales are children, meaning that inequality is ‘built in for future generations’.

Sian Gwenllian, Plaid Cymru’s housing spokesperson, have accused Labour of ‘actively worsening the situation’ for people in Wales looking for housing by pushing ‘more and more’ people into poverty.

This comes after the Labour UK Government have decided to continue to freeze Local Housing Allowances, while rent prices in Wales are rising at a higher rate than the rest of the UK.

The Plaid Cymru MS continued by stating Plaid Cymru’s commitment towards creating a fair housing system that works for the people of Wales.

Plaid Cymru’s housing spokesperson, Sian Gwenllian MS, said:

“Wales is facing a housing crisis which is deepening every single day, and Labour don't know how to deal with it.

"Waiting lists for social homes are 170,000 people long, 13,000 have applied for homelessness support, and 10,000 people including 3,000 children are stuck in temporary accommodation.

"When a third of people in temporary accommodation are children, inequality is literally being built in for future generations.

"Rents are rising faster in Wales than anywhere else in the UK, but the Labour UK Government have chosen to continue the freeze on support for housing costs - meaning more and more people are pushed into poverty.

"Labour are not only unable to support people in this housing crisis, but they’re also actively worsening the situation for those who desperately need support.

"Plaid Cymru is serious about creating a fair housing system that works for the people of Wales, that supports individuals and families to live in warm, safe and permanent housing."

- ENDS -

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE THE VIEW FROM THE EDGE

The view from the periphery, or the edge often very much depends on where you are standing and how you are looking at the map, a change of economic focus in Wales is long overdue, perhaps ironically wherever we end up post Brexit we may well finally be compelled to think and act differently.  

Perhaps had the Great Western Railway electrification project started from the Swansea end, as some advocated in Plaid, then perhaps it would have been actually finished all the way to London, or at least we might be able to travel by electric trains from Swansea to Swindon, before making use of non electric trains to complete the trundle into London.

It is clear we cannot go on as we have, our country is literally littered with the tombstone like remnants of failed models of economic development. Most of them having failed to deliver long-term economic benefits and more than a few long-term jobs to our people and our communities.

What is badly needed is the courage to step away from the over centralised state agency dependent model of economic development as applied by successive Westminster and Welsh governments. Successive  Westminster Governments have consistently failed to deliver beyond the short-term for Wales. 

With the crutch of EU regional funding about to be kicked firmly away, despite the weak and wobbly promises from Westminster to the contrary, we in Wales find ourselves desperately needing some fresh economic thinking and action rather than more words.

The older economic models which reduce Cymru / Wales to simply a region (or more ominously simply  the peripheral part of larger cross border regions) where we have provided relatively cheap labour with industries that were heavily dependent on grants for funding just won’t wash or work anymore. 

We need to find other economic models that can deliver long-term jobs and lasting material benefits to our communities and to our country. 

We have been historically over dependent on Westminster or the old Welsh Office or Cardiff Bay waving their magic wand to solve our economic problems, this is entirely understandable considering the nature of our economic and political history, but this simply compounds the error and just won’t solve our economic problems or create sustainable jobs. 

The days of bringing in significant amounts of ‘inward investment’ are over, Westminster has better things to spend its money on in England - Cymru / Wales does not matter electorally (or economically) as far as the Conservatives are concerned. 

Post the Covid pandemic and Post BREXIT it’s time to be honest with ourselves and admit that ‘The Union’ as it has been, even with devolution, has increasingly failed to deliver for Wales. As far as it is concerned the current Labour in Wales government is fresh out of ideas, unless obviously compared with the Conservative Westminster government(s) over the last 15 years. 

We desperately need indigenous home grown businesses (small, medium and larger scale) which will put down roots and stick around when economic times are tough rather than pulling up sticks and bugging out when the grant money runs out and be more able to resist being hovered up by multi nationals. 

We need to develop small to medium sized enterprises or local co-operative industries that could provide medium to long-term sustainable job opportunities and an economy where they can thrive.

Part of the economic mix should include developing and encouraging the co-operative model of economic development. The co-operative model works well in a number of countries including both Ireland and in the Basque country, there is no reason why it should not work well here. 

The Basque cooperative model, as personified by Mondragon co-operative suggests what can be accomplished. If we are to grow local businesses and local jobs we are going to have to create a real Bank of Wales, perhaps using the German Sparkasse and Landesbanken model. 

For too long far too many small and medium sized businesses in our country have been denied access to credit by banks and this has prevented the growth of our private sector.

