Plans for new council homes refused

Ted Peskett, local democracy report

Plans to build council homes in an area of Cardiff won’t be going ahead over fears that families could be left living “in a moat”.

Cardiff Council’s planning committee voted in favour of refusing plans for eight new homes on land at Radyr Court Close, Llandaff, due to a loss of amenity space and flooding concerns at a meeting on Thursday, January 16.

The applicants, Wales and West Housing, proposed a play area in compensation for the loss of amenity space and planning officials argued that the homes would have been protected from flooding on raised ground.

Radyr Court Close

However, local councillors representing Llandaff said the current amenity space at Radyr Court Close was for the exclusive use of certain residents who didn’t have a private garden and that people shouldn’t be moved into an area where there was a high risk of flooding.

Cardiff Council planning committee member, Cllr Michael Michael, said: “I think this is one of the few places in this city that we shouldn’t be touching unless we fix the flood defences.

“I understand it may take time, I understand it may take money, but I think it is incumbent on us as a planning committee to recognise what happens if we don’t refuse this because then, we are going to have families living in a moat.

“They are surrounded by a moat several times a year and it is not acceptable.”

At the last planning committee meeting in December, planning officers did acknowledge that flood defences in the area had failed.

Flooding

A Cardiff Council expert on flooding, Simon Dooley, also confirmed that there was a flood risk at the application site.

However, he added that it was not caused or made worse by the site.

A senior planner at the council, Steve Ball, also said it would be difficult to defend refusal on the grounds of flooding concerns if the applicants appealed the local authority’s decision, adding that the result could be costly.

Cardiff Council has thousands of people on its housing waiting list.

The city’s need for affordable housing was touched upon by local councillors, but they were adamant that the application site was not the right place to build it.

Storm Darragh

Radyr Court Close was badly affected by flooding in February, 2020, and more recently, following storm Darragh when the River Taff burst its banks.

Addressing the planning committee recently, Conservative councillor for Llandaff, Cllr Sean Driscoll, said: “You have already determined last month overwhelmingly, having seen the report, that you are not happy putting families at risk or at times living behind a moat.

“Every time we have a prolonged downpour, families living here… have had the river creep into their homes in the dead of night destroying their possessions.

“People who would occupy these would not want to experience that.”

Labour councillor for Llandaff, Cllr Peter Jenkins, said he supported both reasons for refusal.

At December’s planning committee meeting, he said the scheme was not right in the form presented to members and that the eight new homes proposed would be a “tiny drop in a very large ocean”.