Cardiff Council criticised for not communicating with park users before creating new route to aid investigation of polluting water leaking into the River Ely and Cardiff Bay
PARK users have expressed surprise after discovering a new gravel road has replaced the natural track in Grangemoor Park.
Cardiff Council have contracted Kordel, a groundworks and civil engineering company, to create routes in the park to help maintenance.vehicles access the area while the council investigates the source of contaminated water leaking into the River Ely and Cardiff Bay.
But many park users have been surprised to discover the works taking place on the former landfill site without consultation with conservation groups and have questioned the need for them.
Alex Hughes, a Kordel contractor said that the works were also aimed at improving access for pedestrians and to make it easier for staff to get to inspection chambers.
Grangetown Labour News posted on Facebook: “The Council has been working with (NRW) to investigate reports of occasional small-scale discharge into the Bay after extreme rainfall events. Unfortunately, identifying the source of the issue has involved extensive exploratory work, to enable corrective works to be undertaken. The park will be restored once this work is complete.”
Grangemoor Park sits on an ex-landfill site which recently was found to be leaching into the River Ely due to a malfunctioning pump.
Keep Grangetown Tidy organiser and volunteer Fiona McAllister said: “We’re just really appalled that the council could do this without any type of consultation or engagement with residents.
“Nobody knew anything about it in advance and it’s really destroying the natural habitat and environment of the park. They haven’t done any kind of consultation, so nobody’s had a chance to give their views.
“We understand that maintenance is necessary, they have to make sure it’s safe and not polluting and everything else. But what they seem to be doing now is completely over the top and unnecessary because they’ve always managed with tracks and what they’re creating now are roads that you could run tanks along.”
A park user with a background in environmental work and a volunteer for the litter picking group says that the communication problem arises from the fact that there are overlapping council departments.
“The maintenance of the park falls to the Cardiff Parks department and the park rangers, but the monitoring of the leachate from the ex-landfill falls to the Waste team,” the user said.
“The difficulty is getting everyone to speak.”
Nevertheless, there could be an impact on the environment. The park user added: “Grangemoor Park has lots of invertebrates and nesting birds. The Sky Larks actually nest on the ground.”
But not everyone in the park was unhappy with the work.
One dog walker said: “I love it. It may be less pretty but it is so much more functional. It used to be so muddy in the winter but now they’ve put gravel down it is really good.”
Harry Marfy said: “It looks quite untidy right now; they probably should have done it when it was a bit drier because its quite muddy at the minute. In general though, it doesn’t really affect me.”
A Cardiff Council spokesperson said the roads had been created to allow maintenance vehicles onto the site while they investigated reports of contaminated water leaking from old pipes and drainage systems which have been in place before the council took control of the land.
The council have pledged to restore the site after work is completed next year and are working with Natural Resources Wales to ensure that appropriate measures are put in place when the source of the “small scale incidents” which have leaked in to the bay are located.
