Cllr Ralph Cook

FutureTrowbridge

2007-02-13T12:31:00.000Z

With work about to begin on the shopping centre,
traffic calming, plans for two play areas, a new
community centre, new residential builds and
improvements to existing public sector homes and flats
being undertaken, a lot is happening in Trowbridge at
the moment.

We would be interested to hear your views about what
Trowbridge needs and what improvements you would
like to see beyond the completion of these other
projects.

As readers are aware it can take years to get new
projects agreed and started, we’d like to begin working
on shaping the future of Trowbridge today.

If you have any comments or ideas you can e-mail us at

ralph.cook@trowbridgeandstmellonslabour.org.uk

or write to

Cllr Ralph Cook
1, Cemaes Crescent,
Trowbridge,
Cardiff
CF3 1TA

Abergele Road Children’s Home

2007-02-13T12:30:00.000Z

This small children’s home run by Cardiff County
Council is to be closed largely on economic grounds.

A few years ago your Councillors supported the
closure of the former childrens home in Gwbert Close
and opposed proposals to transfer it to other social
services uses.

We believed then that the most suitable use for the
building was to pass it to the Council’s Housing
Department to help with the need for larger
accommodation that exists among some families on the
Council’s Housing Waiting List. Eventually this was
agreed and the property is now home to a family and
as far as we are aware this has proved acceptable to
the other residents of the Close who had previously
suffered many difficulties with children at the home.

With this in mind, we have made a similar suggestion
when we were consulted about the closure of the
Abergele Road Home in early January and we are
awaiting the Council’s decision on our suggestion.

Councillor Ralph Cook

Children’s Play Areas

2007-02-13T12:29:00.000Z

Late last year Councillors were told equipment at 3
children’s play areas in St. Mellons would be removed
because it had “failed” Health and Safety inspections.
“Orchard Park play area” the nearest to Trowbridge
was one of them. Trowbridge has lacked a play area
for years.

The redevelopment of Trowbridge Shopping Centre
includes a £39,000 contribution for a play area at
the ABC park and becomes available when the first of
the new homes is occupied. The constant delays to the
shopping centre has meant that there will be further
delay in building the homes and then providing the
play area.

The Wales & West Housing Association development at
Hendre Isaf (bottom of Hendre Road) includes a
contribution of about £20,000 which we ear-marked
for a play area at Cemaes Crescent. Although not
enough to provide a good play area we are looking
for additional funds.

Councillor Ralph Cook

PACT Meetings: What Are They?

2007-02-13T12:27:00.000Z

PACT or “Partnership and Communities Together” is
an initiative started in 2006 by the South Wales
Police with the intention of “introducing a far more
effective community based policing style and
delivering a quality of service that will see (the) force
as one of the leads in community policing”. The
emphasis is on “community engagement” via regular
meetings where the public can “identify any problems
or issues of concern within” the community.

A panel of local residents, community representatives
and police officers, known as “The PACT Panel” then
identify three priorities for the community which are
then targeted by the appropriate organisation - often
the police themselves but sometimes the Council or
other body.
Sadly South Wales Police introduced the idea with
little consultation with external agencies such as
housing associations or local councils and local
Councillors were involved very late in the development
of the idea. As a result the idea was born amidst
controversy and confusion.

Nevertheless, your Councillors have engaged with the
idea and worked with the local police and the PACT
Panel to try to make it as effective as possible. So far
there have been three PACT meetings in Trowbridge,
each attended by fewer than thirty local residents. It
has recently been agreed to hold future meetings at
three month intervals.

The next PACT meeting will be on 7th March at
Cardiff Community Housing Association Community
Centre, Heol Newydd (on the Bro Athro Estate at the
bottom of Trowbridge Road opposite Coleg Glan
Hafren) at 7pm.

All residents of the Trowbridge area are invited to
attend.

Councillor Ralph Cook

Trowbridge Shopping Centre

2007-02-13T12:25:00.000Z

A source of much frustration and anger amongst
residents of the Trowbridge Estate, the continued
delay to the redevelopment of the shops and
Community Centre seems set to finally end. But not
without yet more compromises.
After years of being told the project was more or less
affordable, in mid-January, a fairly junior Council
officer informed us that there was a funding shortfall
of over half a million pounds. The solution we were
told was to reduce the size of the new Community
Centre! Instead of two floors, Trowbridge will get a
single storey centre about the same size as the
previous building.

