Cardiff must take lessons from London
Bubble — By Alan Davies on September 4, 2009 6:00 am
The Pierhead Building stands in Cardiff Bay as a testament to the city's past glories - but does it also remind us of our current civic shortcomings?
HAVING lived as a child in London it remains easy even now to remember sitting on the top floor of a double-decker that had been brought to a standstill by smog. The English capital of the 1950s and 60s was a filthy place whose attractions easily passed its visitors and residents by. But it was hard not to love the place, as anyone who was young at that time would have been caught up in the buzz of such a capital.
An end to school meant goodbye to London and hello to the green fields, ditches and hedges of military training areas in Hampshire and Salisbury Plain. Many city boys who trod that turf would have been experiencing and touching nature for the first time, and many of us vowed never to return to the Smoke.
Settling in Cardiff some 18 years ago, it was a joy to be there. Some scars needed to be cleaned, but the underlying beauty was plain to see. In a visionary move, run-down Tiger Bay was being bought-up by Cardiff Bay Development Corporation, to create change and economic impact, and it proved to be the tipping point of its success. This is an easy city in which to settle, and many Cardiffians would have shared in the great sense of pride and joy in walking through Bute Park on the way to the first Ashes Test match in Sophia Gardens. Such a beautiful approach to an international sporting event in the middle of a capitol must be almost without equal anywhere.
However, cities change over time, and a recent quick trip to London provided a timely reminder of how much the British capitol has changed. The first major shock was that it was clean, and not just a little bit cleaner. Central London is almost pristine. The traffic was flowing, and people seemed relaxed in that bustling, city-like way. And it was hard to escape the question: “Why is it that London has changed so much in a positive way, yet Cardiff, which had so much going for it, has not developed in quite the same manner?”
Let’s go back to Bute Park for a moment and consider how that came about. When the City elders were making plans for Cardiff, did they think of using the land for development? No, instead the vision was for green space to provide a haven in the city, a riverside centre for tranquillity. When there was a need to clear the rubbish dump that was what we now call Roath Park, they created another sanctuary for its residents, this time with a lake and gardens enjoyed by thousands on a regular basis. City centre shops were opened in covered arcades, offering employment to many through low-cost set up costs and a variety of offerings that were hard to imagine. All of these strategies gave Cardiff a uniqueness.
Compare that with the recent developments. The first example must be the conversion of the rubbish dump in Ferry Road, neatly cleaned up as a mound next to an out of town-like retail park. It’s impossible to imagine anyone going there as part of their Sunday afternoon stroll as they do in Roath Park. And the shops we now see growing in Cardiff are, admittedly, under cover, but where’s their style and – more importantly – how do they provide a different shopping experience from other regional cities around the UK? Where are the affordable rents that would allow small businesses to survive and create real local economic value? Instead, super centres have come to be regarded as a threat to local wealth creation, as consumers tip their cash into the coffers of multi-national chains.
London knew it needed to change. It needed to exploit its position in the global financial markets and needed to attract foreign visitors and investors. As part of all that, it also realised that it needed to be cleaner. It has done all of that in spades. It remains the financial capital of the world, continuing to grow in spite of the economic mess of the past 15 months. The visitor numbers continue to rise. The money spent there is ever increasing and the investment has truly paid off. There’s even fish in the Thames.
And the return on the investment continues. The Olympics would not have been won without changes made over 10 years ago. And the changes that will come between now and 2012 will last for decades, if not centuries.
This simply reinforces the same question: why can’t Cardiff be more like London? Why can’t we see a cleaner city, a city that creates value for its residents and generates a feel-good factor that impacts in ways that we cannot predict? In short: where is the strategy?
When we examine the city centre, we find a myriad of development based on retail and leisure, the former dominated by chains that can found in every British city, while the latter offers yet more opportunity for drunken debauchery. Most of us are not teetotallers, yet there is a growing abhorrence at the boorish drink culture that pervades almost all of Cardiff city centre. And yet there is nothing to be seen that will draw in more valuable returns. The conference centres in Birmingham spring to mind as becoming one of the best examples of a driver for economic change in a city. Yet, despite years of discussion about the need for a conference centre in Cardiff, little progress has been made.
