Testun llawn:
My second major concern is the specific KS1 Weycock Cross site. The need for housing is not the issue; it is rather where housing is situated and Weycock Cross KS1 is an inappropriate site. The reasons for this are clear. Weycock Cross is already a traffic pinch point, mentioned in Planning documents and previous inquiries in the 1990s and 2015, as being at or beyond capacity. The proposed 376 houses (on the KS1 site) will eventuate in up to 700 or more cars, whose only one exit/entrance (for schools, work, the station) will be directly onto Port Road, about 20 yards from Weycock Roundabout. Vale Planning suggest that a third lane just by the roundabout and a traffic light will solve the issue. However, two lanes along the whole length of Port Road remain two lanes, until immediately by the roundabout. Gridlock will therefore inevitably worsen. No evidence whatsoever is provided either on the effect of traffic lights, or the exit/entry point for the NW Barry KS1 site. This all remains blank. Further, over the next decade housing growth in St. Athan, Rhoose, Llantwit and airport expansion will funnel further sizeable increases in traffic into Port Road, on their way to Cardiff or the M4. This is a recipe for traffic chaos.
1Vale Planning present alleged evidence documents (well over a thousand dense technical pages on traffic). Puzzlingly nothing is said about how or when this supposed empirical evidence was collected. Documents BP14 and BP14A remain totally silent on this. The Persimmon traffic document indicates that "one" day in September 2023 was used. If the latter embodies their collection method, can it really be viewed as an accurate assessment, namely, one three-year-old snapshot on one day? Consequently the bulk of the highly technical-sounding data remains simply an unwieldy conjecture based on thin and dubious collection methods. Vale Planning admittedly do try to further alleviate this whole traffic issue by suggesting that walking and cycling will replace car use for those going to the station, Barry town, GPs and so forth. However this is unevidenced wishful thinking. A walk from Barry station to Weycock Cross is a tough 35-40-minute uphill push, totally impractical for the majority. Similarly the blunt Vale Planning statement that there are regular bus services from the Weycock site is not just wishful thinking it is just false and there is little to no prospect (in the current febrile financial environment) of any change. Vale Planning do need to stop hallucinating.
In addition to increasing traffic gridlock residents on Port Road, Pontypridd Road and Colcot Road already suffer high pollution and noise levels every weekday morning and evening from very slow moving or idling vehicles. No air quality studies have been undertaken at all by Vale Planning. Traffic pollution will only worsen with the KS1 site. Further, well over a thousand or more new residents from the site will be scrabbling for already way over-subscribed GP and Dental services, which, of course, they will travel to by car. Yet, Vale Planning keep articulating their proposals for KS1 as developing 'high quality places' that work for the 'benefit of community'. I simply fail to see this.
There are a number of further issues relating to, for example, the Green wedge. I attended the previous Public Inquiry in 2014/15 and paradoxically Planning defended the Green wedge (between Barry and Rhoose) as necessary to prevent urban sprawl and coalescence towards Rhoose. Planning have now performed a baffling volte face. The developer-based arguments they robustly denied in 2014 have now been enthusiastically embraced. KS1 and the green wedge seem only to figure now in current planning proposals because there was failure to purchase land on the preferred Northeast Barry site. Essentially, KS1 was dropped in at the last moment in December 2025 since it was just administratively easier to proceed with. The destruction of 'green wedge' in this context looks simply like the worst form of expediency. The wedge fields of well-utilised farmland, as well as preventing urban sprawl, also provide a core wild-life corridor into the Vale. They are also crucial areas for rainwater absorption in a time of both accelerating climate change and significantly increased precipitation. Residents are concerned already about problematic drainage, foul water and sewage capacity as it stands. All that Vale Planning have iterated is that Welsh Water and Persimmon are aware of the issues. This is simply not good enough.
A personal comment: I attended a council Scrutiny meeting in December 2025 where a vote was taken to remove KS1 from the RLDP. This proposal was rejected by a one vote majority. Despite the fact that certain Labour councillors spoke for its removal in the meeting, in the voting process they abstained. It appears that Labour whipping enforced the one vote majority. Without this whipping KS1 would have been removed. This could hardly be described as a glowing democratic endorsement of KS1's late inclusion in the RLDP.