This is a blow. Given the financial chaos the Liberal
Democrats have created in the Council there will be no
assistance with costs so we have to accept it or risk
delaying the project further.

Examining the figures I noticed the cost of traffic
calming on the roads around the site (which I had been
led to believe would be funded by the Council) will be
met by the redevelopment. My request for an
explanation received a technical, written reply,
concluding “I hope this clarifies the position and that
you no longer feel that you have been mislead” - well,
I still do!
The enabling works (moving sewers etc.), are complete
and building would begin on the 5th February we
have been told - from the photograph below, taken on
the 6th, we are unsure whether it has. Under Labour
the project was due to be completed by the end of this
year!

Councillor Ralph Cook

Season Greetings

2006-12-18T22:19:00.000Z

I would like to send Season Greetings from myself and Members of Trowbridge and St. Mellons Branch Labour Party, I would like to thank all the people of Trowbridge and St. Mellons for there help and support and wish them a
Merry Christmas

And A

Happy New Year
And if there is any one who would like information on joining Trowbridge and

St. Mellons Branch Labour Party, please call or e-mail,

David Mawn on

(029) 2040 4422.

mailto:membership@trowbridgeandstmellonslabour.org.uk

“Stray” Horses

2006-10-15T04:12:00.000Z

The large herds of horses that roamed St. Mellons in 2002-4 have gone but a small hers lives on undeveloped ground in south St. Mellons. Sadly, they frequently trespass into residential areas and cause problems. There has been a lot of media interest and a TV company visited St. Mellons in the summer to make a film about the proposed solution of giving Anti-Social Behaviour Orders to irresponsible horse owners.

Your local Councillors have continued to press for action and have become such a nuisance that the Liberal Democrat Executive Member responsible for dealing with the problem foolishly tried to prevent us getting involved with horse-catch operation.

As a result the Council’s horse capture operation on the 15th of March failed to find any horses. In May we “got wind” of another planned operation and provided information that led to the capture of three horses!

Your Councillors are asking when the horses will be completely removed from Council-owned land.

Councillor Ralph Cook

The Urban Fringe gets a Hair Cut

2006-09-08T04:14:00.000Z

May Bank Holiday saw a first for St. Mellons and a victory for commonsense, when the Council carried out a proper cut of all the road-side verges and embankments in the St. Mellons. Missed areas have been reported and should be included next time.

St Mellons residents have been concerned about brambles and shrubs reducing visibility along some stretches of Willowbrook Drive. Inadequate verge maintenance along Crickhowell Drive may have played a part in the tragic road-death of a child almost two years ago and explain why a few years ago a resident failed to see an Adder (rare, venomous but native snake) on an overgrown path near Meadowlane School before she was bitten.

The problem was caused in my view by unnecessarily complicated land maintenance programmes and limited budget. We asked the Council to combine all land maintenance under one service area and supported the idea of running a three-year “pilot study” in St. Mellons to see how it would operate before extending the programme to the whole of Cardiff.

This was agreed in 2003 but when Labour lost the local elections the idea was quietly dropped.

Following the tragic death of a child, I finally ran out of patience last year and asked the Labour Group to support a “notice of motion” from Monica Walsh and myself, that would ensure a single department to maintain Council land, road-side verges and parks etc, would be established within three years. This was supported by most Councillors and is now Council policy.

Councillor Ralph Cook

Playing Fields

2006-08-16T04:09:00.000Z

The Council has at last engaged contractors to install a new drainage system on the St. Mellons Playing Fields. The work is being paid for from the proceeds of a land sale agreed with your Councillors. The work will cost £160,000 and will begin in September.

Once the drainage scheme is complete, new fencing will be erected around the field. We were offered a cheap “patch and mend” scheme to repair existing fencing. We rejected this arguing that these fields are the principle outdoor sporting facility in the area and “made-do” is not good enough. We also rejected the idea of using £100,000 from another development to subsidize the project.

We are insisting that the Council fulfils its promises on the budget agreed three years ago - £250,000.

Councillor Ralph Cook

Trowbridge Shopping Centre

2006-06-06T05:06:00.000Z

Everyone in Trowbridge asks us when the redevelopment of the shopping centre will begin. Our honest answer is, soon - we hope.!

Your Councillors have been making noises at County Hall and the delays have been featured in the South Wales Echo. Privately we have been told the project has been delayed because Trowbridge is not a priority with the Council’s Liberal Democrat administration.

