HAVING lost the argument over StatsWales housing projections for the Vale, now shown to be 4,000 fewer than in Labour’s LDP (Local Development Plan), Cllr Lis Burnett now switches arguments (Barry & District News, March 5).

She now claims the lower projections are a “short term” trend, yet its much the same as the trend since 1951. Secondly, she claims “higher ambitions” for jobs and the local economy.

So why allocate major housing developments in the eastern Vale, to serve as Cardiff overspill for jobs in Cardiff? If she was genuine, she’d agree to delete from the LDP the major housing expansion in Sully and Llandough, as well as that in Penarth and Dinas Powys.

She would accept FoE’s proposal for a Green Belt across the eastern Vale, which the UDP Inspector strongly recommended to protect us from Cardiff overspill and safeguard our valued countryside against spec development (as just approved at the HTV site at Culverhouse Cross).

The LDP in fact does little for ‘jobs’, which depend mainly on the Cardiff Airport and St Athan enterprise zone. It retains the ‘Waste Management’ designation on Barry’s eastern Dock, where the two incinerator permissions blight the area for new light industry.

Another deterrent for new industry is the high traffic congestion on road links via Culverhouse Cross and Dinas Powys. The LDP does nothing on the congestion issue.

So Cllr Burnett’s new arguments appear incoherent - and concocted in haste after the household projection excuse vanished last month.

Max Wallis

Barry & Vale Friends of the Earth