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29 March 2018

Taff Housing Association proposes to build 36 dwellings and 34 parking spaces on a 0.75 acre plot of land on the Radyr Sidings estate. These could house an additional 100 people, adding to the existing pressures on local amenities such as primary schools, the medical centre, road infrastructure, parking and the sewerage system. The proposals are also significantly out of keeping with the rest of the estate, as they are overbearing, have a different appearance and use of materials, and are much more densely packed.

The planning application documents submitted to Cardiff Council are available to read on the Council’s planning website at https://planning.cardiff.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=_CARDIFF_DCAPR_122287. (It will open in a new tab or browser window – and please be patient, as it can take some time to load.)

Objections

Around 140 objections were submitted to the council during the formal consultation period during January. They are all available to view on the council’s planning website, but for ease of reference, some of the key objections can be downloaded here (they will each open in a new browser tab):

NEW. White Young Green (Taff Housing’s planning advisors) have submitted a letter which aims to address the objections.

Next steps

The application will be considered by a Planning Committee, which is now likely to happen on 9th May 2018.

Councillor McKerlich is going to request a site visit at that meeting (he has already flagged this via e-mail) and the Council’s planning officer believes that the request for a site visit will be granted. Should this be the case then the substantive debate and the opportunity to address the Committee will not take place until the June Committee (13th).

Once the Planning Committee meets in June, Councillor McKerlich and our planning advisor will each have 5 minutes to make any further representations in person before the Committee. Taff Housing will have a right of reply and can speak for 5 minutes as well.

If the decision is to refuse the development, Taff Housing can either appeal the decision, or submit a fresh application with a revised proposal.

If the decision is to allow the development, we do not have the right to appeal, so that will be the end of the road for any challenge.

How you can still help

Although the formal period for objections has now ended, the council will take into consideration any further comments received before the Planning Committee meets. Therefore, please feel free to submit your comments, particularly if:

  • you did not respond before the deadline;
  • any new points of objection occur to you since submitting your original objection;
  • you have any new photos of parking or traffic problems on the estate or King’s Road, eg. blockages by delivery vehicles or waste collection trucks, or any accidents.

You can comment by either of the following methods:

1 – Follow the instructions on the Council’s Planning website at https://planning.cardiff.gov.uk/online-applications/ to sign up and “Make a Comment” on application 17/03034/MJR.

2 – E-mail JusJones@cardiff.gov.uk and Development.Management@cardiff.gov.uk with your comments, and ensure that you include the application reference 17/03034/MJR in your message.

Please avoid objecting on the basis that the proposed development is social housing or that it would diminish the value of your home. We realise that this may be a cause for concern for some people, but there is a real need for social housing in Cardiff, and objecting on this basis will a) be irrelevant from a planning point of view, and b) probably weaken other legitimate grounds for objection.

Please remember that all comments submitted will be published on the planning website, including your name and address.

If you haven’t already, please sign up to our mailing list, and we will keep you updated with any further news.

23 January 2018

Planning Application Now Submitted — Deadline for Comments & Objections

Taff Housing Association proposes to build 36 dwellings and 34 parking spaces on a 0.75 acre plot of land on the Radyr Sidings estate. These could house an additional 100 people, adding to the existing pressures on local amenities such as primary schools, the medical centre, road infrastructure, parking and the sewerage system.

The Housing Association has now submitted a formal planning application to Cardiff Council.

It is available to read at https://planning.cardiff.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=_CARDIFF_DCAPR_122287. (It will open in a new tab or browser window – and please be patient, as it can take some time to load.)

The deadline for submitting comments for the planning committee’s consideration is 26 January 2018.

Please submit an objection even if you have previously objected at the public consultation phase back in December.

You can submit your own comments/objections either online or by post:

1. Online

•  Go to the Cardiff Council Planning website at https://planning.cardiff.gov.uk/online-applications/. (Will open in new tab/window.)

•  Register and create a profile

•  Search for application reference  17/03034/MJR

•  Click on the ‘Comments’ tab and then ‘Make a Comment’

You may find it helpful to write out your comments in a word processor first and then copy and paste it into the online comments box.

We understand that some people have been encountering errors when trying to use the online system.

If you encounter an error please try to take screenshots of the error you get and send an to e-mail JusJones@cardiff.gov.uk and Development.Management@cardiff.gov.uk including both your objections and the error messages, so that a) your objections get submitted and b) they are made aware of the problem. (If you’re not able to include screenshots, just describe the error you encountered as best you can, and state the date & time when it happened.)

Please ensure that you include reference 17/03034/MJR in your e-mail.

And please copy us in on your email  at sidings@radyr.org.uk so that we can monitor the level of the errors.