Our over centralised dividend driven pretty much rootless London based banking model that has been followed in the UK is incapable, indifferent or simply unwilling to deliver or support economic development in our country. 

In Germany, the Sparkasse and Landesbanken operate on a geographical basis, and have developed special expertise in the local industries so that they are better equipped to make investment decisions and should offer a real alternative.

Mondragon a collective of over 240 ( including 81 co-operatives) companies and organisations mostly based in the Basque Country has proven to be one of the more resilient economic success stories in recession-hit Spain. It has a revenue of 10,607 million euros, with 70,000 employees with 15 technology centres in 41 countries and sales in over 150 countries. 

The Basque co-operative may well be the world's largest worker co-operative, it has certainly assisted the Basque economy to try and resist the worst ravages of the recession in Spain. The company was established in 1956, in the province of Gipuzkoa; with a business philosophy built around co-operation, participation, social responsibility and innovation. 

It began small (this may very well be the key to its success) and form the bottom up with a group of workers in a disused factory, literally using hand tools and sheet metal to make oil-fired heating and cooking stoves.

The Cooperative continues to compete on international markets using democratic methods within its business organisation, helps to create jobs, and is committed to the human and professional development of its workers and pledges to development with its social environment. 

Some parts of the co-operative are wholly owned, others are run as joint venture operations. Co-operative members as equal co-owners of their own workplaces enjoy job security and individual capital holdings, with an equal sharing of profits on a proportionate basis and an equal ‘one-member one vote’ say in the way their enterprises are run. 

Pay within the cooperatives is strictly egalitarian, with the highest rates payable other than in exceptional circumstances being refreshingly no more than six and a half times the lowest rate. The Basque country has Spain’s highest GDP per capita, its richer than even Catalonia and Wales is the poorest nation in the British Isles, and in northwestern Europe. 

We in Wales have much to learn from the example of Mondragon and its methods when it comes generating and retaining sustainable jobs, simply remaining poor (or increasingly poorer) west Britons is not an option. 

There is no reason why the co-operative approach combined with a rich mix of small to medium sized enterprises cannot be used to bring in a community focused upward economic slow burn approach to economic development.

We desperately need something that will not just provide sustainable local jobs but real community beneficial sustainable developments which can transform our communities and fundamentally boost our country’s economic potential. Empty promises from the Labour Party in Wales and the Labour Party in Westminster just won’t do it anymore…

AVOIDING FLOODS

While much of Wales dodged the bullet by way of serious floods after the prolonged heavy rain, our neighbours in the Severn Valley and elsewhere in England were not so lucky. While our communities may have got lucky recently, in a warmer wetter world floods and heavy rain events are going to become more common. Flood avoidance rather than flood prevention will help mitigate and reduce the problems that our communities will face with future floods.  

We need to build into our communities the resilience to cope with flooding. The  severity and frequency of future flooding events means that flood avoidance  needs to become a strategic national priority and be a key principle in the siting of housing in and around our communities.  Both the Welsh and Westminster Governments need to make rational long term sustainable choices when it comes to flood defence. 

We in Wales need to develop a comprehensive planning system for our country that hardens our communities and infrastructure against the effects of severe weather events.   We need to focus on flood avoidance and develop flood avoidance schemes rather than end up clearing up after the flood is over again and again.

As our winters and our summers become both warmer and wetter we will see more instances sea and riverine flooding, persistent bad weather has meant that some of our communities have had some pretty close calls and other communities have been badly inundated (again). 

There can be no blank cheque for flood defences so we need to make rational cost effective sustainable choices when it comes to flood defence whether for coastal or riverine flooding on the Gwent levels or the Ebbw, Wye, Usk or Monnow valleys. 

The debate taking place around flooding needs to focus on re-engineering the whole water system in Wales to ensure that water is retained in the uplands to prevent downstream flooding. Here in Wales, those agencies responsible for our environment need to take the lead and work to ensure that potential flood waters are retained our uplands for longer and flood prevention avoidance schemes are comprehensively built into our planning system.

Where possible we should avoid building in those areas that are particularly vulnerable to flooding or at least when building to take into account the possibilities of flooding. And if we are going to build on flood plains or other areas that are vulnerable to flooding then we must use flood resistant or at the very least flood hardened modern intelligent design techniques to limit potential damage, loss and inconvenience as are used elsewhere. The on-going Dutch programme - Room for the River shows what’s possible.

