TIME FOR SOME GREENBELT

The rapid expansion in housing and commercial developments around our cities, small towns and villages across Cymru / Wales over the last 50 years. Many of these developments often have little provision for public transport or alternative ways for potential residents to get around beyond using their cars beyond unfulfilled and largely undelivered promises. 

What has also happened  is the rapid loss of green spaces in and around our urban and not so urban areas and a largely unthought out expansion of our urban centres.

One thing that Wales lacks, aside from a serious well though out integrated housing structure plan, and a modern planning system and a realistic vision or plan for strategically developing our housing for the future, is green belt. 

There is a clear need for formal legally protected green belt, around Cardiff (including the Northern meadows), Newport, Cwmbran and Caerphilly along with our small towns in Monmouthshire: Abergavenny, Chepstow and Monmouth and elsewhere in Cymru / Wales.

The failure to create Green belt across all of our country, to fringe our urban areas, to help focus out of town and fringe of town developments, and to protect green spaces around, between and within some of our urban areas, has had significant consequences when it comes to urban growth. 

Green belt, if respected is still a useful planning tool, originally introduced for London in 1938, it was rolled out to England as a whole by a government circular in 1955 but interestingly enough it was only enough never rolled out here in Cymru / Wales. The original concept was to allow local councils to designate green belts when they wanted to restrict, control or shape urban growth.  

The idea has worked and it has worked well, as by 2007, Green belt covered something like 13% of England (about one-and-a-half million hectares) despite the best efforts of previous Conservative, New Labour and Conservative–Liberal Democrat Governments it is still remains relatively well protected by normal planning controls against "inappropriate development".

It is worth noting that there is no designated green belt in Cymru / Wales - save for one patch of notional green belt (actually described as a Green wedge) that lies between Cardiff and Newport. Scotland has seven and Northern Ireland has thirty - each has its own policy guidance. 

This absence of green belt in Wales perhaps explains much - it has certainly contributed to urban sprawl and significant out of town and edge of town development - something that has done little to help our communities, economically or socially especially over the last 30 years.

The preservation of green spaces aside, comes down to planning permission (and ultimately our planning process), which can be a touchy subject in itself, especially when a development (whether for commercial, housing or energy development) is controversial or the final decision is made against the wishes of local people. 

In Cymru / Wales we face the same problem across all of our country, be it around Wrecsam, Carmarthen, northern Cardiff, Swansea of any of our smaller towns and villages. 

More locally, a number of these housing developments, which have done (and will do) some pretty serious damage to our environment have come without any necessary improvements in infrastructure e.g new railway stations with reasonably priced (or even free), adequate and secure park and ride facilities at Caerleon (closed as a result of the Beeching cuts in 1962, in the UDP since 1984) not to mention proposed stations at Llanwern, Magor, Somerton and Newport West.

In our south east, along the coastal belt and in and around Newport and Torfaen (not to mention around Cardiff and Caerphilly) and across Monmouthshire the last thirty five years has seen a spectacular growth in the amount of housing, a significant percentage of which has never been aimed to fulfil local housing needs, sustainably or otherwise. 

As a result the infrastructure along the coastal belt between Chepstow, Caldicot, Rogiet and Magor struggles to cope with existing developments and this is well before the projected expansion of housing on and around the former Llanwern site (where the proposed railway station was recently cancelled) really kicks in.

Northern Newport has been linked to the south Cwmbran - something that has brought little material benefit to the residents of either urban area but has contributed much to traffic congestion. Cwmbran has been linked to Sebastopol bringing scant real benefit to local residents. When the housing development is complete - just exactly how much of it will be affordable to local residents remains to be seen?

The removal of the Severn Bridge tolls resulted (as expected) in a bump in house prices as people living in and around Bristol moved to cash in on cheaper housing over here.  

This understandably impacted on both affordable and available housing, developers will no doubt pitch their developments accordingly to cash in on perceived higher wages in the Bristol area and perceived cheaper housing over here (and no doubt our local authorities will fall over themselves to accommodate the developers wishes regardless how local people feel).

