Ruperra Castle

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for International Relations and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:57 pm on 20 November 2019.

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Photo of Hefin David Hefin David Labour 2:57, 20 November 2019

It was testing my Welsh there. If you're going to answer in Welsh now, I'm going to put my headphones on.

I understood you were visiting this week, but it's next week you're visiting Ruperra castle. In their submission to the public consultation on the draft national development framework, the Ruperra Castle Preservation Trust, who I met last week, supported the establishment of a green belt for south-east Wales and suggest it includes Caerphilly mountain, the River Taff eastwards to Coed Craig Ruperra and south to Castleton as well, which currently is not the case. Unless all this land is added to the existing green belt, then they've got concerns that, between Cardiff and Newport, if there's no protection, there's a real danger that that area will be taken and built on by developers, which will spoil any chance of the preservation of Ruperra castle and the surrounding grounds. 

The trust and their sister organisation, the Ruperra Conservation Trust, have also objected to plans to make piecemeal repairs to different parts of the estate without the benefit of a wider master plan. And I've made objections to Caerphilly County Borough Council on both those grounds and made a submission to the national development framework consultation. With that in mind, will the Minister reflect on these concerns when visiting Ruperra castle, and will he then report back on how the discussion went at the visit? And can he outline what he intends to achieve on that visit, and how he will take the message, with regard to the issues that I've raised, from across Government to the people he meets at Ruperra at the time of the meeting?