Public Consultation: Abandoned Railway Track-beds?

[TheObserver]

Good Morning colleagues,

First a note to the moderators:
If this has been posted in the wrong forum of the bulletin board, please re-locate as appropriate.

This past week the South Wales Evening Post (Swansea) has on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday 5~7 July 2016, carried a 5x7 inch advert promoting a ONE DAY Public Consultation exercise, at the Welcome Inn, Mynyddbach, Swansea, this coming 12 July 2016, 14:00~19:30.

There is a map included in the advert allegedly showing a red line outlining a "Proposed Mixed Use Residential led Development" needless to say the red line is indistinguishable in the advert. The general area covered by the map includes the site of the former Cefngyfelach Colliery, which was at one time served by a Tramway/ Mineral Railway of unknown (to me) gauge.

I recall in past months some activity, possibly on the Downing Street website, involving the future preservation of former railway track-beds, do any forum members recall such activity and if so what is the current state of play with the preservation of railway track-beds here in Wales?

I hope to attend this Public Consultation, and if indeed the proposed development does include the Cefngyfelach Colliery track-bed, it might be useful to be aware of current situation.

[TheObserver]

After a bit more poking about on Google, I eventually discovered these two links:

• https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105077
  
  and:
  http://www.railwatch.org.uk/backtrack/rw74/bill.html

so I think this can be put to bed.

[TheObserver]

Listed below are a couple of links that might be of use to those of you who are already, or become involved in protecting abandoned railway track beds here in Wales, against future inappropriate commercial building development.

Welsh Government: Technical Advice Note (TAN) 18: Transport (2007)
http://gov.wales/topics/planning/policy ... 8/?lang=en

Section 6 Walking and Cycling:(page 24 onwards)
Paragraph 6.2: last sentence and the seventh bullet point, and
Paragraph 6.4: last sentence and the first bullet point,
Paragraph 7.3: last line and the second bullet point, help to set the scene:

Whilst:
paragraph 8.13 in total and,
paragraph 8.14 in total and the final two bullet points,
the above two bullet points seem to me, to be key points in the document, whilst:
paragraph 8.23 holds more sensible guidance, with a powerful exclusion for 'disused railway lines' and 'disused inland waterways' halfway through the paragraph.

However a read of the whole document was to me quite an eye-opener!

Secondly there is a relatively short document "Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013" a summary of which:
can be read at: http://gov.wales/topics/transport/walki ... t/?lang=en
with the 'act' being downloadable from: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/anaw/2013/7/contents