Cardiff independent music venue set to expand into five-storey building

Kieran Molloy, Local Democracy Reporter

A bid to transform one of Cardiff’s most well-known independent music venues has been approved.

The city’s council has approved plans to demolish a “semi-derelict shell” at 9 Womanby Street so that popular venue Clwb Ifor Bach can expand into the space.

The “shell” will be replaced with a five-storey building, including a basement, to serve the independent music club.

This is part of wider plans to transform one of Cardiff’s most-loved grassroots venues.

Other works include “reworking” the building’s internal layout while maintaining the existing masonry walls that “give character to the internal spaces” and renovating the outside of the building.

Overall the works are being put in place to achieve “a larger capacity venue of 500 people at ground floor with a first-floor mezzanine” as well as “improved accessibility, security, and sustainability”, along with a 250-person capacity space on the second floor, a roof terrace, improved front of house and back of house facilities, and improved servicing and better musician and stage access.

The key drivers behind the works include aims to “provide greater benefits to Cardiff city’s live music strategy, grassroots music, and night-time economy” as well as “provide excellent sound quality for live bands and club nights and create atmospheric yet practical and flexible lighting throughout”.

Clwb Ifor Bach opened in 1983 as a Welsh-language social club in a former British Legion building and evolved over the decades to become one of Cardiff’s most prominent live music and cultural venues.

According to planning documents throughout the improvement process “the design team are keen to keep the ‘spirit’ of Clwb Ifor Bach through the use of industrial materials, robust design solutions, and exposed masonry”.

In the same document the “vision” for the improvements is given as “to maintain and enhance our place as Wales’ leading grassroots music venue.

“As the home of original music and live performances by both your favourite artists and undiscovered new bands we seek to develop talent and wider industry skills alongside growing audiences.”

The venue gets its name from Ifor Bach, a 12th-century Welsh rebel leader against English rule.