We can be constructively innovative when we want to - the Welsh Government had previously given “indicative approval” to the Upper Conwy project. The purpose of the project is to assist in the storage of flood waters in the upland by slowing water flows through the restoration of moors, and it includes ditch blocking and river restoration. The cooperative project is spearheaded by Natural Resources Wales and the National Trust, with an agency official seconded to the Trust to push the work forward. Similar schemes have been developed in the north of England - this is good practice and we need much more of this. 

We need to think and act smarter, and shift the focus from flood prevention to flood avoidance. Our communities, our nation and our world are becoming more prone to extreme weather, torrential downpours and periods of warmer or hit dry weather. 

Dealing with the consequences of this on a marco level is one thing. Small relatively simple steps to store water for later use, with water butts (if only to water garden plants and vegetables) can make a very practical if minor use of excessive rainfall and runoff if only very locally.  Aside from helping to save water and to cut water bills.

Local water storage and management should be part of intelligent urban design, something that is becoming more common and necessary in a warmer wetter world.  On a larger scale this is something we will all have to do, naturally some people and nations are a head of the curve when it comes to re-engineering their infrastructures to deal with extreme weather events. 

The concept of the sponge city or urban sponge something that is embedded and central to urban planning should now be coming into its own, particularly in Wales, with our urban areas being redesigned or designed from the start to soak up, and store deluges of torrential rain to prevent damaging and dangerous flash flooding but without the construction of large scale flood defences.  

The Dutch, for historical and geographical reasons have been involved in serious water management for centuries. Yet in a warmed world, even the Dutch are having to take long hard fresh look at how they deal with the consequences or severe weather and more regular flooding along with a rise in sea levels. 

Many urban areas have developed with any serious co side ration of the impact of flash flooding - back in July 2021, in localised parts of London heavy torrential downpours saw local drainage systems overwhelmed - as streets became rivers, homes and businesses were flooded and public transport ( including trains and tubes ) brought to a standstill. In London, heavy rain, which fell on hard surfaces, overloaded drainage and severe flooding resulted. 

There is certain a case that it if happens on London, then Westminster, at least in the short term cannot ignore it, if it happens outside of London then it’s another matter. In Pontypridd the exciting flood defences were overwhelmed more than once simply being in poor condition and unable to cope with the sheer volume of water. 

Now elsewhere things are done differently - the sponge city concept has been embraced in parts of Berlin, were green roofs have been created with living plants, mosses and grasses, with plants Boeing on vertical walls, with courtyards planted with vegetation, etc - all of which helps to hold and slow excessive water. One beneficial side effect, if that the retained water helps to cool local neighbourhoods as the water evaporates from vegetation and the ground. 

In the Netherlands, the concept of making room for the river has been embraced to give space for flooding, something which slows the speed of riverine flooding. In Amsterdam, they have constructed rain gardens which have been created from parking areas, which are designed to collect water, people have also been encouraged to remove paving from their gardens, to grow plants and to build ponds to help with runoff and water storage. 

In the city of Rotterdam, public places have been turned into what are called water plazas which turn into shallow lakes during periods of heavy rain, when times are drier these locations are used as public parks and playing fields. Underground car parks have been redesigned or specifically built so that lower levels can be used to store storm related flood waters - which can then be pumped dry when water levels have dropped. 

These concepts are only slowly being looked at a adopted within these islands, we still tend to defy logic and build on flood planes, but, tend not to harden infrastructure of buildings ( commercial and domestic ) or to build with flooding in mind  e.g. build smart using ground floors for storage or parking and raise plug and power points, protect utilities and drains, and put washing machines, fridges sand freezers up off the ground. 

Some urban areas, within these islands, have slowly begun to adopt the concept, there are examples in Llanelli and at West Gordon Park, near Manchester - where porous pavements, shallow depressions, grass berms and small ponds help to absorb and direct surplus water into rain gardens or natural sumps or green spaces that double up as parks in drier periods. 

These are small steps, in a warmer, wetter world with more erratic and extreme weather events the problem of flooding will only get worse. As homeowners pave over their gardens for parking spaces the problem will worsen. The concept of the urban sponge is one that we all need to embrace, along with smart design and smart water management to help to reduce or alleviate urban flooding or we are going to be living with the consequences.  

CAERLEON RAILWAY STATION

Some of us in Newport and Monmouthshire have long called for the existing railway stations in Newport and on the levels to be significantly upgraded as part of the process of creating a functioning South Wales metro.  

We need far greater investment in public transport, with a much better integration and coordination of rail and bus networks and integrated tickets across all services – with the emphasis on sooner rather than later.