We have now been promised work will begin in July but the final contracts have not yet been signed and costs have escalated beyond original estimates. If work begins in July the project could still be completed by the end of 2007.

The Community Centre closed in April and its regular users have been transfered to the Cardiff Community Housing Association centre in Valley View and the Trowbridge Scouts Hut.

Construction of the new Community Centre was to form the last phase of the project but it will now be built together with the new shop units, with the housing being left until last. This is better for the community in our view.

Trowbridge residents have had to put up with this mess for two years and we commend your patience. However, endless delay is unacceptable. If work is not begun in July we will launch a campaign demanding immediate action.

School Reorganisation Plan

2006-05-06T04:51:00.000Z

The “Big Bang” Liberal Democrat School Reorganisation Plan, announced in April was rejected by Councillors at the April Council meeting. Plagued by controversies, especially about consulting parents, the plan fell at the first fence, when the Labour Group of Councillors decided they could not support the proposals.

The Plan - the Liberal Democrat answer to the over-supply of school places in the City - proposed closing 22 schools and changes to catchment areas across Cardiff but met stiff opposition from parents, especially in north Cardiff.

Locally, the proposals included closing Rumney High School, forcing Trowbridge children to travel to Llanrumney. Less controversially it proposed amalgamating Trowbridge Infants and Junior Schools on a single site. St. John Lloyds would have become a Roman Catholic and Welsh Medium School. St. Illtyds, on Newport Road would have been closed as a Roman Catholic School and re-opened as a Welsh Medium High School. Local children who prefered to be educated at a Roman Catholic High School would have had to travel each day to attend one of two RC schools both located in north Cardiff.

The Council still has to deal with about 8,000 surplus school places (costing about £3 million a year) or it will be criticised by the Wales Audit Office. Your Councillors will, if allowed, participate fully in the development of any future proposals and have pledged to be vigilent in ensuring that the Liberal Democrats do not take the easy option of closing schools in East Cardiff.

Horse Update

2006-03-31T04:48:00.000Z

Although the number of horses in the Trowbridge, St. Mellons and Rumney area are fairly low, at around 14 compared with 80-100 a few years ago, they continue to cause problems in south Trowbridge.

Your local Councillors have been stopped from involvement in the horse catches by Liberal Democrat Executive Member Councillor Judith Woodman. She claims this is for our safety. Quite frankly her position on this is looking increasingly ridiculous.

A round-up was organised by the Council on the 15th March, the police were informed so late they were unable to provide cover and as we were deliberately not told we could not provide information on the whereabouts of 14 horses in the area at the time. No horses were caught!

The Labour administration regarded Councillors as allies in dealing with problems and our knowledge was crucial to the success of the horse strategy in the past.

Season Greetings

2005-12-24T04:40:00.000Z

Merry Christmas
And A
Happy New Year

And if there is any one who would like information on joining Trowbridge and
St. Mellons Branch Labour Party, please call or e-mail,
David Mawn on
(029) 2040 4422.
membership@trowbridgeandstmellonslabour.org.uk

Trowbridge Shopping Centre & Post Office

2005-12-10T04:45:00.000Z

Your Councillors are, of course, aware of the great concern Trowbridge residents have about the redevelopment of the shopping centre.

Planning permission has been granted but it was only after the permission was obtained that the Council could begin the nine month legal process of “stopping up” the current public rights of way which is necessary before building can begin. This should be completed over the next few months. The last block of garages at the rear of the existing shops will soon be demolished as these are causing problems for residents and shopkeepers.

The Council recently appointed the building firm Lovells to carry out the work following a detailed tender process, although, for some reason your local Councillors were not invited to participate in the process as has always been the case in the past. Lovells have vast experience of regeneration schemes and are also working with the Council in St. Mellons. They will employing architects White Young Green who have worked with us on this scheme up to planning stage. Legal discussions between the Council and Cardiff Community Housing Association (CCHA) have begun in order to progress the sale of the site and agreements required to carry out the re-generation. In order to keep local residents and the remaining shop keepers informed the Council will be distributing a newsletter and a site sign board will be erected on the site showing the plans for the re-generation. The bad news is the closing of the post office. It is important to understand that this is nothing to do with the Council.
Fourboys owned the Post Office franchise and for commercial reasons (nothing to do with the redevelopment) have left the area. The company has reviewed all its outlets and decided that its Trowbridge shop was not viable. Therefore, they are selling their post office franchise. The Post Office itself has very strict rules about who can become a sub-postmaster and a protracted process is undertaken before appointing new franchisees. I have spoken with Fourboys and the Post Office and it is clear that tranferring the franchise will take time and the post office will be closed. Your Councillors are hoping Spar will want to take on the franchise but this is something we cannot get involved with unfortunately.

