Season Greetings

I would like to send Season Greetings from myself and Members of Trowbridge and St. Mellons Branch Labour Party, I would like to thank all the people of Trowbridge and St. Mellons for there help and support and wish them a

Merry Christmas
And A
Happy New Year

And if there is any one who would like information on joining Trowbridge and
St. Mellons Branch Labour Party, please call or e-mail,
David Mawn on
(029) 2040 4422.
membership@trowbridgeandstmellonslabour.org.uk

Trowbridge Shopping Centre & Post Office

Your Councillors are, of course, aware of the great concern Trowbridge residents have about the redevelopment of the shopping centre.

Planning permission has been granted but it was only after the permission was obtained that the Council could begin the nine month legal process of “stopping up” the current public rights of way which is necessary before building can begin. This should be completed over the next few months. The last block of garages at the rear of the existing shops will soon be demolished as these are causing problems for residents and shopkeepers.

The Council recently appointed the building firm Lovells to carry out the work following a detailed tender process, although, for some reason your local Councillors were not invited to participate in the process as has always been the case in the past. Lovells have vast experience of regeneration schemes and are also working with the Council in St. Mellons. They will employing architects White Young Green who have worked with us on this scheme up to planning stage. Legal discussions between the Council and Cardiff Community Housing Association (CCHA) have begun in order to progress the sale of the site and agreements required to carry out the re-generation. In order to keep local residents and the remaining shop keepers informed the Council will be distributing a newsletter and a site sign board will be erected on the site showing the plans for the re-generation. The bad news is the closing of the post office. It is important to understand that this is nothing to do with the Council.
Fourboys owned the Post Office franchise and for commercial reasons (nothing to do with the redevelopment) have left the area. The company has reviewed all its outlets and decided that its Trowbridge shop was not viable. Therefore, they are selling their post office franchise. The Post Office itself has very strict rules about who can become a sub-postmaster and a protracted process is undertaken before appointing new franchisees. I have spoken with Fourboys and the Post Office and it is clear that tranferring the franchise will take time and the post office will be closed. Your Councillors are hoping Spar will want to take on the franchise but this is something we cannot get involved with unfortunately.

Verging on the ridiculous?

This summer many residents complained to us about long grass and over-grown vegetation and we have also noticed that the grass in local parks has been mown only once a week.

The Council’s failure to properly manage the banks, verges and undeveloped land in St. Mellons lies with the way responsibility for these jobs is spread between different departments.

We want the Council to make one department responsible. Seems a simple concept doesn’t it? If this were done we could expect efficient and regular grass cutting throughout Cardiff, rather than the disjointed approach we have at present.

Three years ago we were told a “working group” would develop proposals to resolve the problem. When I enquired about the group’s progress last year, I was told no such group existed and no-one can remember a decision to set it up!

The problem was highlighted last August when an 11 year-old local boy was killed by a car on Coleford Drive. The child’s mother - rightly in my opinion - laid part of the blame for the tragedy on the Council’s failure to cut back the vegetation, spilling into the road, near the point where her son died. We had been asking for this section of verge to be regularly cut since 2002! The boy’s mother and I jointly called on the Council to schedule regular verge maintenance in St. Mellons and the Echo carried the story.

Councillor Elgan Morgan, Executive Member for the Environment backed the cut, for which we are grateful and he shares our view that the Council must resolve the problem permanently.

We have prepared a “notice of motion” which if agreed by Councillors, will make one department responsible for maintaining all grass and shrubs on Council land throughout the city. We expect the motion to be supported by all Councillors because proper management of roadside verges can be a matter of life or death.