MS, Cabinet Secretary
Economy, Energy and Planning: The planning system drives
sustainable economic growth and creates good jobs across the
country, whilst also protecting our communities and
environment.
We have been making significant improvements to the planning
system to reflect the important role it has in shaping our
future, and I take this opportunity to update colleagues on that
work.
Our ambition is to make Wales the fastest country in the UK to
determine infrastructure applications. This shows our clear
commitment to giving developers and other applicants timely
decisions, and providing certainty across key sectors including
renewable energy, waste, water, and transport.
During 2025, 13 applications for Developments of National
Significance (DNS) have been determined, demonstrating good
progress towards achieving our ambition. In 2025 we reduced
the average time taken to determine DNS applications by 6 weeks,
to 30 weeks.
Following changes which we introduced, and which came into force
in January 2025, Planning and Environment Decisions Wales (PEDW)
has been empowered to decide applications for renewable energy
projects of up to 50 Megawatts. Seven delegated decisions have
been made, with all of these determined between 10 and 15 weeks
ahead of the statutory decision deadline of 36 weeks. This has
streamlined PEDW's work, allowing it to maximise the use of
available resources to other areas including making progress to
clear the backlog of enforcement appeals. As a result, PEDW has
determined 86% more enforcement decisions this year than last.
Further significant improvements will take place in 2026. The
Infrastructure (Wales) Act 2024 came into force on 15
December last year. This continues our commitment to the
effective and efficient determination of large-scale
infrastructure by providing a modern consenting process. To
ensure the system is ready on day one, we provided funding during
2025 to strengthen the capacity of planning services provided by
PEDW and Natural Resources Wales.
The system also enables full cost recovery, ensuring our public
sector is properly resourced to help determine these applications
in an effective and efficient manner. Our aim is to
determine all applications in the 52 week statutory timeframe or
before.
I highly value the important work undertaken by local planning
authorities in supporting essential economic growth. Important
examples from last year include the Port Talbot Electric Arc
Furnace and Bridgend Vantage Data Centre applications. To ensure
that all local planning authorities have the resources that they
need, the new Fee Regulations took effect on 1 December
2025. The regulations increased planning application fees across
the board and help to address the deficit between the cost of
determining applications and the income received for providing
this service. We are re-invigorating and reintroducing the
Performance Framework to measure and monitor the performance of
local authorities, and how extra resources are making a
difference.
I expect the largest investment in our planning services in
recent years to result in more planners on the ground, leading to
more effective and faster planning decisions. Our Town
Planning Bursary scheme covers the cost for graduates to
obtain a postgraduate qualification, increasing our number of
planners. We have also funded two new senior planner roles to
support infrastructure projects via an expanded North Wales
Shared Planning Service, reflecting the benefits regional
planning can have on resourcing complex applications and would
welcome further expression of interest for joint working
proposals.
Supportive of this work, over the past seven months, Net Zero
Industry Wales has been enabling the increase of resources within
the planning process in Wales. Supported projects are
diverse in their impact on Welsh industrial decarbonisation and
fall under a range of planning processes. Over the next
year NZIW is expecting to further support the planning and
consenting process in Wales as more projects come online
Longer term, we commissioned RTPI Cymru to report on workforce
planning to develop a clear picture of capacity, resourcing,
and skills needs across the public sector. This will help shape
our work with partners going forward and help to ensure that we
have the planners that we need to make our ambition to be the
fastest country in the UK to determine infrastructure
applications a reality.