The then, National Assembly (now Senedd) should have known better and acted accordingly, the institution when established was supposed to have sustainability enshrined in its actions, but, at times you really have to wonder, especially when it comes to the impact of some of the proposed developments on our communities, whether it does or not. 

We need to develop and protect our own green belt around and within our urban communities – because once developed (or overdeveloped) it’s gone for good. We need to bin the fundamentally flawed UDP process and make our local government structure fit for the 21st century rather than the 19th century and accommodate re realities of devolved government. 

It should be pretty clear by now to even the most dispassionate of observers that in Wales, we lack a coherent national strategic development plan for Wales judging by the half-baked way local unitary development plans have been put together over the years.

The problem caused by a lack of protection to our Green spaces is aggravated by the fact that while one generation of elected officials (and council officers) envisages as a green wedge, green lane, etc as a social necessity they are often seen by following generations of elected officials (and council officers) as either prime land for development or a nice little earner to help balance out the books.

This means that there is a real lack of stability and a lack of a sustainable long term vision for many of our urban areas and impacts on our quality of life. 

The Senedd needs to grow up and act like the Welsh Parliament it has become - it should take the long view and legislate to create and protect Green belt land with full legal and planning protections in Cymru/ Wales. 

This might go some way to calming things down when it comes to development planning and might introduce a more long-term sustainable democratic element into the process. 

This is something that could be accomplished by creating Welsh Green belt land, as part of the process we also need an urgent and open debate into the planning process in Wales - something that has been long overdue.

Successive Westminster government’s (in England) talked about getting planning officers "off people's backs" with a relaxation of planning rules. When they talked about ‘people’ they meant developers. As a result of the pandemic, the post Brexit Westminster ministers have yet to take the much trumpeted and much promised axe to red tape and planning rules (in England) in an attempt to boost house building and revive the economy.

Not wanting to be left out (and also perhaps bereft of any fresh ideas), a few years ago Carwyn’s Labour in Wales Government in Cardiff also pursued major changes to planning rules in Wales aiming to ‘tilt the balance in favour of economic growth over the environment and social factors’. 

That decision was in my opinion aimed quite specifically at overturning those few occasions when our Local Authorities have rejected developments (often at the behest of local residents) rather than putting economic needs ahead of economic and environmental benefits and will do little for sustainable, flood free development to deal with local housing needs let alone preserve our green spaces. 

It explains much of the housing overdevelopment in various parts of our country and it does not deliver for our hard pressed communities or our country. 

We need to look at championing the development of new homes in small-scale housing developments in both rural and urban Wales on ‘exception sites’, where land plots, not covered by general planning permission, will be capped at an affordable price designed to benefit those in local housing need with family and work ties to the area, and whose sale will be conditional on these houses continuing in local ownership in perpetuity. 

What’s left of our social housing stock that remains under the control of the housing associations needs to remain intact in order to meet the demand for homes. 

Along with developing social housing stock there is a need to introduce a more rigorous system in the allocation of social housing to give priority to those in local housing need.

Part of the problem is that our planning system, along with our almost nineteenth century local government setup is not designed to coexist with devolution or for that matter to deliver planning decisions with real and lasting benefits for local people and local communities. 

There is a real need for root and branch reform and reorganisation of our planning system; something the Welsh Government has failed to deliver with tinkering and tweaks to existing out-dated legislation rather than and real reform.

Our current planning system remains far too focused on railroading through large housing / commercial developments, that often bring little real benefits for local people and local communities and often fail to resolve real and pressing local housing needs. 

We need a fundamental change in planning culture to encourage appropriate and sustainable smaller scale housing developments, which are based on good design and actively promote energy efficiency and good environmental standards and that puts our communities first. 

