Scrap the Vale’s draft LDP (Local Development Plan)

The LDP is wrong not only for devoting huge greenfield areas for housing – a house-builders charter – but also

a) for suppressing all ideas of a Green Belt to the west of Cardiff.

FoE argued strongly for this at the 1999 Public Inquiry and won the argument against the Vale planners and won the Inspector’s support.  He recommended including all the eastern Vale up to Five-Mile-Lane, but the then Vale Council disregarded his arguments.  A Green Belt is the best way to resist developer pressures that would make the eastern Vale into residential suburbs for Cardiff.  Regional planning should meet more of Cardiff’s housing needs in Valley communities that want regeneration and have many brown-field sites waiting.  The LDP fails from the start in refusing to face these issues and going for quite ‘unsustainable’ development in sacrificing huge green-field areas.   

b) for allocating Barry dock for waste incinerators, with no full waste management plan as is required.

The Tory Cabinet and officers want to justify their past approvals of incinerators of waste wood and domestic waste amidst the light-industry businesses and close to housing on Dock View Road. They ignored waste-transporting lorry traffic, the high noise levels of power plant, the vast tonnages of potentially toxic ash that needs on-site processing, the probability of accidental fire and the inevitable emissions of toxic gases and dusts, all considerations for competent planning.

In addition to these obvious reasons, general policy says to site such plant adjacent to industrial heat users, as heat is the majority of the energy output. Barry's chemical complex has empty ex-industrial sites, and Dow Corning did express interest in the heat. Yet the LDP goes for incinerators (masquerading as 'waste management facilities') rather than devoting the half-empty dockland to mixed development with housing in accord with declared 'aspirations'.

The LDP has by law to include principles for an integrated waste plan and Friends of the Earth have put in a strong case that this one doesn't. It needs facilities for reclaiming waste materials including maximising recycling.  It has to justify incinerating household waste rather than previous policy for mechanical and bio-treatment after maximising recycling. It needs to show integration, including facilities for processing the ash from any incinerators. It's not acceptable to plan to send vast quantities of toxic ash for dumping in English landfills.

So Barry & Vale FoE wants Labour's scrapping the LDP to extend to scrapping its awful planning for waste and to addressing the Green Belt idea.

Wales Coast Path far from 'continuous' at Barry and Penarth

Barry and Vale FoE are very disappointed and critical of the lack of effort to implement the continuous coastal path within the Vale of Glamorgan. There's a huge gap east of Barry Island and another gap from Penarth Esplanade to the Cardiff Bay barrage.

This shows failure by officials to implement the declared concept of a "continuous" coast path. We raised this in March, the CCW official gave excuses (Countryside Council for Wales, see letter below) and CCW now talk of a "linked path". The local FoE group have asked the AM, Vaughan Gething to take up the particular gap in Penarth as well as the general failure.

1. Huge gap from Ty Hafan east of Sully to Barry Island, even omitting a km-stretch of the existing coast path to the Bendricks rocks.

As the Vale Council owns the Atlantic Trading Estate, the way from HMS Cambria to the lock at the mouth of Barry Dock has few problems.  Yet the CCW officials made no attempt to re-open the route across the lock to Barry Island, which the public used to use before ABP took over. The section of path from Ty Hafan hospice to the Bendricks rocks at the mouth of the Cadoxton river has been excluded, on the illegitimate excuse that the path and foreshore are owned by the hospice. Thus, we're given a huge diversion around Barry's chemical complex, along the main road through Cadoxton to the Docks Office and on further roads to Barry Island.

2. Failure to consider path around the base of Penarth Head, from the Barrage to Penarth Esplanade

The construction of this path was a commitment in the Cardiff Bay Barrage Act. The Vale of Glamorgan Council conceived a fancy, highly costly scheme (~£20million) that had to be cancelled.  But now, CCW are shielding the Welsh Government from this coast-path obligation. WAG did allocate £7.5 million to it in the Barrage Settlement, well over the Council estimate (£3million) for its cost at the time, to allow for costs in stabilising the cliff as coastal protection. FoE have asked the AM to put down a marker on this issue.

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CCW letter of  2/3/2012  relevant text extracts:

from Sue Rice, Access Programmes Manager                                 Ein cyf/Our ref:ATI 799

In respect of your recent enquiry 22 February 2012 for information (ATI 799) in which you

requested clarification on a number of points relating to the Wales Coast Path (WCP) in the Vale of Glamorgan, the route of which is shown on the attached plan.

Taking your points in order:

 

· Big gap between Bendricks rocks and Hayes Wood and public paths in the western dock

The WCP is routed around Barry Docks for a number of reasons. Firstly we wanted to ensure that the path was available 24/7, something that we could not guarantee if it was routed through the docks. Secondly it was felt that given the state of repair of much of the road surface in this area, and the considerable costs required to create a suitable path, the health and safety implications of using this route were unacceptable. When considering the route to the east of this area, regard was paid to the presence of Ty Hafan and I’m sure you would agree that it would be inappropriate to route the path through the grounds of this children’s hospice. As a result the route is as shown on the attached plan.

· No path around Penarth Headland to the Barrage

Whilst I appreciate that there have been plans in the past to create a route around Penarth headland to the Barrage, this has never formed part of the WCP. The costs of the proposed plan were far beyond the capabilities of our budgets, and it was felt that the health and safety implications related to rock falls and cliff erosion in this area made the creation of a path at the base of the cliffs impracticable. However, as a result the WCP does pass close to the centre of Penarth, ensuring that the town can take advantage of the economic benefits of the path.