PYA members had a visit from Cheryl Williams from Public Health Wales. Cheryl came to talk to us about the new housing development in Penarth at Upper Cosmeston Farm.
Cheryl was talking to us about the planned 600 homes that will be built and wanted to know how we think this may affect young people in Penarth. She also asked us what we think would be important to be included in the plans for this new development.
We suggested outdoor green spaces for both children and older young people including parks and space for sports. Other ideas we had included a leisure centre, a community centre, doctors, pharmacies and shops.
If an average household has 2 children this means there will be an extra 1200 young people looking for schools in Penarth and the surrounding areas. This could have a serious impact on Penarth schools, especially secondary schools as there are only 3 of these in Penarth.
Following this visit, Nathan Slater who is one of the planners for the new development came to visit us. He told us all about the policies and procedures that are important when planning a new development. One of these focuses on making sure that new housing developments have everything that people of all ages need to access.
As a result of these visits 4 of us attended the Child Friendly Cardiff and Vale Symposium on 9th March 2020. At this event we listened to talks from Sally Holland the Children’s Commissioner and other guest speakers. We also took part in 2 workshops. The first one was about town mapping. We were able to look at a planning map for an area of Cardiff and place schools, shops, green spaces and other important features on it. In the second workshop we talked about school planning. This involved us talking about our school layout inside and outside and if there were any improvements that we think could be made.