Now this is something we are never going to get any of this from a Labour in Wales government, in Cardiff, or a Labour in Westminster government at the other end of the M4. It’s time to change the way that our communities are run and to make the aims and objectives of Welsh government’s more responsive to our communities, and our country’s needs and concerns, rather than the needs and concerns of the Labour Party. 

THE NEED FOR GREENBELT

The rapid expansion in housing and commercial developments around our cities, small towns and villages across Cymru / Wales over the last 45 years. Many of these developments often have little provision for public transport or alternative ways for potential residents to get around beyond using their cars beyond unfulfilled and largely undelivered promises. 

What has also happened  is the rapid loss of green spaces in and around our urban and not so urban areas and a largely unthought out expansion of our urban centres.

One thing that country lacks, aside from a serious well though out integrated housing structure plan, and a modern planning system and a realistic vision or plan for strategically developing our housing for the future, is green belt. 

There is a clear need for formal legally protected green belt, around Cardiff (including the Northern meadows), Newport, Cwmbran and Caerphilly along with our small towns in Monmouthshire: Abergavenny, Chepstow and Monmouth and elsewhere in Cymru / Wales.

The failure to create Green belt across all of our country, to fringe our urban areas, to help focus out of town and fringe of town developments, and to protect green spaces around, between and within some of our urban areas, has had significant consequences when it comes to urban growth. 

Green belt, if respected is still a useful planning tool, originally introduced for London in 1938, it was rolled out to England as a whole by a government circular in 1955 but interestingly enough it was only enough never rolled out here in Cymru / Wales. The original concept was to allow local councils to designate green belts when they wanted to restrict, control or shape urban growth.  

The idea worked and it worked well, as by 2007, Green belt covered something like 13% of England (about one-and-a-half million hectares) despite the best efforts of previous Conservative, New Labour and Conservative–Liberal Democrat Governments it is still remains relatively well protected by normal planning controls against "inappropriate development".

It is worth noting that there is no designated green belt in Cymru / Wales - save for one patch of notional green belt (actually a Green wedge) that lies between Cardiff and Newport. Scotland has seven and Northern Ireland has thirty - each has its own policy guidance. 

This absence of green belt in Cymru / Wales explains much - it has certainly contributed to urban sprawl and significant out of town and edge of town development - something that has done little to help our communities, economically or socially especially over the last 30 years.

The preservation of green spaces aside, comes down to planning permission (and ultimately our planning process), which can be a touchy subject in itself, especially when a development (whether for commercial, housing or energy development) is controversial or the final decision is made against the wishes of local people. 

In Cymru / Wales we face the same problem across all of our country, be it around Wrecsam, Carmarthen, northern Cardiff, Swansea of any of our smaller towns and villages. 

More locally, a number of these housing developments, which have done (and threaten to do) some pretty serious damage to our environment have come without any necessary improvements in infrastructure e.g new railway stations with reasonably priced (or even free), adequate and secure park and ride facilities at Caerleon (closed as a result of the Beeching cuts in 1962, in the UDP since 1984) not to mention proposed stations at Llanwern, Magor, Somerton and Newport West.

In our south east, along the coastal belt and in and around Newport and Torfaen (not to mention around Cardiff and Caerphilly) and across Monmouthshire the last thirty years has seen a significant if not spectacular growth in the amount of housing, a significant percentage of which has never aimed to fulfil local housing needs. 

As a result the infrastructure along the coastal belt between Chepstow, Caldicot, Rogiet and Magor struggles to cope with existing developments and this is well before the projected expansion of housing on and around the former Llanwern site (where the proposed railway station was recently cancelled) really kicks in.

Northern Newport has been linked to the south Cwmbran - something that has brought little material benefit to the residents of either urban area but has contributed much to traffic congestion. Cwmbran has been linked to Sebastopol bringing scant real benefit to local residents. When the housing development is complete - just exactly how much of it will be affordable to local residents remains to be seen?

The removal of the Severn Bridge tolls resulted (as expected) in a bump in house prices as people living in and around Bristol moved to cash in on cheaper housing over here.  