Verging on the ridiculous?

2005-12-01T04:37:00.000Z

This summer many residents complained to us about long grass and over-grown vegetation and we have also noticed that the grass in local parks has been mown only once a week.

The Council’s failure to properly manage the banks, verges and undeveloped land in St. Mellons lies with the way responsibility for these jobs is spread between different departments.

We want the Council to make one department responsible. Seems a simple concept doesn’t it? If this were done we could expect efficient and regular grass cutting throughout Cardiff, rather than the disjointed approach we have at present.

Three years ago we were told a “working group” would develop proposals to resolve the problem. When I enquired about the group’s progress last year, I was told no such group existed and no-one can remember a decision to set it up!

The problem was highlighted last August when an 11 year-old local boy was killed by a car on Coleford Drive. The child’s mother - rightly in my opinion - laid part of the blame for the tragedy on the Council’s failure to cut back the vegetation, spilling into the road, near the point where her son died. We had been asking for this section of verge to be regularly cut since 2002! The boy’s mother and I jointly called on the Council to schedule regular verge maintenance in St. Mellons and the Echo carried the story.

Councillor Elgan Morgan, Executive Member for the Environment backed the cut, for which we are grateful and he shares our view that the Council must resolve the problem permanently.

We have prepared a “notice of motion” which if agreed by Councillors, will make one department responsible for maintaining all grass and shrubs on Council land throughout the city. We expect the motion to be supported by all Councillors because proper management of roadside verges can be a matter of life or death.

St. Mellons Community Education Centre

2005-10-10T04:35:00.000Z

The working group considering the future of the Community Education Centre met in September. The group will not met again because, after less than an hour of discussion, the Council failed to demonstrate clear objectives or that it had any plans to develop the Centre’s role in local sporting activity. It was agreed to leave a few out-standing operational issues to be sorted out by managers and allow the current programmes run by the staff at the centre to continue. Why it was necessary to create concern about the future of the centre earlier this year remains a mystery.

“Not in My Backyard”:

2005-08-01T04:32:00.000Z

Fly-tipping and general littering remains a problem in Trowbridge and St. Mellons (and throughout Cardiff and South Wales), however, recent inspections have shown marked improvement compared with conditions in 1999.

This is partly because as Local Councillors we have regularly reported rubbish. Also the Council’s previous Labour Administration introduced a new fly-tipping strategy, regular weekly litter-picks, gulley cleansing and just before the elections in 2004, paved the way for “Community Sweepers” (a policy that the Liberal Democrats are now trying to claim the credit for having failed to introduce their own rather grandiose promises).

In March I took the new head of street cleansing on a tour of Trowbridge and St. Mellons to show him the local litter and fly-tipping hotspots. I also asked him to investigate why some parts of the Ward are not regularly cleared. (Incidentally I was the first Councillor in Cardiff to call on his services just two weeks after he was appointed!).

Whilst there wasn’t much to see (except in Hendre Lane and Trowbridge Road two regular “commercial” fly-tipping hotspots), we did find domestic refuse dumped over-night by irresponsible residents. There really is no excuse for this behaviour and I must assume people do it out of sheer laziness. Following the tour most of the problem areas were cleared.

My Colleague, Councillor Monica Walsh has also been active pressing the various parts of the Council to clean the streets, gulleys and local parks of rubbish as it materialises. Recently your three Councillors agreed to take a harder-hitting approach and we are asking the Council’s enforcement team to prioritise our Ward. Bin-bags put out too early, fly-tipping and littering will be the main targets. The Council can impose fines on people fly-tipping, littering or putting bins or bin-bags out too early, frequent offenders could have ASBOs imposed.

The dumping of left-overs following DIY gardening activities is a common cause of fly-tipping. The best time to begin “pruning” trees and shrubs is the autumn, but some residents start in summer (the worst time). A minority then dump the cuttings over their garden boundaries. No-one should prune hedges or trees on public land, highways, paths etc. without first discussing the work with the Council. And why do people wait until the bird nesting season to do this work?

