Cardiff needs new homes to ensure it can support a growing economy. Providing 1,300 new homes in an attractive location with excellent public transport links to the city centre will underpin that growth.
However, we also propose to facilitate and encourage working without leaving the new community. We propose to include garden offices as an option for all houses. We are also proposing a shared workspace hub, designed to remove the need to commute. All homes and workspaces would have 145Mb/s superfast broadband, as we continue to adjust to a post-COVID working world.
We would like to explore with the city council and health stakeholders removing barriers to residents from Cardiff’s most deprived communities visiting and enjoying the new country park. That might include free train travel and use of the electric bikes. A network of paths surfaced for wheelchairs would also enable access for disabled people. ‘Terrain hoppers’ (off-road mobility scooters) could also be available for free hire from the proposed bike hub at the station.
Ensuring our proposed community hub plays a health and wellbeing function. This might be through teaching youngsters how to grow, cook and eat more healthily, or through providing spaces for therapeutic wellbeing services, mental & physical health programmes. This is not our area of expertise, so we would seek to work with health & wellbeing professionals (and your Community Inclusion Officers) to assess how we can best support the city’s young people.
This might include locating intergenerational housing alongside the new primary school and/or community hub, seeking opportunities to reduce isolation by involving older residents in the life of the school and the community; Help support people with dementia including through specially-designed gardens and dementia café events at the community hub.
We are seeking to work collaboratively with the council through the Cardiff Replacement Local Development Plan and the regional plan-making for South East Wales.
Because our site is under single ownership we can guarantee delivery, and the commercial and landowner flexibility to shape the proposals to help deliver a fairer, greener and stronger city.
Cardiff is severely restricted in terms of growth options. With Glamorgan and Newport boundaries to the west and east, and the Channel to the south, some targeted future development will have to extend beyond the M4 at the northern boundary.
Deciding where new homes should be allocated must be about sustainability. Our site is located within sensible walking distance of key public transport infrastructure which does not require significant new investment. Sustainability should be at the heart of the green belt review required by Future Wales 2040.
Development north of the M4 has already taken place elsewhere (e.g., North of J33/South of Creigiau). The M4 is not a natural boundary and development should be located where sustainable, public transport infrastructure already exists. At Thornhill, the lower slope of Caerphilly Mountain is the natural boundary. Of course, that does not mean building right up to that point. Our emerging concept masterplan presents a balanced approach, with a mixture of open space and development on the lower slopes, outside the special landscape area…all within a new country park.
