Save Green Belt! (From Penarth Times)

Save Green Belt!

CONSERVATION groups are urging the Welsh Assembly Government to overrule the Vale of Glamorgan council and reject planning guidelines which they say will see the destruction of the Vale's most beautiful countryside.

The inspector who ran the 1999-2000 inquiry into the Vale's Unitary Development Plan (UDP) said that a Green Belt area in the Vale was essential.

Friends of the Earth claim that the Vale authority has failed in its duty of public consultation by omitting to invite objections on the green belt issue.

Graeme Jones, chairman of Conservation Glamorgan, also says that the Assembly should intervene to block the UDP as it is likely to provide planning permission for the superquarry at Wenvoe.

The council submitted the UDP to the Welsh Assembly on March 1 and the minister has until March 28 to call in part or all of the plan.

Max Wallace, a spokesman for Barry and Vale Friends of the Earth, said: "We are pressing Carwyn Jones, minister for the environment, to stop the council rejecting the inquiry recommendation for a Green Belt in the Vale UDP.

"Other authorities have protected their Cardiff-bordering green areas from development with both Newport and Cardiff opting to designate green belts. The Vale of Glamorgan is giving excuses for not doing likewise.

"The inspector gave clear arguments for designating a Green Belt. He decided that a Green Belt bordering the river Ely was essential for protecting Cardiff's setting and the green areas between Penarth, Dinas Powys, Barry and Wenvoe from development pressures."

The council claims a Green Belt could have a "serious detrimental effect upon both the growth dynamics of the region and regional sustainability".

Mr Wallace added: "When the council invited public representations to the draft UDP modifications they omitted to invite objections on the Green Belt issue."

Graeme Jones, of Conservation Glamorgan, said: "The superquarry proposal may well be approved because of an amendment to the UDP in 1999 allocating land for quarrying which deprived the public of the right to enter objections and argue our case at the Public Inquiry."