https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54474753
Cardiff has seen the weakest post-lockdown return of shoppers of any city apart from London, research suggests.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54474753
Cardiff has seen the weakest post-lockdown return of shoppers of any city apart from London, research suggests.
Popped in today. It’s like a ghost town, full of miserable looking people. The complete opposite of a year ago. God knows what it will be like in another few months when most restaurants and bars have gone bust. Even normally busy shops like Next are deserted. Really missing the large numbers of office workers like London is....Originally Posted by LeningradCowboy
All the people are rushing to Castle Street to have a cold panini
That's hardly surprising. No one can get close enough in their car to go shopping and the buses no longer run into the centre of the city, due to the Council's brilliant lockdown redesigning of the road network.
And now the picnic area outside the castle has become redundant (They admit that) due to the change in the weather the council is having a meeting to try to find excuses to keep castle street closed permanently, as I said they would when they first closed it One of the reasons mooted was that they need somewhere for the Christmas market! WTF is wrong with where it is now?
And for a councilor to seriously suggest closing a major city artery so a temporary market can be put there for 4 week out of 52 is just ridiculous.
Just to put an alternative view, those of you criticising the council about train capacity, they don't have any control over that.
And as for the suggestion city planners should have thought about an underground system, who precisely is to pick up the tab which is likely to be billions? The council? Then you'd be complaining about council tax hikes assuming teh small proportion of council income that comes from council tax could cover it
Im not saying the council are blameless but the problem is a complex one and includes issues around UK govt policy as well as the economics of developing land and the private sector development industry
In Edinburgh there is a sign near the castle saying something along the lines of city planners one hundred years ago were forward thinking so modern day Edinburgh is still benefiting today and is a tourist hotspot.
Cardiff over past five-ten years has been the opposite of that. Apart from chasing easy and quick money, can anyone make the case for moving the BBC, tax office from out of centre locations right into the middle without adding capacity to travel networks when there was already high levels of congestion? On top of that you have made the city uglier with a series of empty, cheap, high-rise student accommodation where most always planned to switch their use.
Council tax equates to about 1/5 of their budget.
Thanks, Im surprised its even that amount. The City Council budget is prob a few hundred million and that has to cover everything from schools to social services to bin collections to road maintenance to trading standards etc
Yes the problem is a complex one but talking about it for years, like the metro system, (Which in generations to come will be one of the fairy tales told to children growing up, here in Wales. (See what I did there?) ) is no substitute for actually dealing with the problem
If things had been done years ago and public transport systems developed as the city grew the problem wouldn't be anywhere near as complex as their total lack of action has made it now.
If you read my post, it’s a dig a city planners, obviously an underground system would cost billions now but if it had been incorporated into the huge excavations that took place during the construction of our estates (which are relatively new compared to some other cities) it may have been viable. These estates were built and are still being built without a thought for traffic dispersal. There’s been miles of old rail track that’s disappeared, why didn’t our planners, people who are supposed to be planning ahead, think ‘hang on, let’s leave these tracks down, they may come in handy one day?’
There's another issue that needs to be addressed. The UK government have changed council funding in that they are now able to keep more business rates in exchange for less money from central government.
Needless to say, this swap hasn't been a fair one for many councils, who have seen the amount lost from central funding has not remotely been replaced by the amount they can raise through keeping business rates.
With further cuts from Westminster to come in exchange for keeping yet more business rates, council income will plunge further in many areas, particularly poorer ones. If Covid has an effect on business rates, councils may well not even be able to provide the most basic services.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...l-way-19081090
Plans have been revealed to reopen Cardiff city centre's canals as the council sets outs its vision to tackle climate change over the next decade.
"more trees could be planted...to increase biodiversity ." Very nice. Much more important than an M4 relief road..
Build and M4 relief road now and in 5-10 years you'd need an M4 relief road part 2, repeat for part 3 etc. Not have everything crammed into one small centre, build up good public transport and you have longer term planning which fits needs of our commitment to tackling climate change.
I wonder how many people concerned about shops in the city centre bought 99+% of their items online before this year anyway?
If you think excavating for an underground can be coupled with a raft for some houses then I think you’re way off. If you read my post you’d see I accept the council aren’t blameless but it’s niaive to blame planners who ultimately answer to their political masters
What canals ?
From the photo I saw attached to the article about it, it is in fact the feeder which was bled off the River to feed the Alexandra (I think) dock to keep the water level up at low tide.
It also provided water to the castle moat.
It still flows behind the castle under Kingsway, along the back of Greyfriars road behind the railings, then it goes under Park Place and turns right and flows underground down the back of the park hotel and straight down the middle of Churchill Way. That part was covered up in the early 70's I think but is still there. It the goes underground again but comes out at the hump back bridge on Hurbert Street before feeding into the dock.
If you look on Google you can see where it is still above ground in blackweir/Bute Park and then after Kingsway. The bit that goes under Kingsway has always be covered I believe. It starts where the river bridge crosses from Pontcanna to Balckweir.
The old Glamorganshire canal is long long gone and there was another but that is also gone.
The Glamorganshire canal came down from the valleys and had one of the longest series of locks ever built. It flowed past the old Melingriffith tin works and round Haley Park, crossing the Road at the Cow and Snuffers before flowing down on the edge of what is now Gabalfa.
Indeed, there only ever was one canal in Cardiff and that’s filled in (apart from Forest Farm I think and I can remember the stretch at what is now North Rd car park)In my lifetime, until now, I don’t know of anyone who has referred to the Docks Feeder as a “canal”. Never intended for navigation to my knowledge. In the summer of 1977 there wasn’t much water coming off the Taff at Blackweir so another summer like that and the “Feeder” Quarter at Churchill Way will not be resembling Amsterdam.
There was the Glamorganshire canal which, as you say, stops now north of the city. The other Cardiff canal is the feeder canal which was used to convey water from the River Taff to the docks. Not built for boats, it none the less qualifies as a 'canal'.
If and when it is opened up again in Churchill Way it could well liven up a relatively unattractive part of the city centre. On the down side the southern end of Churchill Way is a main route for traffic, so yet an other pain in the backside for drivers trying to get across the city.
If they only restore what was it won't be. It never went that far above ground
Pardon ?????
Wot?
Can anyone understand this ?
"what was it won't be" ???????????
The poster said, "On the down side the southern end of Churchill Way is a main route for traffic, so yet an other pain in the backside for drivers trying to get across the city."
If they only uncover the part they covered it won't be a pain in the backside because the bit the poster was referring to was never uncovered in the first place.
Perhaps the Churchill Way “Canal” will be the new Chippy Lane in terms of naming controversy
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