The one thing missing from the recommendations of the Burns Commission which included recommendations for new stations at Tredegar Park, Somerton, Llanwern and Magor was any reference to a new railway station to serve Caerleon and Ponthir.

Our City needs ground broken sooner rather than later to bring the new railway stations into being, to provide alternative means of getting around our city and elsewhere, and improved connectivity to Cardiff, Bristol and beyond. 

The new stations are an absolute necessity, a railway station to serve Caerleon / Ponthir should have been included, as this would be a real asset to both communities.

The absence of a railway station to serve Caerleon and Ponthir shows an alarming if not acute lack of understanding of local transport issues, or at best a far to literal linear focus on the problems of the M4 or could have been simply a glaring oversight. 

In this case it’s absence ensures that the residents of Caerleon / Ponthir have little choice but to drive to Newport, Cwmbran and beyond even to reach another railway station. 

If the Labour in Wales government are serious about providing realistic and effective public transport for all parts of Newport and cutting congestion on the M4 and around our city then a railway station to serve Caerleon and Ponthir needs to be added to the consultation and the consultation needs be extended. 

THE NEED FOR GREENBELT

The rapid expansion in housing and commercial developments around our cities, small towns and villages across Cymru / Wales over the last 45 years. Many of these developments often have little provision for public transport or alternative ways for potential residents to get around beyond using their cars beyond unfulfilled and largely undelivered promises. 

What has also happened  is the rapid loss of green spaces in and around our urban and not so urban areas and a largely unthought out expansion of our urban centres.

One thing that country lacks, aside from a serious well though out integrated housing structure plan, and a modern planning system and a realistic vision or plan for strategically developing our housing for the future, is green belt. 

There is a clear need for formal legally protected green belt, around Cardiff (including the Northern meadows), Newport, Cwmbran and Caerphilly along with our small towns in Monmouthshire: Abergavenny, Chepstow and Monmouth and elsewhere in Cymru / Wales.

The failure to create Green belt across all of our country, to fringe our urban areas, to help focus out of town and fringe of town developments, and to protect green spaces around, between and within some of our urban areas, has had significant consequences when it comes to urban growth. 

Green belt, if respected is still a useful planning tool, originally introduced for London in 1938, it was rolled out to England as a whole by a government circular in 1955 but interestingly enough it was only enough never rolled out here in Cymru / Wales. The original concept was to allow local councils to designate green belts when they wanted to restrict, control or shape urban growth.  

The idea worked and it worked well, as by 2007, Green belt covered something like 13% of England (about one-and-a-half million hectares) despite the best efforts of previous Conservative, New Labour and Conservative–Liberal Democrat Governments it is still remains relatively well protected by normal planning controls against "inappropriate development".

It is worth noting that there is no designated green belt in Cymru / Wales - save for one patch of notional green belt (actually a Green wedge) that lies between Cardiff and Newport. Scotland has seven and Northern Ireland has thirty - each has its own policy guidance. 

This absence of green belt in Cymru / Wales explains much - it has certainly contributed to urban sprawl and significant out of town and edge of town development - something that has done little to help our communities, economically or socially especially over the last 30 years.

The preservation of green spaces aside, comes down to planning permission (and ultimately our planning process), which can be a touchy subject in itself, especially when a development (whether for commercial, housing or energy development) is controversial or the final decision is made against the wishes of local people. 

In Cymru / Wales we face the same problem across all of our country, be it around Wrecsam, Carmarthen, northern Cardiff, Swansea of any of our smaller towns and villages. 

More locally, a number of these housing developments, which have done (and threaten to do) some pretty serious damage to our environment have come without any necessary improvements in infrastructure e.g new railway stations with reasonably priced (or even free), adequate and secure park and ride facilities at Caerleon (closed as a result of the Beeching cuts in 1962, in the UDP since 1984) not to mention proposed stations at Llanwern, Magor, Somerton and Newport West.

In our south east, along the coastal belt and in and around Newport and Torfaen (not to mention around Cardiff and Caerphilly) and across Monmouthshire the last thirty years has seen a significant if not spectacular growth in the amount of housing, a significant percentage of which has never aimed to fulfil local housing needs. 

As a result the infrastructure along the coastal belt between Chepstow, Caldicot, Rogiet and Magor struggles to cope with existing developments and this is well before the projected expansion of housing on and around the former Llanwern site (where the proposed railway station was recently cancelled) really kicks in.

Northern Newport has been linked to the south Cwmbran - something that has brought little material benefit to the residents of either urban area but has contributed much to traffic congestion. Cwmbran has been linked to Sebastopol bringing scant real benefit to local residents. When the housing development is complete - just exactly how much of it will be affordable to local residents remains to be seen?