2. By post

Write to:

Development Management
Room 201
County Hall
Atlantic Wharf
Cardiff
CF10 4UW

Please ensure that you quote the application reference 17/03034/MJR so that they know to which application your comments relate.

Please avoid objecting on the basis that the proposed development is social housing or that it would diminish the value of your home. We realise that this may be a cause for concern for some people, but there is a real need for social housing in Cardiff, and objecting on this basis will a) be irrelevant from a planning point of view, and b) probably weaken other legitimate grounds for objection.

And please remember that all comments submitted will be published on the website.

25 November 2017

There is currently a pre-application consultation under way, and the proposed plans are available for review here: https://www.wyg.com/consultations/de-clare-drive-radyr

Comments must be submitted by 8 December. We anticipate that a formal planning application will then be submitted before Christmas.

Take action now:

1 – Review the plans and submit your representations

The more objections that Taff Housing receives, the better chance we have of persuading them that this is not a viable development. We have received professional advice that it is more meaningful and will have a greater impact if everyone submits their own individual response at this stage. If everyone just sends the same template letter, it looks too contrived and will not carry much weight. Therefore, we ask you to take a few minutes to write and send your own response to this consultation.

Nevertheless, we have prepared a short draft letter that you might find helpful as a starter, but if you decide to use this, please do try and amend it with your own thoughts and comments.

Download template letter to WYG

(WYG is the firm of planning consultants acting for Taff Housing.)

Please e-mail your comments to louise.darch@wyg.com by 8 December.

2 – Contribute to planning consultant’s fees

We have engaged a professional planning consultant with experience of advising residents’ groups in similar circumstances. The consultant will review the relevant documentation, advise us on the best strategy for responding, draft formal objections and represent our interests at the planning committee stage. We hope that input from an expert will enable us to adopt the most appropriate strategy and prepare a more robust and persuasive objection.

The consultant charges by the hour, so the total fees are a little uncertain at the moment, but we anticipate being in the region of £2,000. Given the likely impact on the wider Radyr & Morganstown community, the Community Council has kindly agreed to match-fund contributions up to £750.

If you are happy to contribute to the costs of obtaining professional advice you can donate by clicking on the following button.

Contribute to planning consultant’s fees

All contributions very gratefully received.

3 – Write to our MP

Please contact our MP, Kevin Brennan, to highlight the strength of feeling about this proposed development and request his support in objecting. We have created a template letter, but feel free to adapt it as you wish.

Download template letter to MP

His contact details are:

Kevin Brennan MP
395 Cowbridge Road East
Canton
Cardiff
CF5 1JG

E-mail: brennank@parliament.uk

4 – Write to our AM

It is also worth contacting our AM, to request his support in objecting to this proposed development. Again, we have prepared a template letter, which you may wish to use.

Download template letter to AM

His contact details are:

Mark Drakeford AM
National Assembly for Wales
Cardiff Bay
Cardiff
CF99 1NA

Email:  Mark.Drakeford@assembly.wales

5 – Sign up to our mailing list

Please use our email sign up form to be added to our mailing list. We will email you with any further news about this proposed development and updates on the planning application process.

24 November 2017

More Flats & Houses Proposed for The Sidings, Radyr

Taff Housing Association has begun a pre-application consultation for a development of social housing on land at the south-eastern end of De Clare Drive, Radyr.

The proposal is for two blocks of flats, comprising 18 one-bed and 10 two-bed flats, and 8 three-bed houses — a total of 36 dwellings, plus 34 car parking spaces. The full draft planning application is available at https://www.wyg.com/consultations/de-clare-drive-radyr.

The deadline for comments is 8th December. Taff Housing Association is obliged to give consideration to all feedback, and report to the council on the comments received as part of its planning application. It is anticipated that a formal planning application will be submitted before the end of this year.

The Sidings Residents’ Association is currently liaising with Sidings’ residents to collate feedback, and aims to co-ordinate a collective response to this consultation and the planning application.

Given the inevitable impact on local infrastructure and amenities, such as traffic, schools and the medical centre, the Sidings Residents’ Association is very keen to hear the views of all residents of Radyr & Morganstown, as well as those on the Sidings.

Please contact the Sidings Residents’ Association at sidings@radyr.org.uk if you have any comments about the proposed developments or if you would like to be added to our mailing list and kept up to date with further news.

17 May 2017

We’d like to share with you all a number of recent developments regarding the estate. We would very much welcome your feedback on these issues.

Update on adoption process

The roads and other communal areas of the estate continue to progress through “adoption” to transfer responsibility from Taylor Wimpey to the Council. Taylor Wimpey have appointed a company called JLES, which specialises in completion of developers’ sites prior to transfer to the Council. They effectively act as an intermediary between the Council and developer, agreeing the outstanding work to be completed, submitting a report to the developer along with costs for carrying out the work and then arranging for the work to be completed.

