Spot on. This reflects Cardiff Council's (not sure about the officer's' views) on what a city should look like and how we should promote our greenness.
It's good, apparently, to build a £1.4M bridge and roadway to improve safety (allegedly, but no statistics) so that 40 tonne lorries from Holland can access the greenhouses in Bute Park. This is where they bring on the non-indiginuous planting that then gets plonked in plastic containers at strategic 'pretty' points in the city. Our parks themselves are - where the money stretches - then covered with blank, municipal gaudiness of the kind that was out of fashion 20 years ago. BUT, it wins "Britain in Boom".
There is one place where such planting could be justified if done with skill and care (which the parks department does have I believe) and that's Bute Park itself (Sophia gardens, the other heritage park of the same period is now just a car park/cricket stadium, so skip that). This could be developed as a 'retro' Victorian park in all its glory and be a real tourist attraction.
As to sustainable planting: the whole of the many river banks are crying out for subtle, careful intervention to make them both attractive and nature supporting. Why can't the front of the City be planted as a wild-flower meadow, cutting cost, being more interesting, and helping to meet our green targets (wot they I hear you say!).
But hey - it might all look a bit untidy sometimes as the birds and the bees do their stuff. And whilst it might help save the planet, it won't win us any prizes in the civic grandiosity stakes.

Can I try and paraphrase the "council spokesperson"'s jargon?
"The report in question is to get agreement in principle on the way forward on a number of improvements to the Council’s leisure offer" - actually means: we are asking the council's executive for carte blanche to do what we like with pricing leisure services ("the offer"!) - we'll make a business case based on how much money we need to make later.
"..we need to constantly review our business to ensure that we remain competitive in the leisure marketplace." The commercial fitness sector, through a mixture of over-provision, cut-throat pricing, lower-wages than the council pays, frequently criticised membership tie-ins, and sometimes - even better services, is providing competition. But of course the commercial sector will only do this until all local authority leisure centres have been forced to close, then it can print money from those who have no where else to go.
Might not a better case be: ramp up the "service" offer (translated - better, cleaner, properly managed centres that are attractive - and safe), slash prices, employ inspirational staff and let the commercial sector take those who want to pay for ... one-to-one massage perhaps?

Please post the Cardiff Council link as soon as it's available (probably impossible to find otherwise!) and why do we have to wait until October if they've done the work? Is it available as data now (Googledocs would do)?

Dear Mr. Morgan,
Thank you for your comments on the Civic Society’s response to the LDP. This was prepared by a team following many hours of public debate and group discussion and responds to the whole of the council’s document running to 252 pages. The Cardiff Civic Society broadly supported the overall vision and strategy of the council, but we argued that the policies and plans did not deliver the outputs required, and we were not surprised that the WAG inspector found likewise. The following comments relate to the housing elements only, although there is much interdependence between the sections.

Firstly, we recommended that the council should recognise the reality of the economic situation already obvious to independent observers, that the forecast of growth and dwelling needs were grossly exaggerated and should be moderated. Secondly, we listened to the advice that Cardiff has a major shortfall of housing in two areas. The first need is for affordable housing for those who are on low incomes who need to live and work in the city. The second is for family homes, particularly for young and growing families. The brown land available (and forecast) is insufficient to meet all these needs, and there appears to be no substantive discussions with neighbouring authorities to find alternatives. Cardiff already has an oversupply of unsold apartments (with the consequential collapse in values for existing owners), and most inner city sites are only suitable for this type of dwelling. Thus, to meet the high growth targets and provide homes for essential workers, there is no feasible alternative but to consider development on green land adjacent to established communities, with appropriate infrastructure enhancements and careful attention to local views. We reached this conclusion reluctantly, and would have preferred the council’s forecasts to have been reduced. The new LDP will have to face the same issues, and recent forecasts of growth to 2030 are quite alarming, and in our view can only be satisfied on a regional basis, including the valley communities; we will see! .

If Cardiff wishes, as we do, to be a vibrant attractive and dynamic city with a premium quality of life then we are going to have to find solutions that have not yet been examined.

Many residents in Cardiff will welcome enforcement of realistic parking control - it's something that has been seriously lacking/ignored.
But it has to be seen as part of an holistic transport policy.
There is no point in beating up car drivers for bringing their vehicles into the city when the planning arm of the council encourages developers (eg St Davids 2) to build massive city-centre car parks: that's a totally contradictory message. Nor by making the bus service more and more complex to use (just look at any European city to see how to integrate non-car transport) so that if you give up your car you have to take ill-timed connecting buses at disparate parts of the city-centre - if you know what and where.
The new parking regime also lacks direct control over vital areas: no ability to ticket people who park on grass verges in Conservation Areas or our parks or obstruct corners or pavement ramps.
So, a feeble cheer for a step in the right direction. But like many of this council's initiatives this one, by being disconnected to the real problems, may well cause more grief than gain.

Aaaarggghhh!! I KNEW this but everyone said I was wrong, and being timid, unsure of myself and all too easy to back down, gave up the fight (even though my dad was a Post Office engineer - term indicates age btw!). It's the big organisations that are going to find this hardest 'cos one is always saying "my number's, Cardiff 123456" instead of 2012 3456.
Decimalisation all over again .....
Repeat after me "My number is 029 2012 3456 .....

PS in case it's not blindingly obvious, that isn't my number, and in case it's a real one, pse don't try ...

I have reposted the vandalism comment without the user's name in order to protect identity - and have deleted the original one.

+++++++++++++++
Hi -
here is something you really might want to get your teeth into: vandalism in our parks.
As you konw, come the warm evenings, people use Pontcanna Fields and Llandaff Fields for their picnics and barbecues - and for lighting huge wild fires. The damage to the grass sward is extensive, and the rubbish left behind is horific. You won't see much of the rubbish later in the day because a number of dog walkers take carrier bags on their daily dog walks and pick up everything they can.

This morning I came across a site in Llandaff Fields which was stunning in its extent, and mindlessness.

Here is the link to the photos I took:http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/vivian.evans/NewVan...

It was not enough to light a barbie - no, there had to be a wild fire as well - and for kindling, well, they took the bark of a young tree. That tree will surely die - I've come across similar vandalised trees in Pontcanna Fields, they are all gone now.

This is what we pay our council tax for? Our Police Precept?
Why is it that only one sector of the community, the drunken vandals, are allowed to have 'fun' - which destroys the areas where ordinary families would also like to have fun?

I hope you can add your voice to mine: I've written to WalesOnline, to Cllrs islam and Berman, and to Angela Jones-Evans. Whatever you do, please leave my name out of it - living alone, I don't want to have my house vandalised as well!

Thanks,

Thanks for taking the time to post your comment here. I'll pus a Tweet about it and get more publicity for it. Have you rung 101 to report this - it's the most direct way of bringing it to the attention of the council we find. Every complaint is logged and actioned - so it's important.

Thank you so much to the organisations who came to our kick off meeting last night. Cardiff Civic Society was delighted to be the host and we are all thrilled at the positive response and the enthusiasm which such a diverse group of groups bring to trying to make life more special in this city. Please let us know if your organisation would like to be part of Cardiff Partnerships' activities - there is no manifesto, no rules, no fees: a genuine desire to change Cardiff for the better is, however, required, and a willingness to do something about it.
Chair, Cardiff Civic Society

Good coverage of an excellent event. I suspect that Jane Davidson, the person, would have jumped at the idea of a carbon negative Wales. Sadly, she's a politician too.
We need people like her though to seize the initiative - world changing events rarely happen through public demand. They need leadership. And being unpopular isn't where politicians are at just now ....