The removal of the Severn Bridge tolls resulted (as expected) in a bump in house prices as people living in and around Bristol moved to cash in on cheaper housing over here.  

This understandably impacted on both affordable and available housing, developers will no doubt pitch their developments accordingly to cash in on perceived higher wages in the Bristol area and perceived cheaper housing over here (and no doubt our local authorities will fall over themselves to accommodate the developers wishes regardless how local people feel).

The, then, National Assembly (now Senedd)  should have known better and acted accordingly, the institution when established was supposed to have sustainability enshrined in its actions, but, at times you really have to wonder, especially when it comes to the impact of some of the proposed developments on our communities, whether it does or not. 

We need to develop and protect our own green belt around and within our urban communities – because once developed (or overdeveloped) it’s gone for good. We need to bin the fundamentally flawed UDP process and make our local government structure fit for the 21st century rather than the 19th century and accommodate re realities of devolved government. 

It should be pretty clear by now to even the most dispassionate of observers that in Wales, we lack a coherent national strategic development plan for Wales judging by the half-baked way local unitary development plans have been put together over the years.

The problem caused by a lack of protection to our Green spaces is aggravated by the fact that while one generation of elected officials (and council officers) envisages as a green wedge, green lane, etc as a social necessity they are often seen by following generations of elected officials (and council officers) as either prime land for development or a nice little earner to help balance out the books.

This means that there is a real lack of stability and a lack of a sustainable long term vision for many of our urban areas and impacts on our quality of life. 

The Senedd needs to grow up and act like the Welsh Parliament it has become - it should take the long view and legislate to create and protect Green belt land with full legal and planning protections in Cymru/ Wales. 

This might go some way to calming things down when it comes to development planning and might introduce a more long-term sustainable democratic element into the process. 

This is something that could be accomplished by creating Welsh Green belt land, as part of the process we also need an urgent and open debate into the planning process in Wales - something that has been long overdue.

Successive Westminster government’s (in England) talked about getting planning officers "off people's backs" with a relaxation of planning rules. When they talked about ‘people’ they meant developers. 

So far, as a result of the pandemic, the post Brexit Westminster ministers have yet to take the much trumpeted and much promised axe to red tape and planning rules (in England) in an attempt to boost house building and revive the economy.

Not wanting to be left out (and also perhaps bereft of any fresh ideas), a few years ago Carwyn’s Labour in Wales Government in Cardiff also pursued major changes to planning rules in Wales aiming to ‘tilt the balance in favour of economic growth over the environment and social factors’. 

That decision was in my opinion aimed quite specifically at overturning those few occasions when our Local Authorities have rejected developments (often at the behest of local residents) rather than putting economic needs ahead of economic and environmental benefits and will do little for sustainable, flood free development to deal with local housing needs let alone preserve our green spaces. 

It explains much of the housing overdevelopment in various parts of our country and it does not deliver for our hard pressed communities or our country. 

We need to look at championing the development of new homes in small-scale housing developments in both rural and urban Wales on ‘exception sites’, where land plots, not covered by general planning permission, will be capped at an affordable price designed to benefit those in local housing need with family and work ties to the area, and whose sale will be conditional on these houses continuing in local ownership in perpetuity. 

What’s left of our social housing stock that remains under the control of the housing associations needs to remain intact in order to meet the demand for homes. 

Along with developing social housing stock there is a need to introduce a more rigorous system in the allocation of social housing to give priority to those in local housing need.

Part of the problem is that our planning system, along with our almost nineteenth century local government setup is not designed to coexist with devolution or for that matter to deliver planning decisions with real and lasting benefits for local people and local communities. 

There is a real need for root and branch reform and reorganisation of our planning system; something the Welsh Government has failed to deliver with tinkering and tweaks to existing out-dated legislation rather than and real reform.

Our current planning system remains far too focused on railroading through large housing / commercial developments, that often bring little real benefits for local people and local communities and often fail to resolve real and pressing local housing needs. 

We need a fundamental change in planning culture to encourage appropriate and sustainable smaller scale housing developments, which are based on good design and actively promote energy efficiency and good environmental standards and that puts our communities first. 

Now this is something we are never going to get from a Labour in Wales government, in Cardiff, or a Labour in Westminster government at the other end of the M4. It’s time to change the way that our communities are run and to make the aims and objectives of Welsh government’s more responsive to our communities, and our country’s needs and concerns, rather than the needs and concerns of the Labour Party.