St. Edeyrn Housing Development

You keep mentioning this "Inverness" project as if we should all know about it. Link please.

And, I don't see what extra can be done on the St Ederyn site regarding transport - its only ever going to be buses as its no where near a train line. And the layout and amenities - you haven't said what your problem is exactly, just used some disparaging words to describe it.

Is it that you object to development of this site (and kind of site) more generally? Where would you suggest this housing need is met instead, as the other large site in N.E Cardiff (between Pontprennau and Lisvane) also suffers from the same transport issues. Taken together that's over 5000 homes you need to find space for elsewhere if this is a more fundamental objection.

You keep mentioning this "Inverness" project as if we should all know about it. Link please.

And, I don't see what extra can be done on the St Ederyn site regarding transport - its only ever going to be buses as its no where near a train line. And the layout and amenities - you haven't said what your problem is exactly, just used some disparaging words to describe it.

Is it that you object to development of this site (and kind of site) more generally? Where would you suggest this housing need is met instead, as the other large site in N.E Cardiff (between Pontprennau and Lisvane) also suffers from the same transport issues. Taken together that's over 5000 homes you need to find space for elsewhere if this is a more fundamental objection.

You ask good questions of me and I'll try and answer as best as I can. Firstly, no I don't object to developing this site, its a logical location and a continuation of the Cardiff urban area. Regarding your question about transport, you are right about the rail link, although with a bit of imagination, something could be done, but the problem there is cost, but rail and bus are only two methods of transport. A possible relatively cheaper way would be guided bus as is used in places like Cambridge. Here's the link for more information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guided_bus

Its not an ideal solution for Cardiff, but anything that reduces travel time, decreases private car use, I believe, must be commended.

But the transport issue is a bit of a distraction from my main objection to this proposal and that is that it is unimaginative. Before continuing, here is the link to the Inverness project. http://www.tornagrain-newtown.co.uk/

In this development, more emphasis is placed on sustainability, the village having the facilities to cut down on the need to travel outside the area. Of course journeys will still have to be made to work or for medical reasons or for leisure, cinema, theatre, opera etc. What I am saying is that the housing estates of the past, like Ely, the one in Cardiff, Bradley Stoke or countless other examples, need not be replicated in the future and I'm not saying that the Cardiff development should be an exact copy of the Inverness one, clearly that would be silly. What I am saying is that it could be a blueprint for future living.

I've tried to answer your questions as best as I can and at a basic level and I think we both agree on a number of things. Only time will tell how this and other developments pan out. But whatever happens, the Cardiff and wider area will have to find courageous and controversial solutions to very complicated problems and that's exciting.

The Cambridge guided bus cost £152 million, which is a rather sizeable amount. And because it has to use the normal road network for the busiest stretches of road - from Cambridge train station to the northern outskirts -, its not clear it is a good use of public funds. It speeds up longer distance travel by public transport to Camrbridge, but is that worth such a big outlay? It also makes use of disused railway lines, and spare space next to railway lines - neither of which exist for N.E Cardiff. A guided busway there wouldn't be practical even if it were felt financially worthwhile.

And this proposal for Inverness is for a community of 12,500 people - more like 5,500 homes, not the 1,000 or so being planned for St Ederyn. At that scale you can support more community facilities - more shops, more public facilities, etc. Even so the masterplan there looks a bit overambitious to me - the amount of retail space seems quite outsized compared to a town of that size, and seems to consist almost entirely of small units. Given retailer demand and the changing retail environment, I'm just not sure thats deliverable even in a community of 12,500 people; unless there is a substantially wider (perhaps rural) community around it being underserved at the moment.

At 1,000 homes, and maybe 2,300 people, Ederyn at best can support one or two local convenience stores, a hairdresser, a surgery, a single-form primary school, and maybe a pub. I don't think its a case of them lacking imagination - more of your imagination running a bit wild on what can be expected on such a small site. Perhaps you just don't like the typical housing style built - and like the pictures from the Inverness project. Thats more one of taste as opposed to masterplanning though.

There will be more scope for more community facilities in the larger developments (thats why I favour them over the small ad hoc developments sprinkled all over S. Wales favoured by some people on this board). I'm thinking Waterhall and the Lisvane-Pontprennau site.

I think Waterhall does do a fair bit on the provision of local facilities; there what is lacking is transport. It's main 'district centre' provides quite a lot of retail space, and a surprising amount of other employment space (I don't think it will all be deliverable given the shift back to city centres, and only the primest out-of-town space).

Lisvane-Pontprennau looks much weaker, in part because land ownership is much more dispersed there. No masterplan has been done - and the Churchlands scheme was explicitly criticised for relating poorly to the wider site, and making the delivery of such a masterplan more difficult. I'd say that that scheme - and the wider area - should be a focus for your ire. And the Waterhall transport plans. Not a small(ish) development which just cannot support the kind of community facilities you want.

Finally, looks like they are about to start building.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/work-start-new-1020-home-11087491

All households will be given a free one years bus pass, does anyone else find this comical?

No more comical than giving them free parking directly outside their house. Think it's a good idea actually, obviously the service has to be good enough for people to keep using it once they have to start paying, but as an initial incentive to get people onto the bus it's hard to think of many things more effective than making it free.

Unless you mean comical that a free bus pass is the extent of the public transport improvements, in which case I would strongly agree.

Finally, looks like they are about to start building.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/work-start-new-1020-home-11087491

This is right by my work so I will be able to keep a watchful eye on this one

Now I know how llanedeyrn is pronounced in colloquial cardiff, does that mean St edeyrn is going to be pronounced in tbe same way?

Probably! Llanedern / Llanedeyrn / Llanedarne is possibly the most contentious place name in Cardiff. If you understand Welsh there's a fun blog post about it here.

https://diferion.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/camsyniadau-a-barbariaeth-llanedern-llanedeyrn-llanedarne/#more-702

The conculsion seems to be that the current Cardiff pronounciation 'Llanedin' is actually pretty close to how it was originally pronounced in Welsh since Llanedeyrn remnained a majority Welsh speaking commmunity into the twentieth century.

It's the spelling that's out of whack, apparantly. The blog quotes an academic writing in 1905 ‘The spellings “Llanedeyrn” and “Llanedarne” are alike erroneous; the first is founded on mistaken etymology, the second a barbarism’.

According to the blog the best guess is that the original Welsh pronouniciation was 'Llanedarn' - not that different from 'Llanedin'