Where is the help and protection for indigenous local business to start and grow? Small businesses only appear to fail in the city centre, as rents and rates rise and larger national chains dominate the high street. And where is the civic responsibility? As noted earlier, the traffic in London is flowing. Meanwhile, Cardiff lives with ever more snarled up roads which, one suspects, may be the fault of the partly one-way, partly pedestrianized mess that has become the fate of major city thoroughfares such as St Mary’s Street.
Cardiff has the potential to be a glorious city. The city elders of years gone by knew that and worked towards it. We could, for example, host the Commonwealth Games if only we could get our act together and to form a united front. But would a betting man wager that this would happen in our lifetime? We simply could not pull it all together to form a strong united, city-wide bid, supported by the pride that exists in London for the Olympics.
So what’s missing? The most obvious answer is leadership. Leaders change things, they get people to do what they didn’t even think they wanted to do. Leaders make things happen. Leaders make a difference. Leaders cause change. London has had and still has Leaders. Ken Livingstone had a great impact on the city, and Boris Johnson is followed by millions out of curiosity and amusement as much as for his policies. Yet both have made a difference. Cardiff has nothing like them and now deserves better.
It is time for a properly elected mayor to provide true leadership in order to make Cardiff the great city it really could and should be. The Ashes promised us a future worthy of the dreams of our forebears. It is only us who will squander such an opportunity.
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14 Comments
Extremely well put. A city that effectively becomes a no-go zone for anyone over 30 on weekend evenings cannot lay any claim to being anything more than just another depressing regional watering hole.
And it is the fault of the planners, who would rather endlessly grant permission for yet more disco barns that attract low-spending, high-misbehaving teenage and young 20-somethings, than devote any real thought as to how this adds to the city, and will contibute to its future.
The roads are a joke, tinkered with so that they are worse than ever. But don’t take my word for it – the Welsh Assembly Government has told the council that the local development plan relies too heavily on building yet more flats on brownfield sites, at the expense of infrastructure requirements.
According to The Insider magazine’s weekly public sector e-bulletin, CBI Wales director David Rosser has backed WAG in questioning the strategy, and called for a “more ambitious plan for Cardiff to thrive and prosper”.
Sadly, council leader Rodney Berman has professed himself quite satisfied his officers’ work: “If the Welsh Assembly Government is telling us it is OK to build new housing developments on greenfield sites but not new major employment opportunities (Junction 33) then this is hardly a consistent message.”
Not sure what that means, apart from no change.
We should bid for big sports projects, then syphon off billions of lottery money from other parts of the country for redevelopment under the pretect that we’re “doing it for Britain”.
Well, if its OK for London to do it, then why not?
As a Londoner who has emigrated to Wales, much of this resonates.
My experience – six years fighting appalling politicians driven by personal power and complete lack of strategic vision – confirms your conclusions. The latest failure is embodied by the authority’s slovenly Local Development Plan (see the story on my blog).
And whilst some of the former Labour politicians claim a Damascaesan conversion – its their plans that now mean a third of the centre of Cardiff is no longer public space – a no go, no photography, no demonstrating etc area owner by property developers.
And for the Bute Parks Alan Davis, after 70 years of incremental development – over 40% of the land lost in some way or other – poised on the brink. And being irrevocably scared by a new £2.4M bridge of unproven use. (See http://www.buteparksalliance,org).
The long-term prognosis? I veer from slight optimism (the new developments at Chapter Arts Centre are exemplary) to ‘get me out of here’ (though not back to London), painful depression.
Al, I totally agree. And having a Cardiff version of Ken or Boris is just nuts and overly political….just ask the Police!
Dan – is an anti-mayoral point the one which Al was making? My interpretation would be that a Mayor would aid the process of attracting sporting events.
