Firstly we want to thank all our supporters, you’re amazing, and we wouldn’t have got this far without you.
As recent protests and vigils have shown we can come together and firmly show our resilience, love for the world and our communities. Together we are unstoppable.
Let’s do this.
In the short term – let’s make any move on the meadows a crushing political blow with our open objection to this. Up and down the country in this last week alone communities have been out to stop the destruction of our world.
Our history, our heritage, our health, our homes and our future are all tied in to this space.
So keep fighting with us. You can donate to our just giving, you can support us by helping with research or social media monitoring, or you can join a protest. We will resist, we won’t simply allow this destruction to be wrought on our community and our environment.
Our press release:
“We are angry at Vaughan Gething’s decision to give the go-ahead to the new Velindre Cancer Centre on the Northern Meadows for a number of reasons. The concerns of 163 senior clinicians have been ignored and the community, Coryton primary school, Ty Coryton Special school, and assisted living accommodation within the area have been sentenced to four years of heavy construction. This will cause immeasurable damage to the people living nearby.
Gething states, the development will be sustainable. But cutting down over 100 mature, and nearly 1000 semi-mature trees is not sustainable, nor does it care for our future generations. With numerous protected species living on and around the meadows, we despair at the impact this will have on biodiversity in Cardiff. It makes a mockery of the declaration of a climate emergency, the Environment Act, and the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. And it laughs in the face of the children who live here, who are already subject to dangerous and illegal levels of air pollution.
Transforming Cancer Services has repeatedly lied to the Welsh Government and the public, failing to produce the Barrett report, failing to constructively engage their staff and clinicians. Choosing a medical model that will simply have ‘many’ of the benefits of co-location is simply not good enough. Actually co-locating on an acute hospital site and having ‘all’ the benefits of co-location is what the patients of South East Wales deserve. Without this SE Wales will continue to have the worst cancer outcomes in Europe. We deserve better.
The Senedd Petitions Committee has this week chosen to carry the petition to the next Senedd post-election, as it has not received the information requested from Velindre. Velindre has failed in its statutory obligation to answer a number of FOI requests and this is being examined by the Information Ombudsman. Despite all of this, Vaughan Gething has chosen to grant this decision in order to fulfil a defunct manifesto commitment.
This is not the right model of cancer care for the future and it is not the right location. We will not accept this decision and now more than ever see the requirement for a full independent inquiry. We will continue to fight this decision, which disregards the needs of future generations, of the local community, of biodiversity, and our commitment to the climate. Hypocritically, the Ministers statement asks us to work with them. Yet he has treated us with total disregard throughout the decision making process. We will make it clear for him – we refuse to give up our open space, our health, our biodiversity, for a project which will not provide the best cancer care the people of South East Wales require.”
Mr Andrew Davies
I am so angry about this. It appears to be a cop-out on the part of the Welsh Government – a knee-jerk decision to appear decisive before the May elections.
There is some hidden agenda here – the decision cannot be justified with any careful scrutiny of the evidence. It appears that a considerable body of evidence has been ignored.
I am not content to let this stand unopposed, and I will contact candidates leading up to the elections to raise the issue and to voice my own misgivings about the way this has been handled, with the opinions of so many highly qualified clinicians being blocked.
The issues should be brought into the open, and I, like so many others, want to get answers.
Mark Weeks
Really unhappy/annoyed at the outcome of this so far and am prepared to get involved in any arranged protests
Sarah
This is a completely criminal thing to do to a beautiful unspoilt area of North Cardiff. No care or thought has put into this decision to destroy it.
I simply cannot understand why brown sites cannot be used instead. We have an amazing amount of wildlife including a heronry that will be destroyed. I hope you can sleep at night. My vote will not be going to anyone involved in this criminal act!!!!
Jane Elliott
I am disgusted and upset this build is going ahead. Clinicians are not for this new build in the middle of a beautiful meadow. It needs to be in an acute setting. As a nurse I find this decision discusting. I will never vote labour again.
Betty Jones
An absolute disgrace to build at this location during a time when we are being warned of the huge environmental impact we are having on our planet. Loss of diversity and destruction of the environment will lead to our own destruction. This hospital should be built elsewhere. A complete disgrace to pass this. Surely this could be located in any number of other sites. Complete lack of common sense. Disgraceful.
Allen Williams
I fail to see why the old and derelict hospital adjoining Velindre cannot be used as a perfect site for the new hospital build
Clive Jones
I will send a letter of protest to the FM, HS & WG, they have made a disgraceful decision, can the meadows be occupied?
Clive Jones, Abergele
Nadja Kurbalija
I trust you will inform all supporters of how we can I help. I am ready.
S Heal
Planting saplings and not mowing the verges does not offset such massive loss of biodiversity as is being seen here in north Cardiff, in Radyr, Lisvane, Wenvoe, and as could soon be seen on wetlands in St Mellons. I feel very let down by the Labour politicians I voted for. You seem to be in the pockets of the private sector now. I have to think very carefully before the May elections.
Barbara Lyne
Goodness me, with the A470 and the M4 in addition to the Industrial Estate close by this certainly is a concern.
Elaine Olsen
please can I help, and be kept informed.
Rita Arqueros
exactly, instead of making the Cancer hospital bigger destroying a precious inner city natural habitat for numerous species, the resources shall be directed to a Cancer Prevention Program, with focus on the way we eat, which is the star of the problem! We shall educate the new generations how to eat healthy and protects nature not destroy it!
anyway, if they still want to invest in a new hospital they could just go and do it somewhere else where is less damaging!
Tamsin Graves
Dyna drist – how sad that the new Velindre Centre is being built at the expense of the mental, environmental, and social welfare of this area of north Cardiff!
Dyna siomedig – how disappointing that the safety of cancer patients is being shortchanged by the haste to deliver a clinical model which is deficient!
Dyna dinistriol -how short sighted is the health authority and Cardiff Council to force a polluting, noisy, ecosystem-destroying project onto an area which has up till now enriched local biodiversity, and contributed massively to our community wellbeing (not least the lung health of our children)!.
Dyna anwybodus – how misinformed are the supporters of this development, who think that digging up and concreting over ‘scrubland’ is somehow ‘beneficial’, when the effect will be to further disintegrate the environment which gives us cleaner air, quieter spaces, flood alleviation, and therapeutic natural beauty.
Looks to me like some people who have taken this decision are more focused on the temporary gains of deckchairs being put out and the violins playing, than on the fact that Titanic Cardiff is sinking further into it’s own climate suicide through unwise, toxic building projects.
Celia
Please rethink!!!
Robert Parker
Is there something to sign?
Campaigners still at odds in Whitchurch after Velindre Cancer Centre approval - The Cardiffian
[…] A spokesperson for the campaign said: “Save The Northern Meadows assures south-east Wales that the campaign not only survives – it is truly galvanised. […]
Kym Roberts
Please stop using Cardiff’s green fields. Can you not see the damage and social unhappiness it causes. There’s already too much pulling down of old buildings destroying the character of the city. Do not take away the green sites as well. PLEASE!