I will not be bullied into joining the online world

AM I the only reader who resents the bullying attempts of various bodies, both local and national, to make me use online services? Am I also the only reader who neither has nor wants the technology to do this?

To listen to the television adverts or read the papers, one would think it is impossible to survive the effects of lockdown without recourse to some sort of social media or website; that one’s world collapses if unable to “stay connected” via various “devices”;’ that you will be bereft if you cannot immediately buy something you want. Hard fact: it doesn’t and you won’t be.

I move on to “you can still buy online”, “you can still bank with us via our website or app” – yes, if you have a personal computer and/or smartphone. Why am I considered either second-class or odd if I choose not to buy and maintain such devices?

Computers were originally designed to facilitate routine tasks in the workplace: they have a valuable place in said workplace. However, my own view is that social media and the like have trivialised certain aspects of life to such an extent that some people can now no longer think for themselves, and/or use their brains, and thus are at a loss during lockdown because they have either forgotten, or have never learned, how to think and make decisions.

So I, for one, will not be bullied. I will continue in my pre-digital world, no doubt saving myself a fortune on internet costs, and sailing happily into the sunset knowing that I will never be digitally scammed because I don’t place any personal or financial information on the internet.

Suppliers, please listen – remember there are many people who, like me, prefer still to have real faceto-face communication (or telephone where this is not possible), or paper (and yes, cheques, long may they continue) correspondence, not electronic means, for all other transactions. Ignore us at your peril when things return to “normal”.

Mrs J Delgado Cardiff

Parks are a delight during lockdown

AS a pensioner I am one of the lucky ones not going out to work, not on furlough and not ill.

I feel guilty knowing how many are ill or self isolating, or are in work and have no choice about how they spend their days. Within the rules of the lockdown I have had the joy of walking in our city parklands most days.

With no traffic noise you can hear the birds singing away. On BBC Springwatch one of the presenters suggested we try to learn the song of three birds in a year. So far I can recognise the robin’s and the blackbird’s songs.

Parts of castle grounds and Bute Park are magical. The herbaceous borders are beautiful and I would like to say a huge thank-you to Cardiff council’s park staff who have the gardening nous to grow and maintain such a varied and colourful array of plants.

While I am on the subject I would also like to thank Cardiff council for the way the waste teams have kept up the collections during this period. We are all going to have one more Saturday garden waste collection – for my ward, Riverside, it is Saturday, June 13.

From today (June 1) we are all going back to the usual collection routine of fortnightly for general waste and weekly for food waste and green recycling bags. This means for those of us who have black waste bins we need to start separating our food waste.

Also Cardiff council will restart the recycling sorting as “where there’s muck there’s brass”.

Keep safe, keep distanced, keep well.

Iona Gordon

Councillor for Riverside Cardiff Council

Scheme threatens wildlife and trees

LOCAL campaigners in Cardiff North are working hard to draw attention to the plans to build on the Northern Meadow and it was great to see WalesOnline investigating this.

The meadow is at the heart of a wide range of environmental and recreational open-air sites that will be totally destroyed. The scale of that planned destruction is being massively underestimated. People may think that building on one meadow is not the end of the world but let’s be clear that the meadow itself is only one of six separate sites in danger.

To the west of the meadow is the ancient Longwood site of scientific interest, a second site under threat. Planners have refused to accept a wide green buffer area between the building and the wood. The development will therefore be close enough to endanger the wood with the dirt, dust, noise and chemicals of the building industry, and animals will be driven from their homes.

On the eastern side of the meadow is the wonderful railway cutting environmental area. This will be totally destroyed as two new bridges are built, at a cost of £30m, and hundreds of mature trees cut down to get access to the meadow itself. One bridge will be forced through the Asda car park despite the reluctance of that store. The other will be forced through the Hollybush estate despite opposition from that community. Planting young trees, four years after this destruction, will not make good this damage until the next century.

The fourth area to be destroyed will be the wildlife corridor, a broad hedgerow and public footpath, to the south of the meadow. It links the Longwood site to the railway cutting site. This will have a wide hole knocked through it for the four-year building period. Apparently the animals are supposed to wait four years to get to and from their food sources and habitat. Perhaps they will be driven away, or just killed, but one way or another that wildlife corridor will be destroyed.

There is a fifth area to be destroyed which is the Lady Cory field park to the south east of the meadow. This was bequeathed to the people of Cardiff for sport, recreation and leisure. Surely using this as an HGV turning point and lorry park is not what she had in mind? Four yearsplus of building work and restoration will deny many children from the Hollybush estate access to their open park for their entire childhood.

And yes, there is a sixth site of beauty, environmental and historical value to the north east. It is the former garden of Coryton House, known to some as the magic garden. This will have a new bridge on either

Am I also the only reader who neither has not wants the technology to do this?

side of it, lose some trees and see wildlife driven away by the building work. Without the mature trees of the railway cutting and the wildlife corridor it will lose its environmental connections and function.

These six separate sites are so much more than is implied by the one word “meadow”.

I believe that the views of the local community, and the local councillors, who all oppose this development, should be fully considered at the next planning meeting.

This almost impossible greenfield plan should be rejected and a suitable brownfield site developed quickly for our much needed health facilities.

Steffan Webb

Plaid Cymru Cardiff North