PROTESTORS took to Llandudno’s promenade to speak out against council development plans.
Conwy residents who are concerned with the large amount of proposed homes put forward in Conwy County Borough Council’s draft Local Development Plan (LDP) gathered to voice their opposition to the plans in a public protest on Saturday.
Along with the protestors who congregated on the promenade, were Guto Bebb MP, retiring Assembly Member Gareth Jones, and Assembly election candidates Janet Finch Saunders and Iwan Huws.
Opposition to the plans had grown in Llysfaen, where proposals are in place to build more than 75 homes on a stretch of ancient pastureland, and Llandudno, where campaigners are seeking to prevent the inclusion of Bodafon Fields as a contingency site. This could see 65 being built on about four acres of the Green Wedge-designated site.
Dan Worsley, who organised the protest, said: “All the evidence suggests that we do not need 6,800 houses in Conwy County. Each year there are 500 more deaths than births. Our local population is shrinking. Young people are leaving the county to find work.”
Mr Worsley, who has previously campaigned against the building of homes on greenbelt sites in Glan Conwy, where 80 homes could be built according to the proposed plans, added: “On average there are 750 people per year moving into the county. That means the population grows on average by 250 a year. There will always be a market demand for houses here but that is not a need.”
Mr Bebb said that the intention of the protest had been to demonstrate to opponents of the plan that they were not isolated but part of a wider movement.
He said: “This is happening all over the county and people have to understand that it’s not just affecting their community - it’s a plan that has effects across the county.”