Forthcoming Events

Dear Friends and Supporters. Ruperra Castle Action Group / Ruperra Conservation Trust

We hope supporters who live locally will be able to attend the following events. For others, we aim to keep you up to date.

1. Presentation of our petition at Llancaiach Fawr at 4.30 pm Tuesday July 31st to our local ward County Councillor Mrs Christine Forehead who will then present it to the full Caerphilly County Borough Council meeting. A BBC reporter and others from the media will be there. Some people will wear period costume – please join them and make a colourful event of our support for our nationally important monument. Please ring 02920 885840 to let us know if you are coming.

2. We will present the same petition to an official at the Assembly at a later date. Please phone for information,

3. If the required archaeological information arrives in time, the Ruperra planning application may come before the planning committee on August 15th 2007 at 5 pm at the Pontllanfraith office. (Otherwise it will be the next meeting on September 12th.) Please meet outside the building at 4.30 and afterwards at the Penllwyn Manor as before.(See map) Before coming please phone to check whether the meeting is taking place. (02920 885840)

We need as many people as possible to attend these events to show the strength of public feeling. We also need people who live on the main roads in the local areas to put up signs in their gardens – No housing at Ruperra Castle. The signs are ready to be put up so please phone.

No Ruperra for 11th July Caerphilly planning comiittee

Members of the Caerphilly County Council planning committee visited Ruperra Castle on Friday 22 June in preparation for the current planning application for enabling development coming before them on the 11th July.

Ruperra Castle Action Group sent the councillors information about the history of the Castle and its national importance as a scheduled monument. It was pointed out that the 18 new houses that the owner is requesting would come nowhere near to financing the restoration of the castle and that many more would eventually be requested, resulting in the destruction of the landscape setting and countryside.

The Action Group who have carried out a cost exercise for the consolidation of the Castle as a ruin set in a country park, explained that this solution would ensure public enjoyment of our national heritage as well as providing a much 'greener' solution than building houses in the countryside, with the necessary upgrading of services and roads and the increase in the number of cars.

Last week 300 notices were sent out to supporters about the meeting but by the weekend of July 6th we heard that the application could not come before the committee because some archaeological information had not been provided by the owner. These delays have now been continuing for 5 years.

So another 300 notices have needed to be sent out. After the meeting on the 11th we were hoping that all those who turned up would go on the Penllwyn Manor in Pontllanfraith. Apart from being quite near to the Councty Council Offices, Penllwyn was where Thomas Morgan who built Ruperra Castle, was born and brought up.

Hopefully we can do this when the application IS ready to come before the councillors. Maps and instructions will then be sent out.