About this Forum

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Wales is a small country on a small planet. For the foreseeable future this planet is the only one we have, and our little corner is perhaps the most beautiful part of it. We need to look after it and play our part, however small, in helping to look after the rest.

As human beings, we shape the land we live in. Very little of the landscape we might think of as natural is untouched, it has been changed by farming, mining, industry buildings and transport. The question for us is not whether we do it or not, but how we do it. Our built environment is every bit as important as what we think of as our natural environment, and we need to get the balance right.

This forum is to discuss these issues from both perspectives. We need to consider how we look after what we have —things like wildlife, National Parks and built heritage. But we also need to look at where we build now; where we live and work and shop and how we travel between them. For example, do we encourage retail parks, large supermarkets and out of town business parks, or is this not sustainable in the long term, such that we should seek to change the emphasis to make traditional towns more viable?

What sort of housing do we want to see? What is the right mix of development, and what sort of infrastructure is necessary? How far should we take social factors into account, especially given the increasing polarization between richer and poorer areas.

How to we encourage the highest design standards, such that we can be proud of the places we live and work in?

How do we deal with pollution and waste? Or with essential resources such as water?