Shaping our City - Is there Room for Wildlife ?

As many of you will know the Cardiff City Council Local Development Plan (LDP) was withdrawn last year with accusations both sides on the reasons for that (I will not go into those this is not a political Blog Site)

What is of interest to all of us as Naturalists is the fact that the process is running again and the LDP Candidate Site Register has now been placed on-line by Cardiff City Council. at http://www.cardiff.gov.uk/content.asp?nav=2870,3139,3154,5845,6189&parent_directory_id=2865

I would encourage you all to take a look at the document (it is a large document) but it is well broken down into sections where you can see the areas of the city you know well

A cursory look indicates that there are development proposals for an awful lot of open spaces within the city and whilst many of these will no doubt be ruled out as the process runs it will be important that the decision makers have access to as much information about the environmental values of the sites as possible

That is where people like us come in, we can ensure that they know of the value of valuable sites and therefore can make their decisions based on practical and factual information

As the process develops there will be an on-line system as well as a paper based system for responses and comments on different sites and a full consultation process

All I can say is if you plan to enjoy open areas within and around the city for the next 15 years you should take an interest and perform an active part in making sure that the best sites are protected and that development is directed towards the rest

Regards
Andy