As the person who started this campaign I am very sad that all representations, petitions, Failed! The Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru railroaded this through and voted on it several times with the support of the Heritage Lottery fund and was given a blessing from CADW! I was nearly knocked down by Cllr McEvoy who used the terrorism act to seal off the city hall from Bute Park protesters! I was thrown out of the council public gallery as they defended the ROAD! A monument to stupidity - a road for articulated lorries. and they continue to concrete over the park.....lets hope they suffer for it at the next election... Any one know the opening date...? so we can be there and continue to oppose articulated lorries entering the park They are digging in coppers field now making turning circles for lorries!!..
Facebook group here.. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10999506173&ref=ts
Bute Park – A tear is shed
Published: March 30, 2010Posted in: City Centre, Development, Featured, Opinion, Parks, Planning
The development of Bute Park, including the new bridge, have proved controversial
With the upcoming news about Bute Park and it’s proposed destructive development, I have to say I genuinely shed a tear and felt great sadness.
It’s very hard to put into words exactly what I feel without making a post that is completely family ‘unfriendly’ but I think you get the idea of just how rotten I feel inside.
When I started my photography hobby Bute Park was the first place I visited, in fact I actually took one of my favourite shots of all time there, Stoned (left). I’ve even been featured in Schmap with one of my pictures of the Iconic Queens tower from the Castle Grounds / Bute Park.Unfortunately, I get the feeling that the famous city grounds will look nothing like even a shadow of it’s former self with the proposed road going through it. Again, I appreciate the need for access, but please, why do we insist on destroying things like this?
It’s long been talked about a tram system similar to the one in Sheffield to aid in reducing traffic congestion (it would also be brilliant in replacing certain bus routes that are forever plagued by traffic) so why has this never materialised? for those of you old enough to remember, Castle Street and St Mary’s Street had something similar in the past, Trolley busses. You can see a picture of them here (Taken by Photo by D.J. Norton ) so it’s not inconceivable either!
It does of course bring up the question, what are the people who are doing this smoking?
Yes there is a need for better transport. Yes I know, it’ll ease the frankly awful congestion around the city centre but there is another way!
In fact there are several other ways, including trams, more busses, better around city parking, more park and ride services for commuters etc.
The list goes on! As far as I am aware however, Cardiff is doing everything it can to prevent people from coming into the town centre, i.e. the ridiculously sized and badly built ’speed hump’ or, ‘Vehicular Traffic Calming Measure’ to use it’s proper name, at the end of Queen Street. Whoever came up with the design alone for that really needs to be made to drive over it six times a day, I regularly see cars hit that thing and then bottom out going up and down it, I’ve quite frequently seen sparks from exhausts slamming into it (even at low speeds) and more than enough bumpers being scraped along the bottom of it (if you look closely on a monday morning you can actually see scars on the hump itself, and bits of plastic from sump guards and bumpers along the kerbside where they have inevitably been ripped off.
Perhaps the new road is actually a diversion around the speed hump, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Government or Council (whoever it is) had decided that instead of shaving off an inch from the top of the gargantuan asphalt lump they would just build a road around it.
No, my pain is much deeper than that, for me and many others. Words cannot really express how I feel.
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