Helyg showing the current car park to the right of the picture. The new car park will be on the hut side of the A5 on the open land in front of the right edge of the wooded area.Retiring Climbers Club president, Smiler Cuthbertson has thrown his weight behind the club's controversial plans to build a new car park at the historic Helyg Hut in Ogwen Valley, North Wales. The project has divided members and has become something of a peasant's revolt with the majority of committee members supporting the development and the majority of rank & file members opposing.
The plans submitted to the National Park planning authority by the committee propose the construction of a new lay-by on the A5 with a new gated entrance to the club's grounds. A new driveway being bulldozed through the mixed woodland and bog with a circular car park being constructed to south.The project would involve heavy plant access and removal of boulders and earth and the felling of part of the mature coniferous woodland which remains one of the few wooded areas in the largely denuded Ogwen Valley.
Temporary traffic lights would have to be installed on the busy A5 during part of the construction work.
The original application was rejected by the planning authority but it is felt that the re-submitted proposals with modifications will be accepted by the National Park planning Committee.
The current Helyg car park with it's garage-itself bigger than some climbing club huts-is situated on the opposite side of the A5 to the hut and in recent years has become somewhat overgrown and prone to flooding. Furthermore, access at the hut end of the car park is something of a dangerous manoeuvre; particularly in high summer when visibility is impaired and those exiting have to nose out into fast moving traffic. Critics of the scheme point out that this can easily be rectified by building a new access point at the far (south) end of the current car park and constructing a new walkway alongside the garage which would emerge opposite an old gated access point on the hut side of the A5.
Given it's unique location at the heart of Ogwen Valley which itself is the historical heart of Welsh climbing,the proposals will certainly impact on anyone who lives in or uses the valley for recreation,artistic inspiration or earning a living.Critics point out that those who look out from the old road twixt Capel Curig and Ogwen Cottage or who climb and boulder under Gallt yr Ogof's beetling cliffs will no longer look to a stone cottage nestling amid woodland and fragile bog; they will look upon a vista violated by a collection of multi coloured vans,people carriers and cars. Given the raison-de'tre behind the scheme is to attract more visitors to Helyg by providing better facilities it is argued by those opposing the scheme that a club whose membership consists of outdoor activists might have been expected to attach more value to aesthetic amenity than commercial considerations.
Watch this space.
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