The Council is currently awaiting a defects report from JLES, which we hope will be shared with residents for comment before it is finalised, so that we can make sure it captures all work that needs to be undertaken.

In addition, Welsh Water has agreed to the adoption of the storm pipe running through the estate. All the manholes on site have now been passed fit for adoption by Welsh Water and all pipework should now have been surveyed.

Should you have any comments or particular issues concerning the communal areas, please do let us know, so we can ensure that this is included in the remedial works to be completed as part of the adoption.

River bank maintenance

With Spring upon us, there have been a number of concerns raised regarding the very overgrown area of land sloping down to the river bank on the South-Eastern edge of the estate. This was originally intended to be wildflower grassland, with some trees and scrub, and the current overgrown state is clearly not what was envisaged. The Council has been working on establishing the best approach to short term and long term management. This is likely to have two prongs:

1. Treatment of invasive species

Regular treatment of Japanese knotweed, Giant Hogweed and other invasive species. This will need to be done annually as the presence of the river makes complete eradication of these very difficult. From examination on site, treatment of the knotweed by Taylor Wimpey is evident but significant amounts remain, some of it obscured by vegetation. There does appear to be a good buffer between the knotweed and properties, which must be maintained.

2. Clearance and management of scrub vegetation

Widescale clearance of scrub (buddleia, brambles, and other species) on an annual basis to clear views from properties, allow wildflower meadow to develop and expose any invasive species to allow more effective treatment. Long term management would need to be in discussion with the Conversation Officer to ensure that the bank provides a good level of wildlife habitat as it forms part of an important corridor along the river.

The Council hopes to share with us their management plan so residents can feed in. In the meantime, it would be really helpful to have your feedback on the following:

a) if you spot any giant hogweed, please let us know of its exact location (if you can, mark it on a map of the area). Please do not touch it or try to remove it yourself, as it can cause severe skin burns.

b) please let us know if you have any views on whether the trees planted at the top of the bank should be retained or removed.

The “Plot”

Councellor McKerlich has informed us that a housing association is contemplating 37 units of various sizes on the undeveloped site currently owned by Network Rail. He has already registered a concern (given the number of bedrooms) that this would lead to insufficient school provision in the catchment as well as making parking congestion greater.

Although we recognise that this piece of land will have some value to Network Rail which they will want to maximise, we as a committee have so far identified the following additional concerns:

1. Additional traffic down De Clare Drive, as we are already over the agreed number of houses served by the access.

2. Additional traffic/parking problems in the long run given the anticipated increased traffic to and from the station.

3. Safety issues at the entrance to the estate, especially around the Goetre Fawr/De Clare Drive junction, as well as the Kings Road/Kings Ave, Kings Road/Heol Isaf junctions.

4. The amount of disruption likely to be caused during construction in the middle of a residential development, e.g. traffic, noise, dust, vibration, damage to roads and footpath, risk of damage to property and vehicles, parking, lorries turning and parking up, visual intrusion (privacy issues), etc.

5. Potential change of use from original planning permission for a residential care home – could have impact on things like noise levels.

6. Environmental – does this really fit with the planning objectives set-out when the estate was first envisaged – layout, mix of housing and so on.

Whilst the information about the proposed development is still very limited, we would really like your views on this.

Planters

The Community Council Environment Committee has been given a budget to install various planters around the village and would like for some to be placed at the Sidings. The suggestion is for two planters to be installed either side of the bench in the children’s play area. Whilst the Community Council will fund the planters, these will require maintaining – essentially some watering throughout the summer months.

In addition, there are small grants available from the Community Council to contribute towards things like flowers, other plants and equipment, to improve the greenery in community areas. It has been suggested that with a little bit of gardening and TLC, our green areas could look much more vibrant and inviting.

Would any residents like to volunteer to assist with maintaining the planters and/or improving our green areas? Neither would require too much effort, and both could make our communal areas look much nicer. Please let us know if you would be interested and we can try and co-ordinate effort.

As usual, please let us know if you have any other comments about the estate or if you would like to become more involved with the association. We are always keen to engage with residents, and we aim to represent your views, so we are happy to hear from everyone.

24 October 2016

The Association continues to listen to and represent the voices of the residents of the Sidings estate, in collaboration with our local councillor, Rod McKerlich.

We have been liaising with Network Rail in relation to the maintenance of the “plot”, with a view to improving its aesthetics as well as safety while Network Rail continue their attempts to sell this piece of land.

In addition, we continue our dialogue with Taylor Wimpey and Cardiff Council in relation to the maintenance of the common areas of the estate, including the road surfaces, street lighting and the overgrown river bank area. The adoption process is under way, but the timeframe for completion is not yet known.