Melrose Park Youth Facility:

2005-07-27T04:30:00.000Z

Last year a St. Mellons resident approached me about setting up a modest facility for young people in Minsmere Close, St. Mellons. Previously there was a childrens play facility here but vandalism and persistent anti-social behaviour lead to this being removed by the Council several years ago.

Concerns raised by Minsmere Close residents prompted the view that alternative, preferrably more easily policed, sites should be considered before developing the proposal further.

The resident decided not to pursue this approach (which is her right) and instead raised the matter with the Council Leader, Liberal Democrat Councillor Rodney Berman. The Council has been working on this proposal without even bothering to discuss it with local Councillors or residents for over six months.

This is either a sign of Liberal Democrat deviousness or incompetence - both provide reason for concern. I’m told it was an “oversight” on their part. It is certainly unacceptable.

Such behaviour undermines local democracy as well as being very unhelpful. We hope the Executive are not busy dealing with other local matters without consulting us. This incident says a lot about Lib Dem politicians who won last years local elections on the promise that they would be inclusive, open and democratic.

Schools Reorganisation Update:

2005-07-27T04:27:00.000Z

The Council’s ruling Liberal Democrat Executive is still reeling from the verbal battering it received from around 170 parents at the public meeting in Eastern Leisure Centre on May 18th. Your Labour Councillors leafleted parents outside school gates in Trowbridge and St. Mellons to make up for the lack of publicity

The earlier series of meetings, held in February, were so badly publicised by the Council that few people attended them; only 16 parents turned up for the West Cardiff meeting. The following day over 100 people attended the East Cardiff meeting after we leafleted at school gates.

At the latest public meeting worried parents demanded answers to their questions and complained that they were getting “waffle” in reply.

Having exposed the Councils failure to publicise these meetings properly, the South Wales Echo, has continued to devote space to the issue. The Council’s best kept secret is the talk of the City!

We are asking the Liberal Democrats to tell us when they will honour the promise contained in their June 2004 local election manifesto. Before winning power in Cardiff Council the Lib Dems promised to reduce class sizes to 25 pupils. Yet reducing class sizes is not even mentioned in their consultation paper!

Now they are proposing to close schools whilst presiding over a period when the gap between the average amount spent by Welsh Councils per pupil and the amount spent per pupil in Cardiff is widening. Under Labour between 1999 and 2004 the gap fell from almost £100 per pupil to £9.00!

We accept that something needs to be done to reduce the thousands of surplus places in our schools. However, we oppose plans to increase the size of all primary schools to 420 children because we believe smaller schools are more appropriate for very young children, especially in areas like Trowbridge and St. Mellons where there is significant socio-economic disadvantage.

At the next public meeting, to be held in September the Liberal Democrat Executive Member for Education (Councillor Bill Kelloway, who represents Penylan) will announce which schools he intends to close in East Cardiff.

Remember, even if the school your children attend is not going to be closed, there will be consequences as the children attending schools that are to be closed will have to go somewhere and will increase the size of your child’s school!

Some parents whose children attend St. John Lloyds (Trowbridge) or Bishop Childs (St. Mellons) mistakenly think this has nothing to do with them. It does. Voluntary Aided schools will have to take some of the pain as well as LEA schools.

Finally, I was recently advised that Councillors who find themselves governors of schools destined to be closed would not be permitted to vote on the final proposals as they would “have an interest”. The Echo published the story and I resigned as a Governor of Willowbrook School. Within days a meeting was held where dispensations were agreed for every Councillor who is also a governor. Thus the chaos that would have followed the resignations of 75 Councillors from school governing bodies was averted.

Trefaser Crescent

2005-07-27T04:25:00.000Z

The row between your Councillors and the Council over the stopping-up of Trefaser Crescent is continuing. The intention behind the proposal was to transform Trowbridge Green into two cul de sacs. We believe this would reduce anti-social behaviour, rat-running by motorists and motor-cycle nuisance in the area.

We have now made a bid via the Council’s Neighbourhood Renewal Scheme for funding to carry out a full consultation with Trowbridge Green residents on the proposal and if it proves popular for a feasibility study into the costs and practicability of doing the work.

A Council Executive Member, Cllr. Judith Woodman, has told us that there is opposition to the idea from the local Police and some residents. Local Police officers tell us that in fact they are quite positive about the proposal but want to be formally consulted about it.

Some residents may oppose the idea but if so they have not expressed this view to us.

