What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the pre-application process introduced by the Planning (Wales) Act 2015 and whether comments of individuals and communities are taken on board by planning authorities?
We have accepted the recommendation of the Law Commission, made in their report Planning Law in Wales to review pre-application consultation and pre-application services in connection with developments of national significance. In respect of other planning applications, we have worked with the Royal Town Planning Institute and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, holding stakeholder workshops to explore how pre-application consultation works in practice. Issues to arise from workshops include consultation coming too late in the development design process and local planning authorities need to be more involved. More recently we funded Planning Aid Wales research to explore and demonstrate the value of engagement in the working of planning in Wales, with the goal of proposing a path to embedding best-practice engagement in the Welsh planning system.