Adaptation – Involves adjustments to natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates, harms or exploits beneficial opportunities.
Adventure Tourism – Adventure tourism is a type of niche tourism involving exploration or travel to remote areas, where the traveller should expect the unexpected. Adventure tourism is rapidly growing in popularity as tourists seek unusual holidays, different from the typical beach holiday.
Affordable Housing – Housing, whether for rent, shared ownership or outright purchase, provided at a cost considered affordable in relation to incomes that are average or below average, or in relation to the price of general market housing.
Biomass – Biomass refers to living and recently dead biological material that can be used as fuel or for industrial production. Most commonly, biomass refers to plant matter grown for use as bio fuel, but it also includes plant or animal matter used for production of fibres, chemicals or heat. Biomass may also include biodegradable wastes that can be burnt as fuel. It excludes organic material which has been transformed by geological processes into substances such as coal or petroleum.
Candidate Site Process – As part of the preparation towards preparing the Local Development Plan (LDP), developers, service providers, landowners and others with an interest in land are invited by their Local Planning Authority to submit sites they wish to be considered for development or other uses through the LDP. The sites identified are referred to as Candidate Sites. Candidate Sites may be submitted for potential uses such as: housing, employment, retail, leisure, waste, transport (e.g. park and ride sites), open space, health and community uses.
Capital Region – Cardiff, Newport and the Valleys make up the Capital Region identified in the Wales Spatial Plan (2008 Update) occasionally also called the ‘Capital Network’. The area has major contrasts between prosperity and deprivation, and a ribbon pattern of urban development reflects the historical development of the coal and steel industries. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions - Results from the burning of fossil fuels and is claimed to be a major component of global warming.
Carbon Sinks – Forests, soils, oceans and the atmosphere all store carbon, which moves among those different carbon pools over time; these four different carbon stores form the active carbon pool. If one of these pools absorbs more carbon than it gives off, it is called a 'sink'. Class A – Use Class A1: Shops – for example: retail warehouses, hairdressers, undertakers, travel and ticket agencies, post offices, dry cleaners, sandwich shops etc. Use Class A2: Financial and professional services - banks, building societies, estate and employment agencies, betting offices. Use Class A3: Food and drink - restaurants, public houses, snack bars, cafés, wine bars, shops for the sale of hot food.
Climate Change – Long-term changes in temperature, precipitation, wind and all other aspects of the Earth's climate. Often regarded as a result of human activity and fossil fuel consumption.
Committed sites – All sites with current planning permission or allocated in adopted development plans for development (particularly residential development).
Communal / District Heating Networks – Communal / District heating is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralised location for residential and commercial heating requirements. The heat is often obtained from a cogeneration plant, although dedicated facilities called heat-only boiler stations are also used. A district heating plant can provide higher efficiencies and better pollution control than localised boilers.
Comparison Floor Space – Floor space made available for the purchase of retail items on an infrequent basis for which the customer generally expects to invest time and effort into visiting a range of shops before making a choice. For example, clothes, footwear, household goods, recreational goods and white goods (fridges, dishwashers etc).
Consultation Report – A consultation report explains how and with whom consultation on the Deposit Plan took place, and how it affected the drafting of the Deposit Plan. Consultation reports have been made available for public viewing for a period of six weeks along with the Deposit Plan to allow further representations to be made.
Convenience Floor Space – Floor space made available to meet shopping needs carried out on a day-to-day, basis e.g. food, drinks, newspapers /magazines, cigarettes, and confectionery.
Decentralised Heating / Cooling Power Networks – A clean and efficient energy system that provides heating, cooling, and electricity supplied by local renewable and local low-carbon sources (i.e. on-site and near-site, but not remote off-site) usually on a relatively small scale.
Deposit – A term describing the statutory consultation period for plans being progressed under transitional arrangements.
Examination in Public – A term given to the examination of Structure Plans under transitional arrangements.
Greenfield Land – Land (or a defined site) usually farmland, that has not previously been developed.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions – Emissions into the atmosphere of gases that affect the temperature and climate of the Earth's surface. The main greenhouse gases emitted are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Some human activities increase these gases, including fossil fuel combustion within motor vehicles and some power stations.
Grey Water Recycling – Grey Water recycling involves collecting the water used in hand basins, showers and baths, processing the water in order to ensure a reasonable level of cleanliness and re-circulating the water for use in flushing toilets. The water can often also be used to fill the washing machine, for re-use in toilets and for outside taps where it is not necessary to use drinking quality water.
Gross Density – For the purpose of calculating the gross density of housing development, the gross developable area includes the whole of the allocated site.
Heads of the Valley Programme – The Heads of the Valleys Programme is a wide-ranging regeneration partnership launched by the Welsh Assembly Government on the 22nd November 2004. It brings together the Welsh Assembly Government with five Local Authorities (Rhondda Cynon Taf, Merthyr Tydfil, Caerphilly, Blaenau-Gwent and Torfaen) with other organisations from across the public, private and voluntary sectors.
Hub Settlement – These settlements function as service hubs for surrounding settlements. They provide the central framework around which high capacity sustainable transport links. A wider range of services should be delivered locally within them to reduce the overall need to travel.
Hydroelectricity – Small Hydro Turbines placed within the flow of water produce mechanical energy that causes the turbines to rotate at high speed. The turbines drive a generator that converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy. The amount of hydroelectric power that can be generated is related to the water flow and the vertical distance (known as head) through which the water has fallen. In the smallest hydroelectricity schemes, the head of water can be a few metres; in the larger schemes the power station, which houses the turbines, is often hundreds of metres below the reservoir. Useful power may be produced from even a small stream. The key issue relating to hydroelectric is to maintain the watercourse’s ecology by restricting the proportion of the total flow diverted through the turbine.
