Pontypool has suffered severely from shop closures over many years.
Unfortunately empty units have become a feature with many absentee landlords sadly uninterested in the town's future.
Many top-down regeneration efforts haven't succeeded either despite best efforts.
But there are reasons to be optimistic.
Pontypool's indoor market has unique and locally owned businesses at the heart of the town and there are tireless volunteers like Friends of Pontypool Town, who you met recently, Preet Winidog, working to develop and improve facilities and support local entrepreneurs.
Does the First Minister agree that local voices need to be central to the regeneration efforts of towns like Pontypool?
And does he agree that compulsory purchase orders should be used to bring long empty spaces back into use?
I very much enjoyed my visit to Pontypool with a member recently and yes we visited High Street and the market.
There's a real sense of community and wanting to inject new life and real sign of that new life.
Should local voices be heard?
Absolutely.
We want to build our local economies for the people that live in them and they should be able to map the kind of communities that they want.
On compulsory purchase, yes it's a tool in the toolbox, one that is usually a tool of last resort, but maybe just segueing from compulsory purchase to enforcement, certainly on enforcement, we are supporting local authorities to take enforcement action where appropriate with the empty property enforcement fund helping de-risk action on some problematic properties.
Part of a breadth of ways that we hope to act, again guided by the work of the town census task force.