Jane Cook
Director of Planning and Regeneration
RCT County Borough Council
6 Llantrisant Road
Pontyclun
CF72 9DQ
e-mail:marg.talygarn@btinternet.com
tel. 01433 229301
Dear Ms Cook
Proposed New Town Development north of Pontyclun
On Tuesday 13th September, four members of the residents working group were pleased to meet with Simon Gale, Service Director of Planning and Jim Bailey, Development Control Officer to discuss the letter we sent to you on 23rd August. We were grateful for that meeting and the open manner in which your colleagues considered our concerns, many of which they appeared to share and had been working on. Later that day we met with Mark Jackson, the managing director of Scarborough Development Group.Following these meetings we have been able to crystallise further our thoughts about aspects of the potential development that we feel need to be considered as you appraise any planning application. We set those out as follows: .
1. A highways infrastructure needs to be put in place that ensures road congestion around Pontyclun, Talbot Green and Llantrisant is at no stage made any worse than it currently is ;
2. The first phase of the development must be on the brownfield site and any future incursion on to the green field has to be justified by a rigorous appraisal of future need;
3. The retail development should be far less reliant on access by car;
4. The scale and height of the development should not be disproportionate to the surrounding residential, retail and business areas;
5. The 14 acre green field site should not be included in the development and the area of the Pant Marsh and the Coed yr Hendy should be protected and made accessible so that it is natural green area for visitors to the retail park and for local residents
6. The full value of planning gain should be paid by the developer to the County Borough Council for the mitigation of the impact of the development
7. The existing retail provision of Pontyclun and Talbot Green should be supported and enhanced
1. A highways infrastructure needs to be put in place that ensures road congestion around Pontyclun, Talbot Green and Llantrisant is at no stage made any worse than it currently is
We have previously shared with you the resident’s experience of severe congestion on the A4119, the A473 and the A4222. We have heard from local police officers at the Community Council meeting that the management of existing traffic is a major call on police resources and that this is due to the inadequate planning of existing retail developments.
If this further retail development were to take place without major investment in highway infrastructure, particularly at the intersection of the A4119 and the A473, then rather than create new jobs, the retail development will undermine all further economic activity in the surrounding area, the upper Ely and Rhondda valleys. If this retail development is allowed to increase congestion then it will undermine every other strategic objective of the Council.
Investment in highways infrastructure must go alongside the retail development. Any suggestion that it might follow from the congestion caused by the retail development would blight any investment in the county borough for generations to come. The argument of the potential developers that traffic will not increase but will only be redistributed is sadly self-serving and must be rejected.
2. The first phase of the development must be on the brownfield site and any future incursion on to the green field, as allocated in the LDP, should be justified by a rigorous appraisal of future need and the capacity of the highway infrastructure
The potential developer is intending to make the supermarket development with its car parking the first stage of any development and to local this part of the development on the Greenfield of the Pant Marsh. The view of planning officials appears to be that any second stage would then take place after the completion of intended housing development in the south of the county borough and as a result, therefore, of demonstrably increased retail demand.
In our view, therefore, the location of the first phase is wrong. The supermarket would be in an isolated greenfield
3. The retail development should be far less reliant on access by car
We have been told that the potential developer is intending to apply for 3000 car parking spaces. This is larger than any other out of down retail development in South Wales. It gives the lie to any suggestion that this development is not intended to increase local traffic flows and that this is anything other than an out-of town retail development which would be better located at a motorway junction.
The extent to which this proposed development is intended to rely on car transport can be seen by comparing it to other contemporary retail developments, In Westfield Stratford in East London there is one car parking space for every 25 square metres of retail space. In the Pontyclun development it is intended that there should be one car parking space for every 7 square metres of retail space. The Pontyclun development is intended to be four times more reliant on car transport. In truth the Westfield development really is a ‘new town’ development serving a local population which is properly connected through train, bus, cycle and pedestrian access. The Pontyclun development is intended to be a car based out-of-town development located in the wrong place..
If the Pontyclun development were to replicate the vision and innovation of Westfield it would not take place without rail connection. It would be linked with a full network of pedestrian and cycle ways. Westfield has 1180 bicycle lock up spaces whereas the view of the Pontyclun developer is that this retail development will not significantly be accessed by bicycle.
We ask again that this development should be planned with full input from Sustrans so that it could accord with the ambition of the Welsh Government for a country less reliant on cars.
