Fears over 24/7 drilling at popular Welsh park

Kieran Molloy Local Democracy Reporter

Concerns have been raised about round-the-clock drilling in a popular Welsh park that is set to begin later this month.

The pumping station at Hailey Park in north Cardiff has been a long-standing and contentious issue which has caused friction between residents and Welsh Water.

While plans were approved in 2022 the drilling faced a string of delays and a legal challenge that have severely slowed progress.

Earlier this year work was scheduled to resume after a delay but was unable to due to lack of availability of machinery.

Now permission has been given to the water company for 24/7 drilling operations that are expected to begin towards the end of September. The water company predicts it will take five weeks to complete the wastewater pipe works.

The station will pump sewage from the planned 7,000-home Plasdwr housing development, across the River Taff, up to the level of an existing sewage system where it will be transported to Cardiff Wastewater Treatment Works.

However this project has been met with scepticism.

Ian Vincent, a local activist attached to Save Hailey Park, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) he was concerned about the impact the site would have on local residents due to the possibility of 24/7 work, particularly in regard to noise and vibration.

He said: “People come in and out and there’ll be bashing and crashing and stopping and starting and last time there was all sorts of vibration going into the hose.”

The long-time activist said that due to the age of many of the houses neighbouring the site “they will feel the vibration and they will feel the noise”.

On a wider scale, Ian, who has been long involved in river and water activism, warned that Cardiff’s sewers and wastewater network, which are owned and operated by Welsh Water, are not equipped to handle the 7,000 new homes that have been promised to be built in the coming years.

He called the city’s sewer system “Victorian and ancient” and claimed due to the sheer amount of wastewater that could be created by the Plasdwr development the system could become overwhelmed and release diluted sewage into both the sea and nearby rivers.

Ian said this could have a “horrendous” impact on the environment and local wildlife.

A spokesman for Welsh Water told the LDRS: ““To reduce the risk of further delays to our work, we have sought permission from the local authority to begin 24‑hour tunnelling beneath Hailey Park and Danescourt for up to five weeks. This is a two-week extension to the originally agreed 24-hour working period.

“This work will begin towards the end of September. Mitigation measures will be in place to manage noise levels and keep disruption to the local community at an absolute minimum. This includes the installation of acoustic noise barriers and continuous noise monitoring around the site.

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.