When I had returned to Cardiff after 12 years living in Colorado and Los Angeles the first thing that struck (I had been home in 1994) was how filthy the city was. It a mess (though a friend had warned me I had no idea that it was going to be quite so bad) The roads had potholes that a corporation bus could have been lost in. All this was like a culture shock! Then there was Napoleon Goodway (the most expensive councilor in the UK) who ran Cardiff like an American style “boss”. He seemed to be given the credit for Cardiff Bay. Though I had always thought it was Alun Michael and Lord Jack Brooks. After living in Denver for many years I was impressed by how the city’s infrastructure grew with population spurt that Denver had experienced in the 1990s. A good bus service with a growing light rail c/o the Regional Transportation District. Good road planning c/o a guy called Barnes (who came from London), and of course a new airport. And the reason why this worked. Vision, effective leadership and not just talking. Also Denver is a “Home Rule City” which means the city has a lot of control over what it can do. In the UK you have 2 problems. It’s the culture. Its pointless criticizing the bar culture because like the poor its always been with us. Local politics is something that local people do not take seriously (that is evident in extremely low turnouts). Your councils are far too big (75 councillors in Cardiff do you really need that many) with people who quite frankly could not run a banana republic. Yes I am all for a elected mayor (I have been saying that for years) and a smaller council with increased powers (like London?) (Maybe Wales could operate like that with a Welsh mayor;) ) It has to be non partisan. I would prefer to see local government as Democratic Technocracy than what it is now like something out of a “Carry On” movie. Thank you for listening.
Adam do something about the bloody font colors!
Just one more point I agree with Peter Cox about Labour’s sudden conversion to greenbelt. Though If Goodway had still been the boss of Cardiff would he had bothetred with public consultation? Also dont forget Cardiff’s schools being left to rot so long!!
“Many Cardiffians would have shared in the great sense of pride and joy in walking through Bute Park to the first Ashes Test match in Sophia Gardens.”
Yes, Sophia Gardens 2009 – not Old Trafford/ Chester-le-Street/ the Rose Bowl. But a real example of a Cardiff team single-mindedly going for something and getting it, without any need for an elected mayor but with real input from the council.
It’s Wales successfully holding events like this and the Ryder Cup which will provide the stepping stones to a future Commonwealth Games bid – if that is to be the highly questionable yardstick by which our capital is to be judged.
Look at the pattern of host cities in the last century and you’ll see the next realistic date for those games to return to Britain after Glasgow in 2014 is 2026. It says something – and a lot about a lack of ambition when the 2014 bidding was under way – that Scotland will have hosted the games twice since Cardiff’s Empire Games in 1958.
But whoever ends up in the race for those in 17 years time, it won’t be an elected mayor that swings it for Hartlepool/ Stoke/ Watford/ Doncaster.
Cardiff certainly needs better leadership, although I’m not convinced by the case for an elected mayor, but it also needs money.
Investment on the scale seen in London is very expensive and was only possible in London because of the huge subsidies (direct and indirect) which that ciy recieves from the rest of the UK. Infrasturucture such as London underground, crossrail etc are all classed as ‘British’projects and so are funded out of general taxation without a Wales recieving anything equivilent under the Barnett formula.
Likewise much of London’s regeneration is done ‘by the back door’ Millenium dome, olympics etc, all paid for by the British Taxpayer.
Then we get the millions of pounds pumped into the London economy because so much of the civil service – and the most senior ones – are based there, not only through procurement and staff salaries etc, but also because any company which wants to sell the the public sector must maintain a presence there.
Also despite devolution most of the political decisions are made in London, and are usually made for London’s benefit – e.g. London is Britains financial centre, and for the last 30 years public policy has been geared towards supporting financial services at the expense of manufacturing etc.
Some (not all) of Cardiff’s problems are actually caused by decisions made in London – such as the planning laws which limit the Council’s discretion on planning matters – leading to the large corporate developments which you mentioned, including the large drinking barns which lead to the problems on St Mary street. Policing and criminal justice are still run by the UK govt in london, measning that the Assembly or Cardiff council can’t use these tools to fight drunken rowdiness.
It was decided (in London) to de-regulate bus services (everywhere in the UK except their own city!) which has also contributed to the traffic and congestion problems.
Cardiff (and Wales) does need leadership, but more importantly the person or people providing that leadership needs the tools to do the job, that means the proper devolution to both the Assembly and the city council, together with control of our own tax revenues so that we can spend it developing our own city and country rather than having it spent ‘on our behalf’ to further develop London.
I’ve lived in Cardiff most of my life (3 decades) and it’s been an interesting three decades for the city. The Bay has been transformed, love or loathe it and the city has grown in all directions. Whilst I share a dislike for out of town shopping, apartment developments and large scale retail (inner city), I’m not so one-eyed as to think Cardiff Council could do much about these trends. I can’t think of a city that hasn’t fallen foul of the weak and centralised planning regulations (and guidance), nor of the public thirst for such developments.