Indicative Concept Plan – The concept plan is indicative and although developers must have regard to it, it is flexible enough to allow for masterplans to take place on the site. It does set out the Council’s aspirations for the sites including the mix of uses that will be required. Detailed discussions regarding masterplanning will be dealt with at a later stage.
Key Employment Sites – Sites have been identified to play a major long-term role in the economy, where employment generating activities will be encouraged and where coordinated activity and investment programmes are required to realise their full potential.
Local Employment Sites – Local Employment Sites are employment sites designed to accommodate the needs of a wide range of types and sizes of employment and warehousing units. They are expected to be more than one hectare in size, and located in or adjacent to the edge of towns. Local employment sites should be located in areas where the community has access to it in order to reduce distances travelled to work.
Locally Distinct – Local distinctiveness is about a sense of place and our relationship with it. It makes one place unique from another. Local distinctiveness might be shaped by the architecture, skylines and the social and economic life derived from industries. The products of these industries, such as the local yellow and red bricks, may define the detail and uses of the buildings and the landscape around them. Identifying, understanding and responding to local distinctiveness is more likely to lead to proposals that are positive in respect of the pattern of the built and natural environments and the social and physical characteristics of the locality.
Microgeneration Equipment – Microgeneration is the production of heat or power on a very small scale, when compared to the outputs of a typical fossil-fuelled power station. Microgeneration equipment can harness the power of the sun, the wind and natural river flow.
Heat generating equipment includes:
• Solar thermal
• Ground source heat pumps
• Air source heat pumps
• Biomass
Electricity generating equipment includes:
• Solar PV (photovoltaics)
• Wind turbines
• Small hydro
Mitigation – Involves taking action to reduce the impact of human activity on the climate system, primarily through reducing greenhouse emissions. Microgeneration systems use the power where it is made, which means they are much more efficient as transmission and distribution losses are virtually eliminated.
Net Density – For the purpose of calculating the net density of housing development, the net developable area of a site includes:
• Dwellings and their curtilages (but not ancillary land such as shops and community facilities);
• Access roads, private shared drives, private shared parking areas and private shared amenity areas (but not spine roads and distributor roads);
• Incidental amenity open space and play areas (but not playing fields or significant landscape and ecological features); and
• Land free from permanent development constraints, such as easements for utility services, ground instability, contamination, archaeological remains and flood risk.
Open Space – All space of public value, including public landscaped areas, playing fields, parks and play areas, and also including not just land, but also areas of water such as rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs, which can offer opportunities for sport and recreation or can also act as a visual amenity and a haven for wildlife.
Preferred Area of Known Mineral Resource – Preferred Areas of Known Mineral Resource are classified by Minerals Planning Policy Wales. They are designated in locations where known mineral resources exist, which would also have some commercial potential, and where planning permission might reasonably be anticipated.
Previously Developed Land – Previously developed land is that which is or was occupied by a permanent structure (excluding agricultural or forestry buildings) and associated fixed surface infrastructure.
Renewable and Low-Carbon Energy – Includes energy for heating and cooling as well as generating electricity. Renewable energy covers those energy flows that occur naturally and repeatedly in the environment – from the wind, the fall of water, the movement of the oceans, from the sun and also from biomass. Low-carbon technologies are those that can help reduce carbon emissions. Renewable and / or low-carbon energy supplies include, but not exclusively, those from biomass and energy crops; CHP / CCHP (and micro-CHP); waste heat that would otherwise be generate directly or indirectly from fossil fuel; energy-from-waste; ground source heating and cooling; hydro; solar thermal and photovoltaic generation and wind generation.
Simplified Planning Zone – An area in which a Local Planning Authority wishes to stimulate development and encourage investment. It operates by granting a specified planning permission for specific development in the zone, to obviate the need for applications for planning permission and the payment of planning fees.
Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) – A site identified under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (as amended by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000) as an area of special interest by reason of any of its flora, fauna, geological or physiographical features (basically, plants, animals, and natural features relating to the Earth's structure).
Soil carbon – A major component of the terrestrial biosphere pool in the carbon cycle. The amount of carbon in the soil is a function of the historical vegetative cover and productivity, which in turn is dependent in part upon climatic variables.
Special Area of Conservation (SAC) – The most important sites for wildlife in the country designated under the European Community’s Council Directive of May 1992 covering animals, plants and habitats and providing them with increased protection and management. All SACs are also SSSIs.
Strategic Opportunity Area – Strategic Opportunity Areas (SOA) offers potential regional benefits from its sustainable development. SOA’s are intended to bring greater coherence to their development, and enable public transport links to be strengthened.
Sustainable Development – Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Sustainable Drainage Systems – Alternatives to the traditional ways of managing runoff from buildings and hard standings. They are designed to improve the rate and manner of absorption by water of hard and soft surfaces, in order to reduce the total amount, flow and rate of surface water that runs directly to rivers through storm water systems.
Sustainable Transport – Often meaning walking, cycling and public use of transport (and in some circumstances "car sharing"), which is considered to be less damaging to the environment and which contributes less to traffic congestion than one-person car journeys.
Waste Hierarchy – Framework for securing a sustainable approach to waste management. Waste should be minimised wherever possible. If waste cannot be avoided, then it should be re-used; after this value recovered by recycling or composting, or waste to energy and finally landfill disposal.
Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation – The Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation is the official measure of deprivation for small areas in Wales. The Index looks at issues such as income, housing, employment, access to services, health, environment, education and community safety.
Windfall Site – Housing sites not previously identified by the Council that are suitable for development and arise through planning applications.