Are voters beguiled by these park promises?
Could this be a pre-election ploy by Labour council to keep voters?
Gill Griffin Llandaff North
THE policies and actions of Cardiff council can often be hard to fathom, as seen in relation to housing development on green fields.
For example, in Llandaff North ward... late in 2021, both Gabalfa Park and the field known as The Fram in Llandaff North were named as “Candidate Sites” for housing developments in Cardiff council’s Local Development Plan (LDP).
This would mean the destruction by Cardiff council of two more green sites.
However, in February 2022 all Cardiff council-owned Candidate Sites were removed from the LDP Candidate Site Register, for reasons that are unclear.
This was initially good news for local residents.
When Common Ground Alliance (Plaid Cymru and The Green Party) queried this with the council’s LDP office, we were told that sites like The Fram may be re-added to the Candidate Register in October 2022. ie after the May council elections.
Paul Rock (Green Party) and Gill Griffin (Plaid Cymru) Common Ground immediately campaigned for the two sites to be permanently excluded from any housing development.
They sought local opinion and asked for rejuvenation of the fields, to include a public right of way to walk through, protection of nearby allotments (The Fram), repair and reopening of children’s playground (Gabalfa Park), protection of wildlife and biodiversity on both fields etc
Lo and behold – on Sunday, April 23, one of our local Labour councillors issued a statement on Facebook as follows: “Just to clarify while this site maybe on the list I have spoken to the Leader of the council confirmed that neither this park nor the Fram will be built on. In fact, prior to the pandemic we were offered £40,000 towards park improvements. The council have agreed to all of this commitment and we were working on a plan to create a new park space that incorporates play equipment, a meadow, and an orchard.”
So, the parks were on, then off, then maybe back on the LDP. Now they are off the LDP again with a promise of £40,000 available for a “new park space”, details of which have not been made known to local residents. Could this be a pre-election ploy by Labour council to keep voters?
Gill Griffin
Plaid Cymru candidate for Common Ground Alliance, (Plaid Cymru and Green Party) Llandaff North, Cardiff
Spend some cash on Indoor market
IF Caerphilly council wants to spend all that money on the town, they want to do something to the indoor market - it must be the worst market in Wales or the country. Malcolm Thomas Caerphilly
PM’s a good egg so give him a chance
WHY has Tony Blair never been prosecuted for his crime of deceiving Parliament? He lied about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, which never existed.
Not only that, but he led us into a costly war, which cost British lives, and as far as I know has never apologised.
Perhaps Labour fails to see the hypocrisy of the present position?
We are about to lose a good (careless) Prime Minister at a time when we need one, one who has shown up the EU for its prevarication, and even worse, breaking its own rules by France and Germany selling arms to Russia, when it was forbidden.
Give the man a chance.
David Gorton
Rumney, Cardiff
The benefits of a family’s business
I read of Amanda and Eifion Griffiths’ generosity in vesting their staff with the ownership of Melin Tregwynt by way of a trust.
Although we share the same surname, we are not, as far as I am aware, related.
There are, however, a number of ways by which our life stories might be connected.
I believe they begin with the formation of Melin Tregwynt by Mr Eifion Griffiths’ grandfather in 1912.
This was six years after the opening of Fishguard Harbour for which he saw his own business opportunities. The “Harbour’s” construction involved my north Walian greatgrandfather, and slate quarryman, William Griffiths, who, by that time, had moved to the Gwaun Valley to ply his skills.
I could be wrong, but as I see things, the business acumen of Eifion Griffiths’ grandfather saw the rewards to be gained from setting up a business not a million miles away from “the Harbour”.
That business has continued to thrive notwithstanding the demotion of “the Harbour” to the Port that it is now named, and, as mentioned, the current staff are the ultimate beneficiaries of that success by being rewarded for helping Amanda and Eifion to continue to run a business that has operated for 110 years.
Before returning to the Griffiths side of my family, I must pay attention to Melin’s location, which, broadly speaking, is in the vicinity of where my maternal grandmother Letitia George’s Rees family had dwelt.
Being also within spitting distance of Tremarchog, where Letitia lived with my grandfather Levi George, it would be visited many times by my late wife Sue, our daughter Sara, her late sister Kate, and, of course, by me.
The Griffiths side of my family also had an entrepreneurial bent that was evidenced by the Evans brothers of Corona pop fame, my father’s farming siblings and my father’s record in Fishguard where he ran two successive painting and decorating businesses while my mother ran two successive wallpaper and paint shops.
One would have thought that, with all these seeds, I’d be overflowing with entrepreneurialism from
the very beginning but, even though I materially benefited from it, I was not.
The benefits I received from my parents’ commercial bent resulted in my gaining two degrees, followed by paid employment that opened up a huge tract of the world for my family that, without being disrespectful, the Griffiths the subject of this letter might not have seen.
Ultimately, and for a relatively short time, the Griffiths’ entrepreneurial streak surfaced in me when, on returning from Africa’s Lesotho, I set up a business which was subsequently solvently dissolved, although I retained the website address for sentimental reasons.
Where I did not emulate Amanda and Eifion was in gifting anyone with the ownership of a business as they have their staff: llongyfarchiad i chich dwy.
Derek Griffiths
Llandaff, Cardiff