Twenty-three acres of meadows and woodland in Whitchurch, Cardiff, are set to be the site of developments that will restrict access to green spaces for the local community. Cardiff-based activist Tessa Marshall, 24, helps to run the Save the Northern Meadows Campaign working to protect the green space and ensure people can continue to enjoy its peaceful habitat and find relief from Cardiff’s busy roads. But despite running a high profile campaign, many fear development works are imminent.
We spoke to Tessa Marshall about why development on the site will ravage an important slice of green land in the city alongside disrupting the habitats of local wildlife, the climate emergency and how more people can get involved.
voice.wales: Where are the Northern Meadows?
Tessa Marshall: The Northern Meadows is a 14 hectare triangle of land in north Whitchurch, bordering forest farm local nature reserve and Junction 32 on the M4.
vw: Why is it so important to preserve the area?
TM: Preserving the area is important as over 250 households in our area don’t have their own gardens, many of us lack access to the natural world as we live in a city, and the space connects us to our local heritage. The railway cutting shows us what rewilding a city landscape means after 70 years – a biodiverse space which cannot be replaced by planting saplings as proposed by developers. To build on it and to cut down the trees would betray future generations and their right to a healthy future, with a clean environment and connections to their heritage.
Developing the area will likely cause an increase in local flooding, increases in air pollution, threaten the grade 2 listed buildings in Whitchurch hospital, and destroy the habitats of bats, dormice, owls, badgers, grass snakes, and more.
We are living in climate and biodiversity emergencies. Cardiff will sink in the next 30 years if we don’t act now. Protecting spaces like this – including over 1000 trees, and ‘scrub’ habitats – is us doing our part to fight these global crises locally. Preserving these spaces protects the environment, protects animals, and protects our health and wellbeing in the process.
vw: What’s the threat to the area that prompted a start to the campaign
TM: The construction of the new Velindre cancer centre, enabling works, and a planning application to build houses across the meadow and old Whitchurch hospital. Previous campaigns have fought against the development of the meadows from before 1995.
At the moment, we don’t even know what the cancer centre will look like, as our campaign forced Velindre to commission advice on their clinical cancer centre model. This found the model was ‘poorly planned’ and shouldn’t be stand-alone as proposed. Regardless, they’re still going ahead with enabling works even though they have no site plan. This can be done because of privileged manipulations of the planning system.
At the same time, there’s a planning application to put houses on the meadow – a plan to ‘retain an option’ on the meadow if we force a rethink on the hospital. Health boards and developers are desperate to get their hands on the meadow land and start lining their pockets with money from developing on the meadow and old Whitchurch hospital land.
vw: Is this an immediate threat?
TM: We’re concerned enabling works will begin in January, when there’s no certainty of what the cancer centre will actually look like because of the Nuffield Trusts’ Advice to Velindre.
The advice highlights the expensive failures of the ‘transforming cancer services’ project. Commissioned by Velindre themselves, we would expect steps to now be taken to resolve the issues identified with their proposed model of care. This could include working with us and the community to find a solution which works for everyone – to save the meadows, utilising a brownfield site, and committing to identifying a model of care which would actually be ‘excellent’ and enable the world leading research which happens in Cardiff to continue.
Instead, we’ve seen Velindre put contracts out to tender to start the enabling works. With Cardiff and Vale Health Board re-applying for 25 year old permission to build houses on the meadow at the same time, we’re concerned we’ll see the £26.9 million Welsh Government Grant-funded cancer centre enabling works turn into roads to an expensive housing estate. Without confirmation the Nuffield’s advice will be used, or even details of how the advice will be utilised by Velindre, we’re left to believe the Welsh Government and Health Board don’t take their commitments to providing excellent cancer care or protecting biodiversity and future generations very seriously. This could be resolved by Ministers, but with 6 unanswered emails to the Environment Minister, and similar silence from the Health Minister, it seems like the community, our health, our future, and the environment have been abandoned.
vw: What can people do to help the cause?
TM: People can help us by being active on social media and sharing our posts; getting involved and writing to Ministers like Vaughan Gething and Julie Morgan asking them to decline the business case and halt the project, signing up to be a meadows protector, making banners and signs for your area, joining protests when the call goes out and getting in touch to help us.
It’s time for us to take this into our own hands. Welsh Labour cannot be trusted on the environment. Join us, act now, and let’s save the northern meadows and other green spaces under threat across wales
You can follow the Save the Northern Meadows campaign on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter or email them: [email protected].
