A short story: How Cardiff Council can use its brains…

A short story about how Cardiff Council can use their brains and help Cardiff become an excellent place for industry, society and the environment!

I am a regular user of the Cardiff Central Sports and Community Centre (CCSCC) on Ocean Way in Cardiff. I am one of many people connected to this centre who have invested their heart and soul into creating a unique place that supports sports, particularly minority sports for women and children as well as the arts and local small businesses. We were recently told that Cardiff Council planned to close the centre and move Brains brewery onto the site. As I understand it Brains have been issued with a compulsory purchase order on their central site and as the Council own our site, we seem to be being offered up as compensation.

A recent article produced by WalesOnline[1] outlined the other possible sites that were being considered and one of these caught my eye. The site connected to the Viridor energy from waste site in Cardiff seems like a perfect solution. Wales has a long history of promoting sustainable development, in fact this responsibility is written into the Wales Act 1998/ 2006[2]. Sustainable development mainly considers three pillars, these are economy, society and environment and in more recent years the role of government is often considered as a fourth pillar.

It is interesting that this situation we have found ourselves in provides Cardiff Council the opportunity to demonstrate real leadership and facilitate a symbiotic relationship between Viridor and Brains. This would help us to reduce electricity consumption on both sites, utilise our resources better, reduce emissions through creating electricity from waste and potentially using the waste heat from the Viridor site to heat both sites. By sharing a site, Brains and Viridor will also reduce their impacts to land not currently used for industry and crucially support their local community to stay in a vibrant and expanding community centre for the foreseeable future. Wait…this is starting to sound like sustainable development, economic growth that preserves society and minimises its impact on the environment.

A recent blog by WWF Cymru[1] has identified that Wales needs to take serious action to reduce emissions and here is an opportunity for Cardiff Council to show just how much it values our capital city and lead the way in driving green industry and creating social cohesion that also supports economic growth.

Come on Cardiff Council, use your brains…..