Links

Welsh Assembly Government documentation on Local Plans and Unitary Development Plans here

Cardiff County Council Local Development Plan web pages here

Cardiff Civic Society newsletter Summer 2008 English | Welsh (pdf documents)

Cardiff and Penarth Civic Societies

THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF CARDIFF

Saturday 18th October 2008, 10 – 4,
County Hall, Atlantic Wharf, Cardiff

This day conference was jointly organised by Cardiff Civic Society, Radyr & Morganstown Association, Penarth Society, Llandaff Society and Rhiwbina Society. It was supported and facilitated by the Civic Trust for Wales.

Former Environment Minister Sue Essex, Professor John Punter, and Stuart Williams of Cardiff Council, spoke during the morning session. Group discussions during the afternoon gave everyone a chance to have their say on the issues covered by the speakers.

Conference report pdf (64kb)

Stuart Williams Powerpoint (9.2MB) | pdf (1.12MB)

John Punter Powerpoint (9.6MB) | pdf (2.07MB)

We have also posted links to the WAG policy guidance on Local Plans and to the Local Plan pages on the Cardiff Council web site.

SUMMARY

In October this year, Cardiff and Penarth civic societies held a conference on the role of the Cardiff Local Development Plan and its place in shaping Cardiff’s future development.
  The Preferred Strategy document was approved by Cardiff County Council a year ago. In Spring 2009 the council will publish its Deposit Plan, which will lead to a further cycle of public consultation.
  The conference keynote was given by Sue Essex, quondam leader of Cardiff City Council before 1996, and recently retired as an Assembly Member and minister in the Welsh Assembly Government. Stuart Williams, group leader for Strategic Planning in the council, provided a presentation on the current shape of the Plan and its approaches, inter alia, to housing, employment, transport and sustainability. Professor John Punter, of Cardiff University, looked critically at issues associated with housing and business development, with a focus on urban design and sustainability issues.
The conference divided into groups to address three issues:

• The key themes arising from the LDP and the plan-making process;
• How community groups and local authority could work more constructively together; and
• How the third sector within Cardiff could develop a more effective input into debate over the city’s strategic development.

A full summary of the conference is on the Civic Trust for Wales’s web site.
  The overall conclusion from the event was that greater community involvement was needed if the Plan that emerges in 2011 is to truly reflect effective engagement with stakeholders. At this stage there are major issues that need to be debated, and the approach taken by the Preferred Strategy needs to be questioned. Above all, there is a need for more effective dialogue between the council and third sector groups concerned with planning and urban design themes and it is desirable that between now and the publication of the Deposit Plan there is space to engage with planners in order to make consultation effective and productive in shaping the final Plan.
  Alongside concern over the consultation process and the extent to which this responds to Assembly Government expectations, participants suggested that the following aspects of the Plan need to be debated further:

• The nature of the vision for Cardiff, and the council’s understanding of the relationship between Cardiff and its region, and Cardiff and Wales.
• The economic models underlying the Preferred Strategy, and whether they need to be modified in the light of recession.
• The Plan’s housing strategy, and the dangers of social polarisation arising from a focus on apartment dwellings.
• The failure to plan for family homes within the city and to develop approaches to new neighbourhoods on the city edge and to suburban intensification that would both provide for housing needs and be more sustainable in terms of traffic impacts and movement strategy.
• The lack of an approach to urban design which would ensure that new residential building creates streets and communities rather than gated blocks – as the Plan stands, the social polarisation that has been an aspect of recent development in the city and the Bay will continue.
• Transport strategy: as currently proposed this is unaffordable and proposals need to be adapted to realistic expectations of funding.
• Employment strategy, and in particular plans for a regional business park at J33: how can this be remodelled to provide a mixed use development that will be more sustainable than the monocultural model currently envisaged?
• The sustainability tests applied to Plan proposals.

In other words, will be the Plan lead to further social polarisation within the city; to further, unsustainable traffic growth along the A470 and M4; to further low quality housing developments that do not meet residential or community needs; and to a failure to create a city and communities with a high quality of life supported by good urban design – or can it be adjusted to respond to a vision for the capital that offers citizens a more sustainable future?