Stray Horses

September saw a sudden increase in problems with "stray" horses and complaints flooded in to Councillors, the Council and the Police. We once again took up the cudgels on this issue - we’ve never stopped complaining really - and demanded another "swoop" be carried out.
The new divisional Inspector, Alex Chadd, agreed as did lead officers in the Council and in the early hours of the 8th October I watched an operation net 12 horses. Although the animals were finally captured in Trowbridge Road, they were first found in Harrisons Drive in St. Mellons.
Having spent four hours with the Police and the livestock recovery contractors hired by the Council, I watched the horses "boxed-up" at 2am on a very cold, clear night. My impression was that the operation was professional and efficient.
However, over a dozen police officers and five police vehicles were present to prevent a breach of the peace and the contract team also consisted of a dozen people and several vehicles. It seemed crazy to me to incur all this effort and expense merely to catch a dozen horses when the problem could be solved by imposing anti-social behaviour orders on their owners.

Lib Dem threat to local schools

Cardiff currently has 8,500 surplus school places and these cost around £3m. The new Liberal Democrat Executive is planning a review that will probably result in some schools closing.
All the local authority schools in St. Mellons, Willowbrook, Oakfield and Meadowlane primary schools have surplus places and Llanrumney High - where many St. Mellons children receive their education - has 652 surplus spaces!
To be fair a Labour Administration would have had to look at the issue if we had won the Council elections.
On an economic analysis alone, school closures may prove to be necessary. However our local primary schools perform well despite the Ward’s high deprivation indices and significant numbers of local children with special educational needs.
Therefore we have a strong case against school closures especially where they can demonstrate continuing success in a difficult environment.
In areas like St. Mellons with regard to education, especially of our youngest children - "small is definitely beautiful".