We believe a formal consultation exercise will establish whether there is support for the scheme amongst residents and enable a general debate on the wider issues. If the idea is not supported by residents we will accept those views but we are not prepared to accept Cllr. Woodman’s unsubstatiated opinions which seem to be more about saving money than improving the area for the residents of Trowbridge Green.

What Next for Trowbridge?

2005-04-11T04:11:00.000Z

Your Councillors have concentrated their attention over the past six years on the major work that is slowly transforming the Trowbridge Estate:

Shopping centre redevelopment,

Trowbridge Green improvements,

Improving the Council flats,

Parking near schools,

Motorbike prevention,

Trefaser Park fencing,

Traffic speed control,

All these are underway and will continue this year.
By any standards the list is impressive and we are ourselves pretty surprised at how much has been achieved. However, problems change over time and so do people’s expectations and we do not want to lose touch with changing needs in Trowbridge.
We want to hear from you about your ambitions for Trowbridge. We know that many residents point to the lack of a childrens play area in Trowbridge (which we are working on) but what other concerns do people have.

If you’d like to tell us please write to me at:

Cllr. Ralph Cook,
Members Services,
Cardiff County Council,County Hall,
Atlantic Wharf,
Cardiff,
CF10 4UW.

or by e-mail at rcook@cardiff.gov.uk
or telephone 20793809

Harrison Drive & Matthysens Way

2005-04-11T04:10:00.000Z

A dispute between residents and Wimpey Homes has delayed the Council’s adoption of the estate. I have recently been told the dispute is close to being resolved.
Potholes have remained unfilled, street lights have failed and for several years the estate did not receive street cleansing at all. Residents complained but I’m not sure my attempts to explain were always believed!
Two years ago I negotiated unofficial arrangements with the Council’s Street Cleansing Manager but he has retired. I hope to persuade his replacement to continue these arrangements until adoption is secured.
For several years, wanting to avoid unnecessarily arousing fears amongst residents, we worked "behind the scenes" with Council officers, putting pressure on Wimpey Homes to reach agreement with the residents.
Over a year ago I invited residents to a meeting and explained the problem verbally. A residents’ association was set up last autumn. The involvement of residents has helped highlight it and speed things up.
All being well, the Council will begin the adoption process very soon.

Next Meeting: Wednesday 20th April, 7.00pm at Meadowlane School.

What next for St. Mellons

2005-04-11T03:20:00.000Z

Your Councillors have won major improvements for St. Mellons. Work on the Council housing estates, completion of Hendre Lake Park and improvements to other play, park and sports areas will continue through this year.
Residents put "quality of life issues" - "stray" horses, motorbike nuisance, speeding, litter and fly-tipping - at the top of their list of priorities and we are dealing with those issues as best we can, often under difficult circumstances.
Unfortunately, progress can be slow and brings conflict with a few other residents, motorbike enthusiasts, for instance!
Your Councillors can’t prevent illegal behaviour on their own. We work with the Police, Council and other agencies through the St. Mellons Forum and other means.Naturally there are complaints from residents when there is a problem but few residents realise we are all stronger when a united community stands alongside its Councillors. This may mean filling in petitions, writing letters and occasionally standing with placards in the rain!
St. Mellons has very few active Residents Associations or groups. Most are small and fragile, the biggest being SMAC, the group opposing the St. Mellons Link Road.
Increasingly the voice of St. Mellons needs to be heard. School closures, the Community Education Centre, horses, motorbikes and other problems are still present. If the people of St. Mellons do not work together we risk losing the hard-won gains and a return to the neglect we suffered a few years ago.We will not win every time but success, when it occurs, is more fun shared

Council U-Turn on “Stray” Horses: A Victory for Common-Sense

2005-04-07T04:23:00.000Z

Our 8 month campaign for Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) to be used against irresponsible horse owners seems to have been successful. In a policy U-Turn Cardiff Council’s Executive has ruled out renting grazing land for horses and agreed to use ASBOs.

We put this down to our resolve to ensure ASBOs are used, if necessary. We also want to thank residents of St. Mellons for their support and encouragement during these difficult months.

We have maintained all along that ASBOs, if used properly offered the cheapest, quickest and most effective solution to the “stray” horse problem as they have proved to be with irresponsible farmers in other parts of the UK. We also argued that if the Council wanted to lease land for grazing the land should be available to any horse owner, not just those who have caused many residents of St. Mellons misery for over two-and-a-half years.

We wait to see if ASBOs are used properly!

