I spent my youth growing up around Albany Road, attending Roath Park Junior School (and watching Star Wars 13 times in The Globe) so I appreciate your comments regarding roads being built for ‘a different time’.

The Albany Road shopping area is without a doubt the most important focal point for a number of wards in the surrounding areas, not just Plasnewydd, and as such is a hugely important part of the Roath community. Key, in fact.

And with todays penchant for out-of-town shopping removing more money spenders from the inner city area’s every day, any increase in parking enforcement (specifically) could be seen to be used as a weapon to deter shoppers? Ultimately forcing small businesses into closure.

Albany Road is completely surrounded with retail parks, meaning its harder and harder to compete for the small or specialist retailer.

With this in mind shouldn’t we be doing everything possible to maintain shopper numbers instead of enforcement officials physically illustrating to them, the convenience of out of town shopping with its free and convenient onsite parking?

Indeed for the good of the area shouldn’t this be the issue which needs resolving as a matter of the highest priority?

Any other strategy puts the commercial centre of Roath on a precariously sticky wicket even in the short term, and is unlikely to appeal to any new outlets looking to set up shop in what still is today, a thriving shopping centre, valuable not only for the money it generates, but also the jobs Albany Road creates?

The Cardiff Citizen

The clear answer, which I am already taking forward as a result of Mrs Ivory’s request, is to get the council to switch certain areas with double- and single-yellow lines at the Albany Road end of a number of side streets over to two-hour parking bays for shoppers. Together with the other local councillors for the area, we have had a meeting with council officers and local traders where this has been agreed in principle and we are now waiting for detailed proposal to be drawn up which can then be put in place. Essentially this can be done as quickly as the process allows.

It is also worth noting that many people in the past were found parking all day, or for hours at a time, in the one-hour parking spaces on Albany Road itself. Some of these people were shop staff who were taking up parking spaces at the expense of leaving those spaces for their customers to use. This is happening less now that people know they are more likely to be booked if they park for over an hour in these short-stay parking bays. So better enforcement of parking regulations is also helping to make sure these one-hour bays are more available for shoppers.

We have looked at different schemes in the past to try to make sure people have a better chance of parking in the area. Let’s face it the main problem is that the streets of Roath were built in a different era and were not built with the level of parking demand in mind that we have today. However, a clear message we had from local shop keepers in the past was that what they wanted it was more effective enforcement of the existing parking regulations and that is what the council delivered.

However, local councillors are always happy to take forward any good ideas that people might have to make things better. Mrs Ivory brought us a good idea after I asked her in September what she suggested we might to do make matters easier. We have acted quickly in getting council officers to agree in principle to put Mrs Ivory’s idea into practice. So people can rest assured that the local councillors for the Roath area are very much on the case.

Rodney Berman
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Plasnewydd

As I have never said, or written or even privately considered Lib Dem canvassers to be, ‘acting like nazi stormtroopers’, this article is totally inaccurate (not only in regard to this statement either). As such the article is most certainly libellous. The Cardiff Citizen website should remove or correct it immediately.

For your information I have officially apologised for any offence resulting from what I did say, whilst also making it clear that my comments were not aimed at Cllr Berman personally, had nothing to do with his ancestry and were certainly not motivated by racism.

Ralph Cook