Don’t harm well-being by building on meadows
THOUSANDS of people have signed the petition to save Cardiff’s Northern Meadows from the Velindre NHS Trust cancer centre development.
There is no objection to a new hospital – just that it could and should be built on a brownfield site, not on an oasis of serenity in a busy and growing city. The meadows are well loved and well used by so many people, providing well-being and recreational opportunities for great numbers of citizens.
To build on such a place, that is also hugely rich in biodiversity, makes no sense whatsoever.
One of the online commentators defending the meadows, herself a breast cancer patient at Velindre, points out: “...this is not about a cancer centre... that could be built in many places. It’s about money and house development. As soon as the land swap is done, they’ll build hundreds of houses over the old hospital site. I’m a patient at Velindre. It could so easily be extended up a few floors, or just down the road at the GE site... so many other places. The green meadows are a well-being space for all the community and future generations’ health, and will save more lives in cancer prevention and recovery.”
As pointed out above, the former GE Healthcare site is vacant, and, unlike the meadows site, the infrastructure is already in place to access it – so there is no need to drive an access road through the nature reserve to access the hospital site.
Creating the new Velindre at the GE Healthcare site, and preserving the meadows for the health and well-being of Cardiff’s population is a win-win answer.
Research commissioned by the charity, Fields in Trust, shows that parks and green spaces save the NHS more than £100m every year, and that these places provide well-being benefits worth £34bn each year, including reducing stress, anxiety and depression.
The sheer numbers of signatures on the petition show just how precious the Northern Meadows are to so many people. So why destroy this place? Nerys Lloyd-Pierce Chair, Cardiff Civic Society
Still can’t see sons despite changes
WE are now told that we can meet family and friends.
My two sons live outside the fivemiles rules, which means I still cannot see them.
Can we please get rid of this useless Labour Government in the Welsh Assembly who have no idea?
We all came into this lockdown as one and therefore should come out as one.
Tony Powell
Heath, Cardiff
Which scientists should I listen to?
I UNDERSTAND that science is not exact, and open to interpretation, but the difference in advice between the chief medical and scientific officers in Wales to those in England and Scotland makes me wonder if they are on the same planet.
John Edwards Porthcawl
Talk of ‘new normal’ is being defeatist
JUST a thought – I suggest that everybody will be infected by Covid-19 eventually; it just takes time. Everybody has had the flu.
All that the current restrictions can do/have done is ease the pressures on the NHS. This being so, social distancing needs to be abandoned within the next month or so – say six weeks – giving time for all those currently infected to recover, and getting life back to normal again. Talk of “a new normal” is defeatist nonsense.
Peter Sunman
Penylan, Cardiff
Inconsistencies of the five-mile rule
THIS five-mile limit is ridiculous. My family travel 10 miles from their home to deliver my groceries and sit outside on my patio for an hour with me six feet away from them.
But I’m not going to be allowed to sit on their patio, six feet away from them!
That means they can bring my shopping, which may include burgers and sausages, to my house – 10 miles away – but they couldn’t come if I invited them to a barbecue.
Mr Ducks-and-Drakes-ford please think again.
Graham Charles Lewis Tonteg
My sons live outside the five-miles rules, which means I still cannot see them
Tony Powell Heath
Media stoked up Cummings story
DOMINIC CUMMINGS is disliked by many because he is not the most sociable or empathetic of people. Many people with autism and others with social orientation impairments face the equivalent degree of bullying that Mr Cummings received from the mass media.
I believe when he went to his parents’ empty building he was doing the best thing for his family and the public.
Durham Police have said the only thing he did wrong was to drive to Barnard Castle, but they are taking no further action.
The mass media were totally irresponsible to stoke up this story, putting the health of the nation at risk just to try to bring down someone people don’t like.
Equally, however, I think the Home Secretary should pardon anyone who committed the same offence as Dominic Cummings for which further action was taken. Jonathan Bishop Non-party councillor for Nantgarw
Disunited kingdom
THE different approaches to lockdown by Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland have resulted in a disunited kingdom and confusion for the people. What a shambles. Mike Miller
Roth, Cardiff
More have died from flu in the past
I COULDN’T agree more with Paul Fenton (“Welsh people are being used as political pawns”, Echo letters, May 25).
In 2017/18 50,100 people died from influenza, 3,400 extra deaths in Wales alone, most of them over-75s. In 1950 there were 106,400 extra deaths from flu.
I’m not disagreeing with the lock