This understandably impacted on both affordable and available housing, developers will no doubt pitch their developments accordingly to cash in on perceived higher wages in the Bristol area and perceived cheaper housing over here (and no doubt our local authorities will fall over themselves to accommodate the developers wishes regardless how local people feel).

The, then, National Assembly (now Senedd)  should have known better and acted accordingly, the institution when established was supposed to have sustainability enshrined in its actions, but, at times you really have to wonder, especially when it comes to the impact of some of the proposed developments on our communities, whether it does or not. 

We need to develop and protect our own green belt around and within our urban communities – because once developed (or overdeveloped) it’s gone for good. We need to bin the fundamentally flawed UDP process and make our local government structure fit for the 21st century rather than the 19th century and accommodate re realities of devolved government. 

It should be pretty clear by now to even the most dispassionate of observers that in Wales, we lack a coherent national strategic development plan for Wales judging by the half-baked way local unitary development plans have been put together over the years.

The problem caused by a lack of protection to our Green spaces is aggravated by the fact that while one generation of elected officials (and council officers) envisages as a green wedge, green lane, etc as a social necessity they are often seen by following generations of elected officials (and council officers) as either prime land for development or a nice little earner to help balance out the books.

This means that there is a real lack of stability and a lack of a sustainable long term vision for many of our urban areas and impacts on our quality of life. 

The Senedd needs to grow up and act like the Welsh Parliament it has become - it should take the long view and legislate to create and protect Green belt land with full legal and planning protections in Cymru/ Wales. 

This might go some way to calming things down when it comes to development planning and might introduce a more long-term sustainable democratic element into the process. 

This is something that could be accomplished by creating Welsh Green belt land, as part of the process we also need an urgent and open debate into the planning process in Wales - something that has been long overdue.

Successive Westminster government’s (in England) talked about getting planning officers "off people's backs" with a relaxation of planning rules. When they talked about ‘people’ they meant developers. 

So far, as a result of the pandemic, the post Brexit Westminster ministers have yet to take the much trumpeted and much promised axe to red tape and planning rules (in England) in an attempt to boost house building and revive the economy.

Not wanting to be left out (and also perhaps bereft of any fresh ideas), a few years ago Carwyn’s Labour in Wales Government in Cardiff also pursued major changes to planning rules in Wales aiming to ‘tilt the balance in favour of economic growth over the environment and social factors’. 

That decision was in my opinion aimed quite specifically at overturning those few occasions when our Local Authorities have rejected developments (often at the behest of local residents) rather than putting economic needs ahead of economic and environmental benefits and will do little for sustainable, flood free development to deal with local housing needs let alone preserve our green spaces. 

It explains much of the housing overdevelopment in various parts of our country and it does not deliver for our hard pressed communities or our country. 

We need to look at championing the development of new homes in small-scale housing developments in both rural and urban Wales on ‘exception sites’, where land plots, not covered by general planning permission, will be capped at an affordable price designed to benefit those in local housing need with family and work ties to the area, and whose sale will be conditional on these houses continuing in local ownership in perpetuity. 

What’s left of our social housing stock that remains under the control of the housing associations needs to remain intact in order to meet the demand for homes. 

Along with developing social housing stock there is a need to introduce a more rigorous system in the allocation of social housing to give priority to those in local housing need.

Part of the problem is that our planning system, along with our almost nineteenth century local government setup is not designed to coexist with devolution or for that matter to deliver planning decisions with real and lasting benefits for local people and local communities. 

There is a real need for root and branch reform and reorganisation of our planning system; something the Welsh Government has failed to deliver with tinkering and tweaks to existing out-dated legislation rather than and real reform.

Our current planning system remains far too focused on railroading through large housing / commercial developments, that often bring little real benefits for local people and local communities and often fail to resolve real and pressing local housing needs. 

We need a fundamental change in planning culture to encourage appropriate and sustainable smaller scale housing developments, which are based on good design and actively promote energy efficiency and good environmental standards and that puts our communities first. 