Liberal Democrats make a mess of public consultation on schools

2005-03-13T04:02:00.000Z

The Liberal Democrats who marginally won control of Cardiff County Council in last June's local elections promised voters a more open and honest and listening Council. Sadly they have fallen at the first major hurdel - consultation with parents and Councillors over thier school re-organisation plan.

First they hid the details of a series of local public meetings from Councillors in ae-mail daily media brief that few Councillors need to check.

Worse still the details fo the meeting were released not to schools but to the South Wales Echo which published them on the 16th of February - in the middle of the half-term holiday. Finally the date for the meeting in east Cardiff (22nd February ), was the first day back at school.

To ensure local parents were aware of the meeting your Councillors produced and distributed leaflets about it outside schools in St. Mellons and Trowbridge. But many parents will have been unable toarrange child-care at short notice and and were, in effect, excluded from discussing thier children's future education. If Labour were still running the Council we would have had to look at reorganising schools but I'm certain we would have got the public consultation exercise right

On an economic analysis alone, school closures may prove to be necessary. However children in areas of deprivation like St. Melloms and Trowbridge will benefit from attending small schools. Therefore we have a strong case to argue against any school closures in the ward.

Does your Child's Education Matter?

2005-02-19T03:58:00.000Z

If your answer is yes, you need to know about the Council,s proposals to reorganise Cardiff's schools and try to attend the meeting detailed at the bottom of this posting.

Cardiff County Council's proposals may include closing Primary Schools in Trowbridge & St. Mellons and will affect Rumney and Llanrumney High Schools.

The Council must by Law Consult parents. Sadly the Council has called its puplic consultation meeting for East Cardiff just after half-term for Tuesday 22nd of February and given less than one weeks notice (in the South Wales Echo last Wednesday).

Yet the Council's Newspaper "Capilal Times ", which is delivered to every home in Cardiff, could have provided over a month's notice.

Concerned about your Child's future Education?

School Reorganisation Public Consultation
Meeting
Tues 22nd February, 7.00pm
Eastern Leisure Centre
Llanrumney
Cardiff

Season Greetings

2004-12-24T03:50:00.000Z

Merry Christmas

And A

Happy New Year

Land for Trowbridge & St. Mellons High School to be sold

2004-12-22T03:54:00.000Z

Recently the Council submitted a planning application for residential development on land ear-marked for the long-awaited and now never to be built Trowbridge & St. Mellons High School. The number of surplus pupil places at Rumney and Llanrumney High Schools have destroyed hopes that the Ward would one day have its own high school. Indeed, the Council may conclude that the two existing high schools in East Cardiff are unnecessary, leading to the closure of one or the amalgamation of the two.

The school land planning application raised the concerns of local Councillors about whether the community should be compensated with a percentage of the Capital Receipt from the sale which could be invested in the improvements required at the Community Education Centre. On Tuesday 21/12/04 Councillors Ralph Cook and David English met with the Liberal Democrat Executive Member Cllr. Mark Stephens and senior Council Officers to discuss this possibility.

Unfortunately, it seems the Council will not consider this option. However, Cllr. Stephens did sympathise with the points made by your local Councillors and promised to consider other options with regard to the Community Education Centre improvements.

Stray Horses

2004-10-16T03:46:00.000Z

September saw a sudden increase in problems with "stray" horses and complaints flooded in to Councillors, the Council and the Police. We once again took up the cudgels on this issue - we’ve never stopped complaining really - and demanded another "swoop" be carried out.
The new divisional Inspector, Alex Chadd, agreed as did lead officers in the Council and in the early hours of the 8th October I watched an operation net 12 horses. Although the animals were finally captured in Trowbridge Road, they were first found in Harrisons Drive in St. Mellons.
Having spent four hours with the Police and the livestock recovery contractors hired by the Council, I watched the horses "boxed-up" at 2am on a very cold, clear night. My impression was that the operation was professional and efficient.
However, over a dozen police officers and five police vehicles were present to prevent a breach of the peace and the contract team also consisted of a dozen people and several vehicles. It seemed crazy to me to incur all this effort and expense merely to catch a dozen horses when the problem could be solved by imposing anti-social behaviour orders on their owners.