The recent ding dong with the WAG highlights the root cause of so many of Cardiff’s problems. We have a city Council that wishes to protect green belts, that invests (whatever you think of that bridge) in its parks and environmental assets and that constantly seeks to host festivals and events of all kinds.
You then have a Welsh Assembly Government who override local authorities with spatial planning, such that motorway junction developments are forced through regardless of local opinion. WAG have also failed to do any assessment of the capacity of Cardiff and other cities to meet the housing targets in One Wales, presumably because the fag packet wasn’t big enough. Result – Cardiff, despite allowing vast amounts of housing development to go ahead in recent years, despite becoming a world leader in land reclamation and brownfield regeneration (Leighton Andrews, Western Mail – 7/8th Sept 09), is told to sod all that and build on the greenfield sites that maintain much of Cardiff’s appeal for its residents.
As for congestion – what exactly has the WAG done to relieve Cardiff’s population from the onslaught of commuter traffic? Has Cardiff council been supported in calling for congestion charges? – no, roundly criticised, despite WAGs commitments to decrease car use, invest in public transport and encourage cycling. What rail infrastructure has Cardiff seen investment in and what decisions has WAG made on road expansion and development – widen the M4, widen the A470 = more traffic for Cardiff.
And drinking, oh the drinking. How easy is it for a council to turn down applications from bars that will generate jobs and revenues, within a pathetic planning context and faced with the huge demand for these very places to be provided? What would happen if Cardiff Council somehow forced half of the bars on St. Mary’s St to close? How many jobs would be lost? Would the problems go away?
Yes Cardiff can be filthy, yes it drives me mad that I can’t go for a quiet drink in town on a Friday without witnessing mayhem, yes I hate the apartments and the retail parks but I reserve my contempt for the drunken fools, the moronic shoppers, the misguided apartment dwellers and the litter droppers, whether they come from the city or more likely, from outside. It’s the people that shape a city most and its government that ties the hands of local leaders with good intentions.
I agree with much if all that Will Harking says. I feel that this essay and the some of the comments have more of a moan at Cardiff Council than sugesting something constructive as a solution to Cardiff’s problems. There is so much hostility from people in Cardiff over the Assembly in the Bay! Out of touch. What can Cardiff Council do about the binge culture? Not much! Most of it is a policing problem something they have no control over, yes yank the licenses and put a good number of people out of work. Then there is congestion I grew up in Cardiff and I always remember congestion on Cowbridge Road, Western Avenue and Newport Road in the 1970s.
I think despite the shoestring budget they get from WAG they do a pretty good job.
For Cardiff to be transformed into a modern 21st century metropolis would need a large infusion capital! And that will never happen under the present arrangements.
I just think Alan Davies essay is highly flawed by the strange logic!
I agree with much if all that Will Harking says. I feel that this essay and the some of the comments have more of a moan at Cardiff Council than sugesting something constructive as a solution to Cardiff’s problems. There is so much hostility from people in Cardiff over the Assembly in the Bay! Out of touch. What can Cardiff Council do about the binge culture? Not much! Most of it is a policing problem something they have no control over, yes yank the licenses and put a good number of people out of work. Then there is congestion I grew up in Cardiff and I always remember congestion on Cowbridge Road, Western Avenue and Newport Road in the 1970s………..
onlineuniversalwork
I’ve lived in Cardiff most of my life (3 decades) and it’s been an interesting three decades for the city. The Bay has been transformed, love or loathe it and the city has grown in all directions. Whilst I share a dislike for out of town shopping, apartment developments and large scale retail (inner city), I’m not so one-eyed as to think Cardiff Council could do much about these trends. I can’t think of a city that hasn’t fallen foul of the weak and centralised planning regulations (and guidance), nor of the public thirst for such developments.
The recent ding dong with the WAG highlights the root cause of so many of Cardiff’s problems. We have a city Council that wishes to protect green belts, that invests (whatever you think of that bridge) in its parks and environmental assets and that constantly seeks to host festivals and events of all kinds…………..
onlineuniversalwork