Now this is something we are never going to get from a Labour in Wales government, in Cardiff, or a Labour in Westminster government at the other end of the M4. It’s time to change the way that our communities are run and to make the aims and objectives of Welsh government’s more responsive to our communities, and our country’s needs and concerns, rather than the needs and concerns of the Labour Party. 

OUR MANIFESTO FOR NEWPORT 2022

While the City Council lacks many of the powers necessary to transform our city’s economy - it should be possible to work with the Senedd and other partners to make life in our city better  and more sustainable. Plaid Cymru Newport’s manifesto is additional to Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales’s local government manifesto which can be found in full on-line here. 

Our City needs to focus on developing affordable housing, to focus on redeveloping our local economy, and to focus on the local rather than regional. Our city needs to build in resilience to flooding with flood avoidance being the focus rather than flood prevention, and to focus on growing green jobs and actively pushing to develop our transport infrastructure with railway stations at Caerleon, Tredegar Park, Somerton, Llanwern, and Magor. 

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

We need to tackle the housing crisis in the City - there is an acute lack of affordable homes - something made worse by rapidly rising house prices - as Newport sits between Cardiff and Bristol and is perceived rightly as a cheaper place to live - this means that people in Newport cannot afford to by or rent their own homes. 

While is is not some thing that the City Council can solve individually as former council housing is now run by Housing Associations - the City Council should work with the Housing Associations and the Welsh Government to priorities at the creation of affordable homes within Newport.

REDEVELOPING OUR LOCAL ECONOMY

We need to develop and encourage local supply chains and forces on the creation of local business, as this is create more local flexible job opportunities, within the City centre. Local businesses trade with each other, sell goods and services and help to ensure that money spent within them stays on the local economy longer. 

The Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England long ago proved that ten pounds sent in a local business circulates three times longer locally than it does if spent in a chain-  this principle applies equally to small towns or larger urban areas. 

The City Council should work to expand businesses support for existing and developing small businesses.  While the loss of Debenhams in Friars Walk was a bitter blow - which while covid did not help  - in reality the Debenham’s retail model had been failing for some years. 

The Friar’s walk development itself was too small, too limited in scope and failed to create the retail space for local businesses to set up from the start. While there have been some tentative steps towards that recently ( the redeveloped Market being a good example of what’s possible), at a fundamental level a refocus on growing and supporting small businesses - there is room enough to make this work. 

Newport has suffered because of the unhealthy obsession with directly competing with Cardiff and Cribs Causeway. We seriously need to focus on growing small local businesses that supply our needs as well as hosting the usual suspects to bring economic life back to our city centre. If we can do this then we can bring sustainable economic growth and some life back to our city centre. 

SAYING NO TO THE CARDIFF CITY REGION AND THE WESTERN GATEWAY 

There are few if any positives for Newport being a simple dormitory town for Bristol or Cardiff. Plaid in Newport can never subscribe to the Severnside agenda, no matter how many times it gets rebranded and relaunched. The proposed Cardiff City region and the Western Gateway project will not serve Newport well and need to be abandoned - to be replaced with a redevelopment plan that focuses on a local rather than the regional scale. 

FLOOD AVOIDANCE

We need to build into our city the resilience to cope with flooding - sadly in a warmer wetter world - flood events are going to become more common - we need to think and act smarter, with shifting the focus from flood prevention to flood avoidance.  Local water storage and management is increasingly part of intelligent urban design, something that is becoming more common and necessary in a warmer wetter world, as we will have to re-engineer our  infrastructures to deal with more frequent extreme weather events.

The concept of the sponge city or urban sponge. something that should be embedded and central to urban planning should now be coming into its own, particularly in Wales, with our urban areas being redesigned or designed from the start to soak up, and store deluges of torrential rain to prevent damaging and dangerous flash flooding but without the construction of large scale flood defences.  