Lib Dem threat to local schools

2004-10-16T03:44:00.000Z

Cardiff currently has 8,500 surplus school places and these cost around £3m. The new Liberal Democrat Executive is planning a review that will probably result in some schools closing.
All the local authority schools in St. Mellons, Willowbrook, Oakfield and Meadowlane primary schools have surplus places and Llanrumney High - where many St. Mellons children receive their education - has 652 surplus spaces!
To be fair a Labour Administration would have had to look at the issue if we had won the Council elections.
On an economic analysis alone, school closures may prove to be necessary. However our local primary schools perform well despite the Ward’s high deprivation indices and significant numbers of local children with special educational needs.
Therefore we have a strong case against school closures especially where they can demonstrate continuing success in a difficult environment.
In areas like St. Mellons with regard to education, especially of our youngest children - "small is definitely beautiful".

Unhelpful Rumours

2004-09-04T03:40:00.000Z

An unhelpful rumour has been circulating again in Trowbridge over the summer. Councillors have been blamed for the closure of the "play pod" in Trefaser Park.The truth is that I asked whether play-workers from the St. Mellons Healthy Living Centre could run a "play pod" in Trowbridge.
Eventually funding was obtained for a "trial" pod for the year from March 2003. The life of the project was then extended to the end of September 2004. Sadly unwanted and criminal attention from local youths and staffing issues led to the decision to close the pod at the end of August.
Regretably no more funding is available (we will continue to search for further grant aid) and therefore, the pod has had to be closed. We are as disappointed about this as everyone else.

Childrens Play Area completed

2004-08-21T03:39:00.000Z

As promised in previous newsletters our programme of providing new or improved childrens play areas continues.
Caerleon Park playground, dismantled for health and safety reasons several years ago, has been re-equipped at a cost of about £14,000. Swings, a roundabout and two multiplay units have been installed with a grass kick-about area enclosed by metal fencing. The site is very popular with local children.Our next objective is to provide a play area in the ABC Park.

New Community Centre for Trowbridge

2004-07-14T03:35:00.000Z

As part of the redevelopment of the Trowbridge Shopping Centre it is intended to provide a new community centre. The Trowbridge Forum, whose chairman is Cllr. Ralph Cook, is creating an interim management committee for the centre.

The Committee’s responsibilities include identifying the needs of Trowbridge residents and identifying sources of funding.

Anyone wanting to help please phone Ralph on 20793809.

Councillor’s Report for August/September St. Mellons Community Linx

2004-07-14T03:30:00.000Z

Councillor’s Report for Linx

This article is not the place for Party politics but I’m sure the Editor will allow me to thank the 2,500 people who took the trouble to vote in the Council elections in June and to thank especially those who voted for me. Sadly three-quarters of the 10,000 + eligible voters in the Ward did not bother to exercise their democratic right to vote.

Since the election it has been very much a case of business as usual. As I write (mid July) I am pleased to see the new children’s play area at Caerleon Park being constructed, especially as I had promised this before the election. In addition I received notice that my bid for funding for a perimeter fence around the ABC Park (adjacent to Brookfield Drive), to prevent incursions by motor-vehicles has been successful. Work will begin on this barrier before March 31st 2005. Again just after the election the Council acceded to my request for large boulders to be placed across the unlawful shortcut between Trefaser Crescent in Trowbridge and Elmfield Close.

During the election campaign I was asked what a Councillor actually does. Referring to these articles and our own newsletter “The St. Mellons Rose”, questioners suggested that whilst progress in the improvement of St. Mellons was being made, the workload did not appear to be very great. The answer is of course that much of what we do is not included in the newsletters.For instance, it would be inappropriate in a public newsletter to detail the work Councillors carry out on behalf of individuals or groups of residents. But this work, nevertheless, consumes a considerable amount of time. We play a role in the local community as well: liaising with voluntary and statutory agencies (such as the Police and Housing Associations) that affect the lives of local people; we assist community groups and serve as school governors. We also have duties to the Council, including serving on its Committees. Work within our political party is also vital as political parties largely determine the Council’s priorities and contribute to the development of its policies.During the five years, since the 1999 Council elections my colleagues and I developed and have largely begun to progress, various strategies for improving St. Mellons (and Trowbridge of course). The next four years will hopefully see the implementation of the outstanding elements of these strategies. We are, therefore, able to turn our attention to issues that we were unable, due to lack of time, to progress at an earlier stage. Many of these only have significance for a few residents or streets in St. Mellons but they will require considerable effort and will not be easily resolved.

In all our work we will be in the hands of you, the residents on behalf of whom we are working. Clearly we will not be able to please everyone but we, nevertheless, welcome your views and hope to be able to work with you over the next four years.