The LDP proclaims that this development is a ‘new town’ and not an out-of-town car based retail park. Unless the development shares the same vision and ambition of Westfield with properly provided non-car access then the development will never deserve the designation of ‘new town’; it will be an out of town development wrongly located in a high density residential settlement.
4. The scale and height of the development should not be disproportionate to the surrounding residential, retail and business areas;
We understand from the developer that the larger stores will be built at a 4 storey height. We do not feel that this is consistent with the scale of the adjacent residential and commercial buildings. This development will tower above the existing buildings and will become an eye sore to existing residents of the area. The intended height of the development is designed to ensure that the 3000 car spaces can co-exist with the allocated retail space. If this development were less reliant on car access then the physical scale of the development could be much reduced.
We therefore believe that the development should be built to a height and scale that is consistent with the existing area.
5. The 14 acre green field site should not be included in the development and the area of the Pant Marsh and the Coed yr Hendy should be protected and made accessible so that it is natural green area for visitors to the retail park and for local residents
Pant Marsh is an area of scientific interest and we are pleased to note that the developers are undertaking surveys of the flora and fauna of the area. We believe that it is important that the development, which is in such close proximity to this area, should be developed in such a way that it will have limited impact on the marsh.
We support the Countryide Council for Wales which objected to the LDP in this respect. We ask that the Council limits the development of the site, as suggested by the CCW, to the brown field site.
There is concern that the development may cause increased amounts of water flowing into a smaller area and therefore changing the nature of the Pant Marsh. It is a beautiful area and we believe that making it more accessible will enhance the attraction of the retail park.
The Pant Marsh is partially protected by its SINC site status (sites of importance for nature conservation).The RTC local biodiversity plan adopted in 2ooo covers the protection of priority species and priority habitats. We must do more than pay lip service to our understanding of the importance of maintaining and enhancing biodiversity. It is crucial to our quality and variety of life. Species and habitats are threatened and lost to over development and poor understanding of how we coexist. Floodplain grassland in RCT is now only a tiny fragment of the original Pant Marsh is one such fragment. We must fully implement the biodiversity action plan that has been agreed by the Council.
To protect and enhance this area we propose that:
- the New Town Development should not extend beyond the existing brown field into the Site of Important Nature Conservation;
- the required improvements to the highway intersection of the A4119 and A473 are not designed so as to reduce the area of the Pant Marsh;
6. The full value of planning gain should be paid by the developer to the County Borough Council
As, the value of the land being used for this development has been hugely increased by its inclusion within the LDP as prime development land for a retail park, a high percentage of this increase in value should be ploughed back into mitigating the negative effect of this development on local communities. The first call on such funds must be the improved highway network and the foot, cycle and rail access which reduce the reliance on car travel.
7. The existing retail provision of Pontyclun and Talbot Green should be supported and enhanced
The LDP designates Pontyclun as a ‘smaller settlement providing a limited range of services to meet local needs’’. It is important that the new development does not undermine the ambition set for Pontyclun in the LDP.
The scale of Pontyclun is such that people can expect to meet friends and acquaintances as they use the village centre. There is well researched evidence that the local networks of social relationships sustained by such a village environment is the basis of achieving good health and wellbeing and this is a stated aim of the Local Development Plan. We must be very deliberate in ensuring that any new development enhances rather than undermines local social relationships. It is a feature of almost all large scale out of town , car based retail developments that they individualise the shopping experience and undermine social relationships.
In order that the new development enhances Pontyclun village we believe that the communities of Pontyclun and Talbot Green should benefit from a percentage of the increase in value. We have been told by the developer that money spent on the communities, not as a result of direct impact of the development, could be considered bribery. However, since the developer already has the blessing of the Council to develop the land we cannot see how money spent by the developer on our two communities can be considered bribery. We see this as the developer adding value to our communities as they will be making a considerable profit from the development.
When we last wrote we suggested that if there was a serious ambition to make this development anything other than a poorly located out of town retail development then we should aspire to its designation as Wales First Green Town. We continue to believe that the ambition for properly planned access with less use on cars, the ambition to minimise impact on the local environment, the ambition to sustain and integrate existing village centres, the ambition to use the best quality materials with minimum carbon footprint all make the ambition of a Green Town the best way of making this development successful, sustainable and in the interests of local people.
Yours sincerely
Margaret Griffiths
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