GROWING GREEN JOBS

Newport is perfectly placed to be at the forefront of the green energy revolution with its deep water port, our highly skilled adaptable workforce, our city should be a natural centre for the development go off shore wind energy, tidal lagoons in the Severn estuary, and underwater tidal turbines.

The original Newport river barrage was rejected by the Conservatives in 1991, the City Council, working with the Senedd should commission a modern feasibility study into tapping the tidal energy potential of the Usk, in Newport, with an Usk River Barrage, nothing that if approved could transform our city relationship with our river along with our economy.

BUILDING OUR RAILWAYS

Plaid like many people in Newport, welcomed the commitment to build new railway stations at Tredegar Park, Somerton, Llanwern, and Magor. We need ground broken sooner rather than later to bring the new railway stations into being, to provide alternative means of getting around our city and elsewhere, once a degree of normality returns after covid. The new stations are an absolute necessity, but we need a railway station to serve Caerleon / Ponthir which would a real asset to both communities.

THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE

A number of thoughts crossed my mind in relation to the proposed Co-operation Agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Labour Government which emerged on Monday. Politics my old man periodically said, sometimes when I was listening, is about the art of the possible, and along with that thought, Harry S Truman said that it was amazing what you can achieve if you don’t care about who gets the credit. 

While the devil obviously lies very much in the detail it also lies very much in the actual delivery. That said the proposed Co-operation Agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Labour Government offers real opportunities to get things done and to change peoples lives for the better as well as to boost our nations economy and infrastructure. 

The proposals that have been outlined include:

National construction company – Establish Unnos, a national construction company, to support councils and social landlords to improve the supply of social and affordable housing.

Net zero energy company – Work towards the creation of Ynni Cymru, a publicly-owned energy company for Wales, over the next two years, to expand community-owned renewable energy generation.

Procurement – Explore how to set meaningful targets to increase Welsh public sector procurement from the current 52%. As a first step, we will carry out a detailed analysis of the public sector supply chains and promote the purchasing of made-in-Wales products and services.

Local tourism levies – Introduce local tourism levies using local government finance reform legislation.

Building safety – Significantly reform the current system of building safety, which has allowed a culture of cutting corners to the detriment of public safety. We will introduce a second phase of the Welsh Building Safety Fund.

Property and Fair Rents – Publish a White Paper to include proposals for a right to adequate housing, the role a system of fair rents(rent control) could have in making the private rental market affordable for local people on local incomes and new approaches to making homes affordable.

Second homes – Take immediate and radical action to address the proliferation of second homes and unaffordable housing, using the planning, property and taxation systems. 

• Actions being planned include a cap on the number of second and holiday homes; 

• Measures to bring more homes into common ownership, a statutory licensing scheme for holiday lets;

• Greater powers for local authorities to charge council tax premiums and increasing taxes on second homes. We will explore local authority mortgages.

Childcare – Expand free childcare to all two year-olds with a particular focus on providing and strengthening Welsh-medium childcare.

Public transport – Ask Transport for Wales(TfW) to explore the development of transport links between North and South Wales, including how to protect potential travel corridors on the west coast of Wales. We will continue to press ahead with Metro developments to improve connectivity and encourage people to switch to public transport. We will ask TfW to work with local authorities in North West Wales and the Welsh Government to develop plans for an integrated transport system.

Media financial support – Fund existing and new enterprises to improve Welsh-based journalism to tackle the information deficit.

All good stuff, it think that it would be well to remember that this is in no way a coalition; Plaid Members won’t be part of the Welsh Government. As the agreement states Plaid will appoint a designated lead member for the agreement and committees made up of Welsh Ministers and designated Plaid members to reach agreement on issues covered by the Co-operation Agreement.

I do sometimes wonder, even with the slow steady growth of devolved powers even within our deeply flawed devolutionary settlement, just exactly what the elected representatives of Labour in Wales have been doing since 1999? And why they appear to be so bereft of ideas that they need ours… 

Mind, as they say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, so in the short term I can live with Labour in Wales masquerading as Plaid lite, as long as the above actually gets done.