New plans submitted for business park on family farm

DEVELOPERS have put forward plans again to build a business park on a family farm near Cardiff Airport.

Legal & General, a financial services company, has applied for planning permission from the Vale of Glamorgan Council for a 45-acre industrial estate off Port Road.

It would be built on Model Farm, currently used for rearing cattle and growing wildflowers for seeds, lived and worked on by the Jenkins family for four generations since 1935.

In July last year the company received permission from the council for the business park, but that decision was quashed in September due to a lack of public financial information.

Now L&G has included this financial information, called a viability report, in their new application and are once again asking the council for planning permission – attracting fresh criticism for the plan to “concrete over Model Farm” and concerns about the climate impact.

As part of the application, the council is consulting the public on its views on the plans. Responses can be submitted on the council’s website until February 17, and the planning application has the reference 2019/00871/OUT.

Andrew RT Davies, MS for South Wales Central and leader of the Welsh Conservatives, said: “Concreting over Model Farm would be a betrayal of our community. This new consultation is an opportunity to make that clear once again.”

The reason the application was quashed was due to the missing viability report.

Now L&G has resubmitted its plans to build a business park on the farm, including in its application the viability report.