Cllr Peter Bradbury responds to City Hall tree protesters
Statement a “positive step” say campaigners
Cllr Peter Bradbury, Cabinet Member for Culture and Leisure has agreed to explore ways of strengthening Cardiff’s rules to protect mature trees, in a meeting of full council yesterday (18 July 2019)
Nerys Lloyd-Pierce, the chair of the Cardiff Civic Society, asked whether he would commit to working with his cabinet colleagues to introduce strong supplementary planning guidance to properly protect mature trees.
Responding to a full council and packed gallery of campaigners, Cllr Bradbury said:
“I can commit to looking into that with my cabinet colleagues … we do have to protect where possible those older trees … and I will work with the Civic Society and other groups here today like the Woodland Trust and National Resources Wales to make sure we are making environmentally just decisions… The protection of our planet is vitally important.”
Earlier Cllr Bradbury met with dozens of people who had gathered outside City Hall to protest against the decision to fell the mature trees at Suffolk House and to demand the council take action to ensure such a decision should never happen again.
A spokesperson for the Suffolk House campaign said:
“We are very pleased that Cllr Bradbury came to listen to our concerns and that he has made a positive commitment to consider changes to the council’s current policies on protecting mature trees.”
