Householders and developers will need planning permission to install impermeable surfaces, under proposed Welsh Assembly measures.
The assembly cannot legislate, but is asking central government for a Legislative Competence Order (LCO), enabling it to pass new flood-defence laws, or ‘measures’.
Assembly member Joyce Watson, who proposed the LCO, said planning authorities could ignore current guidance. She wanted a requirement that all new domestic hard surfaces must be permeable or linked to a permeable area, with any exceptions needing planning permission.
She said porous materials were harder to source than hard ones, but this would change as industry adjusted to the new market.
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