Having lived right on the doorstep of this now derelict site it seems things are moving forward with new housing being ready by next year! Complete with a new park and completion of the Ely trail route.

They have aptly called the development Ely Mill! and have launched a website http://elymill.com/

Im a bit intrigued what they mean when they say it will also include "extensive community facilities."
What does that actually mean? There are very little facilities in Ely already and if 700 homes are being built here this will put an extreme pressure on the facilities of surrounding areas. They need to give more detail on this - new school, doctors surgery etc?

Even though im happy to see the area being developed Im not interested in how the road structure will change - where is the main access gonig to be? Will this be reason to actually develop the 'Ely Spur' from the A4232 to the Ely Bridge roundabout idea which has been around for years?

Lee.

poor website really. doesn't tell you much but manages to use thousands of words. there is more info on the board of directors than anything else.

still, the BoD do have a wealth of experience and hopefully some political cliut so lets get this thing moving. Cardiff needs this site developed and it also needs sustainable and social housing.

'extensive community facilities' Public toilets, perhaps?

That said I've got nothing to go on

Here you go

http://yourcardiff.walesonline.co.uk/2012/07/06/information-days-to-be-held-for-ely-paper-mill-redevelopment/

There is 2 open days The first briefing will take place on Monday (July 9) at the Dusty Forge Community Hall in Cowbridge Road West, Ely, between 1pm and 6pm.

The second will take place at Canton Community Hall in Leckwith Road, Canton, on Monday, July 16, from 1pm until 6pm.

There are two obvious transport improvement opportunities with this development:

1) As stated above, put in a road link between Western Avenue and Western PDR. This should take a lot of traffic off Cowbrdidge Road in Ely.

2) Add a railway station on the City Line between Waun Gron and Ninian Park. This would serve not only the 'Ely Mill' development but also the Victoria Park end of Canton.

But knowing the city council they will put in a bus stop and a cycle lane....

The first artists impressions of the development have been released and can be found on the BBC website. Extremely difficult to guage anything from the drawings I have seen.

However it does appear that the houses will be of a more traditional design with extra 'green' twists rather than a revolutionary BedZed style development which was the original plan when development was first mooted about a decade ago.

"The emphasis will be on homes with gardens"

YESSS!!! Affordable family homes with gardens for the kids to play in. What's not to like?

One small bet. I'm predicting the new residents will quickly insist that the development is in Canton - not Ely. Strictly speaking I think the site is in Caerau ward and that the paper mill was named for the river not the suburb.

@ Ash

it will probably become known as Lower Llandaff or South Victoria Park

Are there any plans online for this at all? Beyond their own website. I had a look on the council site but i dont find their 'search the map' system very user friendly. Any ideas?

Don't think plans have been drawn up or submitted yet (though may be wrong). There is a rather mundane application from June asking permission to tidy the site up (12/00910/DCO)

http://planning.cardiff.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=_CARDIFF_DCAPR_100348

There's also a 'property history' feature so you can track any associated applications for a particular site/address

http://planning.cardiff.gov.uk/online-applications/propertyDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=_CARDIFF_PROPLPI_160253_1

good call on the transport points, that is Key and where Gov money should be going really..........both the link road and trainstation mentioned are damn good ideas.

I understand that an application is being prepared - can't remember the exact date for submission, but I think it was this side of Xmas.

As I recall, there will only be one access into the site, from the Sanatorium Road end.

You mean road access? I think there will be cycle/pedestrian access in the SE and NW corners, and possible pedestian only access under the subway and over the bridge halfway along the NE boundary. The image on the website also suggests a new bridge link across the Ely halfway along the SW boarder. Would be good to see that completed, hopefully for both cycle and pedestrian use. The cycle access obviously is the completion of the missing link in the Ely Trail, and is probably what interests me most about the development.

What about flooding? Has that issue been raised?

The barrage reduced flood risk from a combined tide and river flow event but the site is still at risk of a 1 in 100 year river flood event. Any planning permission will include flood mitigation, probably one of the following:

*Ground raising within the central section of the site with lowered ‘pond’ sections provided so overall flood water storage volumes are not altered,
*Ground raising for the whole site and construction of drainage channels to divert floodwater flow volumes towards currently undeveloped land to the southwest of the river.
*Provision of flood defences along the North bank of the River Ely.

Atkins prepared reports for the Enviroment agency and Cardiff Council and this was their opinion.

Of course 100 years from now with the Greenland and West Antartic Ice sheets melting fast it will be flooding yearly as will the rest of South Cardiff.

