Sounds ambitious – but the completely daft thing is that they are never intelligent enough to listen to the concerns, complaints and feedback of the local population. There is big talk of new housing, employment opportunities and renewable energy – these definitely tick positive boxes.
However, not once is anything mentioned about infrastructure.
How is a need going to be met for new healthcare provision, e.g. GPs and hospital expansion?
How are they going to going to build and expand and improve the overall quality of the local schooling system to meet this new influx of children?
How are the road, rail and public transport systems going to see a complete revamp (not just pie in the sky gesturing) to deal with the current strain on demand and deal with any increase in population growth? – now it’s looking to be supporting over the next 50 years.
I’m sure if asked – someone at the WAG will bluster their way through these concerns but these are issues that need to be dealt with first and foremost as part of any future development blueprint rather than an afterthought.
Why should people want to come and live (or not move away) from an uncontrolled urban sprawl expansion of Wrexham and Deeside if they are not planning to invest hundreds of millions in public service provision to make it a more attractive place to live.
Equally I’d say in importance is that it’s not sufficient enough to just SLAP a new green belt with very little thought around a bloated area when our rural areas and communities are so important to the existing character of the area and for tourism.
Are they expecting to start building on top of everywhere so that the World Heritage site area and right up to Llangollen gets turned into a huge housing estate with massive solar arrays and wind farms taking up the remaining green space? Exaggerated concern here but you get the idea.
I’m pro affordable housing and renewable energy and would like to see more of it – but we have some of the most beautiful and iconic unspoiled countryside areas in the World in North Wales – to blight it without careful consideration would be a travesty. I just feel like the powers that be in Cardiff haven’t fully thought this through yet.
The whole spiel raises more problems than solutions as it stands.