Protesters opposing two separate housing developments joined forces at the National Assembly of Wales recently to voice their concerns that green spaces are being lost.
A planning application for 300 homes was submitted to Caerphilly County Borough Council last month for the Grove Park area near Blackwood with residents opposed to the development by Persimmon.
Campaigners against the plans were met by members of the Gwern y Domen Conservation group outside the Senedd in Cardiff Bay on Wednesday, September 20.
The conservation group are themselves opposed to plans, again by Persimmon, to build around 618 homes on green land near Rudry.
Labour’s Caerphilly Assembly Member Hefin David met the campaigners with Plaid Cymru’s South Wales East AM Steffan Lewis.
Blackwood councillor Nigel Dix, who sits as an independent, said: “I would like to thank residents from Caerphilly basin and Grove Park for attending the event at the Assembly and I would also like to thank Assembly Members Hefin David and Steffan Lewis for meeting us and taking on board our concerns about the loss of our countryside to developers, who are exploiting the lack of a five-year land supply to destroy our environment.
“We are asking that the Welsh Government act to ensure that brownfield sites are developed for the use of housing and that they review the relevance of [the council] having a five-year land supply. In reality having a five-year land supply is not an indication of how many house will be built , I understand that there are more than 1,000 approved planning applications in Caerphilly that have not been developed. This land is being land-banked for profit.”
Steffan Lewis, Plaid Cymru AM for the South East, said: “The law needs to be changed to protect our countryside. We need to make houses available for people who need them rather than selling off our treasured land for the benefit and profit of private developers.
“I am very grateful to residents of Grove Park and Gwern y Domen for coming to the National Assembly for Wales to stand up for their communities and other communities facing the threat of unwelcome development across Caerphilly.
“There are 5,000 people on the social housing waiting list in Caerphilly, we need to be meeting their needs, not selling off land to fill the pockets of developers.”
Caerphilly AM, Hefin David, added: “I have long campaigned for better planning across local authority boundaries. I want councils to work together to ensure that housing development is affordable and located in areas that are at risk of being depopulated, not those that are already overdeveloped.
“If the big four developers aren’t interested then small, local companies should be incentivised to build.
“Locally in Caerphilly, I submitted my objection to the Gwern Y Domen housing planning application in June and discussed these wider issues with concerned residents at the Senedd during their protest.”