Thank you for that Jeremy

I'd get a waterfront property in Victoria Park now then

Hope it dont smell

What's the fuss with Victoria Park? I've never got the impression it's a great area. Thompson Park on the other hand is lovely.

Pontcanna does seem to be expanding westwood, but it's not going to reach Victoria Park.

Planning app on the council website now - interesting bit is that it shows access from Cowbridge Rd West as well as Sanatorium Rd. While this is a sensible decision, it will make a handy shortcut to escape some of the traffic chaos after a City match so presumably there will be various traffic calming measures installed!

House prices aren't the be all and end all. I'm just saying from my own experience having looked around a lot of properties in Canton that there is a divide around about Clive Road. East Canton = Pontcanna-lite, whereas west Canton just feels a bit grubby. It's not really to do with the quality of housing, which nowadays doesn't really feel like a great indicator of how good an area is. There's plenty of nice houses in Ely after all. Doesn't mean people want to live there.

Would it be possible to post a link to the application

House prices are a very good place to start: the price people are willing to pay for a property indicates what they think about the desirability of the property and the area. So if house prices are higher around Victoria Park than further east in indicates people prefer those houses and/or the area.

If you look on google streetview its quite clear that you can divide up the area in to 4 distinct areas from West to East:

- the area towards the West and North of Victoria park (towards the rail line and Pencisely Road) is pretty nice, in a somewhat suburban way.

- from the East side of the park to about Llandaf road its Canton proper: more working class, less nice houses. Incidentally South of Cowbridge Road is often a bit better than North here (not the case further East!)

- You then have a bit of a transition zone where it gets slowly nice as you move towards Pontcanna

- then Pontcanna proper which starts with Romilly and Wyndham crescents.

A bit off track here.

Planning apps can be found by looking at a monthly list for Canton.

Thanks for info on the linklink

Site clearance starting in November.



http://www.walesonline.co.uk/cardiffonline/cardiff-news/2012/10/15/plans-submitted-for-100m-urban-village-on-former-cardiff-paper-mill-site-91466-32030044/

Just for information when the planning application was approved by the Council Planning Committee it included an insistence by the then committee that a space be left for a future railway station to be included on the City Line.
This does not mean that Network Rail have to put a station there but they did express an interest at the time when it was originally suggested.
Though as the council has changed political control it will probably end up being served by just a bus stop as you say.

As a former councillor who approved the original planning application on this site i seem to recall that only about 100 homes at most have direct highway access onto Ely Bridge. Though that may have changed with an application since 2012.

Has any building work started on this site? Anyone know when we can expect to see anything rising above ground level?

I would say so as I heard that someone dug through the water main there last week cutting off 10,000 homes.

No building work of any note - still mainly seems to be ground remediation, carving up parcels of land and creating haul roads.
I'll post a picture or 2 when I get a chance

Looking at those photos it's certainly an area with great potential. Good links into town, the river to the south and Leckwith Woods as a backdrop. Not bad I'd say.

Officials list the zone as 'Canton', including Cardiff Council Housing Dept.

Is there any movement on this yet? Anything sticking out of the ground to talk about?

No, In a nutshell!

The last planning application was for the breaking up of a few thousand tons of concrete hard standing areas for recycling - that was complete in about August, no plant has been seen on site since and no planning applications submitted!

I know there are good public transport links planned for this site but I still think the fact that the only vehicular entrance is going to be via Sanatorium Road is going to cause horrendous problems.

Traffic studies were carried out but the development has dragged on so long that they didn't take into account the relocation of Ysgol Treganna (3 form entry) or the huge increase in football related travel.

Broad Street can already be a nightmare at times and adding 800 homes isn't going to help.

I thought I'd seen a recent plan showing a second entrance at the Ely end...
Either way it's going to cause problems for somebody, the obvious choice would be to create an entrance off Ely roundabout, but that's already very busy and dangerous!

The opening near ely roundabout is a bus gate for public transport only.
I agree with Ash its crazy that for normal traffic there is only one entrance/exit.

So basically, no participant knows what the current state of this development is and nobody knows any officials who could shed light on this site 'in limbo'.

Well the Council website database says the outline application's still not been decided yet.

Additional information on flooding, ecology and air quality was submitted in summer 2013 along with an amended illustrative layout (a quick look suggests the only changes were to the schedule of housing).

This appears to have woken up again.

On the council's planning applications page there's three press notice links for this week, and the second of them appears to be related to a revised design and access statement for this development.

I guess that means that we'll see a new planning application going in very soon.

Revised ? Interesting - Disability Wales enquired of the site status in December via Council Access Officer.
Progress I hope.