Finally, we continue to keep an eye on developments around Radyr station, and seek to minimise any detrimental impact on the estate. Further information about the current plans is available in English and Welsh.

We welcome any comments or queries from residents — please email us at radyrsidings@gmail.com

AGM 2015

The 2015 Annual General Meeting of the Sidings Residents’ Association will take place at the Old Church Rooms, in the Garth Room on Monday 30 November, starting promptly at 7:30pm.

  • Agenda
  • Welcome & Overview
  • Report on past year’s activities:
    • Playground
    • Streetlights, green areas and other Taylor Wimpey matters
  • The “plot”
  • Proposed changes to Radyr Station and vicinity
  • Likely activities in the coming year
  • Committee for 2015/16
  • AOB
  • To expand on some of these items a little further:

Proposed changes to Radyr station

The committee has very recently become aware of plans by Network Rail to redevelop the station and the immediate surroundings. The plans include:

  • upgrading the station office
  • converting the derelict piece of land between the station and the bridge to a car park, to increase parking provision from the current 122 spaces to a total of 235 spaces
  • installing additional lighting columns with floodlighting
  • installing additional CCTV cameras
  • adding cycle parking facilities for 5 or 6 bikes
  • potentially introducing a new bus service direct to the station, accessing via King’s Road.

We understand that as Network Rail owns much of the land in question, they are not required to go through the usual planning application process. However, they do need to comply with Highways legislation and Health & Safety laws.

It is currently not clear to us how advanced these plans are or when they propose to begin work. Our main concern at the moment is to ensure that residents are properly consulted on the plans and that we have the opportunity to feed in any concerns we might have. The R&M Community Council is writing to Cardiff Council and Network Rail to formally request that people in Radyr are consulted on this scheme. We will keep you updated with any further developments on this issue as we become aware.

In the meantime, we would welcome your initial views on these proposals. If possible, please send your thoughts through by e-mail to <a href=”mailto:radyrsidings@gmail.com”>radyrsidings@gmail.com</a> so that we have the opportunity to consider them in advance of the AGM.

Committee for 2015/16

The current committee is:

Eszter Horvath-Papp – chair
Mark Ellis – secretary
Kevin Wright – general
Jon Wallis – general

All are happy to stand again for their roles.

However, we would very much encourage others to get involved. This is a relaxed and flexible group and there are no pre-requisites for taking part. We are all just ordinary residents like you, who care about our environment and community. We all have lives to be getting on with and it would be great to have more of us to share the work in dealing with any issues that arise and to communicate with all the residents.

If possible, please let us know in advance if you would like to stand for any particular role on the committee, but you can also decide to stand on the night. Please come prepared to say a few words about yourself to assist with the elections.

AOB

To help us manage time on the night, it would be helpful if you could let us know in advance if there is anything in particular you would like to raise in the AGM. This doesn’t, however, prevent issues being raised on the night.

Finally, thank you to everyone’s support throughout this past year and we look forward to seeing many of you on the 30th.

The Committee

June 2015

We are pleased to report that there has been a helpful and constructive meeting between the Council and Taylor Wimpey on the estate to discuss and agree a plan of action in relation to the various issues affecting the estate.

We understand it was a positive meeting and they identified the scope of remedial works to all the open space areas on the site to bring them up to an appropriate standard. Taylor Wimpey will be providing a programme for the completion of the outstanding works and rectification of defects.

The Play Area

Work has now started on removing the grassed areas within the children’s play area, and replacing them with tarmac. The intention is to complete this work prior to the school summer holidays. This will mean that the park will be closed for approximately one week, though hopefully still within term time.

The rest of the work on the central open space (eg, remedial work to the poor surface preparations and soil spread) will then take place throughout the summer months and Taylor Wimpey has promised to keep disruption to a minimum.

Japanese Knotweed

In addition, there was significant discussion in relation to the Japanese knotweed problem on the river bank leading up to the edge of the estate. Taylor Wimpey confirmed that there had been a programme of spraying which has lapsed in recent years. However, a spraying regime will be established as soon as possible to follow the current best practice, and Taylor Wimpey has engaged a landscape contractor and a weed control specialist to produce a strategy for the management of this area. This will be provided to the Council for their approval, along with a tree survey and timescales for completion of the works. Be aware that any robust solution will take two to three years to work.

We are still looking to arrange our own meeting with Taylor Wimpey on the estate, but in the meantime it is good to see that some concrete steps are being taken to bring the estate into line with what was originally envisaged. We will circulate further details when we receive them. Please get in touch with us if you have any comments on the proposals or if you have any feedback once the works are started.

Mailing list

If you’d like us to keep you informed of what the Association’s doing, please ask us to add you to our mailing list by emailing us. (We won’t pass your email address on to anyone else, and we’ll only be sending occasional emails.)