Sign the Petition to Get WPD to Refill Llanishen Reservoir!

If you use electricity then some of the money you pay your electricity company will go to Western Power Distribution (WPD). Therefore you’d hope they’d respect the communities they serve. However with Llanishen Reservoir now drained WPD have left the site in a right mess, showing no respect to their Cardiff 'customers':

If this is a typical example of how they work goodness knows what condition our electricity infrastructure is in!

Western Power Distribution also run an environmental  scheme under their  banner called 'Keen to Be Green'. Their website goes on to state: "Keen to Be Green is our environmental initiative. Its aim is to protect and enhance the communities served by us.'

Actions speak louder than words. Are WPD really “Keen to be Green” and do they really “Aim to protect and enhance  the communities served by us”? The only way for WPD to resolve this is to refill the reservoir.

Sign the petition now  (CLICK HERE) and lets get WPD to clean up their mess and refill the reservoir!

THANK YOU!!!!!

 

A BIG 

!!!!THANK YOU!!!! 

FROM ALL AT THE  RESERVOIR ACTION GROUP TO:

All The Walkers:

• All the  92 Participants, including a large group from Rhydypenau Primary School who, in brilliant sunshine on the 6th July, took part in the 2013 event on the Gold (21 Miles), Silver (17 Miles), Bronze (12 Miles), Copper (6 Miles) & Zinc Routes (3 Miles). 

The politicians who came along to support the event:

Copper Route:

• MP JONATHAN EVANS for Cardiff North (also took part in both the 2011 and 2012 walks);
• Councillor CRAIG WILLIAMS, (Pentyrch and Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Cardiff North)

Zinc Route:

• BARONESS JENNY RANDERSON;
•  Assembly Member for Cardiff North JULIE MORGAN (also took part in the 2011 & 2012 walks);
• Assembly Member for South Wales Central ELUNED PARROTT (also took part in the 2011 & 2012 walks);
• Councillor PHIL BALE (Llanishen) (also took part in the 2011 & 2012 walks);
• Former First Minister (2000 to 2009) RHODRI MORGAN (also took part in the 2012 walk);
• Councillor ANDREW GRAHAM (Llanishen)
• MARI WILLIAMS, (Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Cardiff North)

Event Photographer: 

• RICHARD BOSWORTH, Click Here for Website

Cardiff Council Costs

The costs to Cardiff Council of taking on a multi-national and save the fantastic reservoirs amenity has come to nearly £900,000, reports the Echo, CLICK HERE for the full story. There's an excellent letter published on the 3rd July in response to this story by Anne Gee, CLICK HERE'

This throws into sharp relief the total failure of our planning laws. The Council’s costs are from having to take on the four nearly identical planning applications submitted by Western Power Distribution. Clearly there is something very wrong with our planning laws when a multi-national company can take ownership of a well loved local beauty spot with the sole aim to destroy it for financial gain and make the local community pay a substantial sum to stop them. The owner of Western Power Distribution, the American company PPL (formerly known as Pennsylvania Power and Light), made $1,495,000,000 in 2011 so its not like they need the money! If Cardiff Council had lost this case it would have given the green light to the super wealthy massive corporations, like WPD, to develop almost any land they wished, knowing local councils would run scared of having to pay a heavy financial price to take them on. 

It is very wrong that a corporation like WPD/PPL can propose vitually identical planning applications and for each planning application a whole separate  process is required which can involve some or all of the following stages: 

• local people having to object; 
• then council officers and councillors having separate meetings to turn each one down and the application gets 'called in' by the Government Minister;
• then there's a Planning Inquiry which finds against the developer; 
• then the developer goes to appeal which the council has to defend and the developer loses;  
• then the developer brings in the lawyers and takes the council/Government to the High Court! 

The planning laws must be changed so other communities don't go through the same long saga endured by those in North Cardiff and the democratic will of local communities is respected.  

And when the council's cabinet member for strategic planning, Councillor Ralph Cook, says “I think there are also many people in Cardiff that will think spending nearly a million pounds was not money well spent”, he would do better explaining to those people the importance of preventing reckless, irresponsible development and not de facto supporting the position of powerful multinationals.

UK Government Minister to Push WPD to Refill Llanishen Reservoir!

MP Oliver Letwin, the UK Government Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, visited Llanishen Reservoir and met RAG representatives on 1st July. The MP said it was a "striking and terrible thing"  that a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) could be left drained and in such a condition and called on the reservouir owner, WPD, to restore the reservoir. For the full story Click Here.