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Controversial business park and railway station gets go-ahead

30 Jan 2025 4 minute read
The fields in St Mellons where the Cardiff Parkway station is planned Picture: Alex Seabrook

Martin Shipton

A controversial plan to build a business park and a new railway station on the eastern outskirts of Cardiff has been approved by First Minister Eluned Morgan,

The scheme originally received planning permission from Cardiff council, but because of its significance, the decision was taken over by the Welsh Government.

Nigel Roberts, chairman of Cardiff Parkway Developments, said the project would be “a sustainable, well-connected business district with public transport and active travel at its heart”.

He said it would “bring opportunities to our local communities, the city region and the wider economy”, and thanked residents and the Welsh Government for backing the plans.

Cardiff Parkway Developments said the four-platform station and the 60,000 sq ft business park “could support up to 6,000 jobs” and would provide a sustainable transport hub for eastern Cardiff. The team will now draw up “a programme for delivery”.

Main line trains

Opponents of the scheme have argued that main line trains will not be interested in stopping at the station, and that its location is too far from the residential district of St Mellons to deter car usage.

They also argue that with many people increasingly working from home, it makes no sense to build a large business park in the area.

Cardiff Civic Society recently suggested that if permission were to be granted, a condition should be that the station should be built first. Such a condition has not been imposed. Originally the developers said they would pay for the station to be built, although that no longer appears to be their position.

Reacting to the decision to grant planning permission, Lyn Eynon, the planning lead of Cardiff Civic Society said: “As regards the rail station, this decision is worse than that in both the original leaked Inspector’s report.

“Paragraph 201 of the 2024 Inspector’s Report states: ‘No development beyond the provision of the station can take place unless Natural Resources Wales (NRW) is satisfied that measures are in place to ensure adequate mitigation, compensation and enhancements to offset the impact of the proposed development on the Site of Special Scientific Interest [on which the project is located] have been secured.’

“This not only ensured that the station would come first but also offered some prospect of pressurising NRW on the adequacy of mitigation, compensation and enhancements.

“In contrast, paragraph 6 of the Annex to the First Minister’s decision letter says: ‘As part of this phasing schedule and plan, occupation of employment floorspace and associated infrastructure shall be limited to:30,000sqm until work has commenced on the construction of the railway station; and a further 20,000sqm until the railway station is operational.’

“In other words, CPDL now has the right to build and occupy a third of the business park before even starting to construct the station, and to build and occupy over half of it before the station is operational.

Viability

He added: “The justification for this is, inevitably, ‘viability’, paragraph 73 of the First Minister’s decision letter stating: ‘In respect of viability, I accept the arguments put forward by the applicant that some occupation of employment floorspace is necessary to successfully secure investment in the development. I therefore consider, subject to adjustments to the proposed text to improve its precision, the condition text proposed by the applicant should be added to the proposed phasing condition.’

“‘Precision’ here could take a weasel word prize as this reverses the Inspector’s report on phasing.

“This car-based business park will directly compete with Newport and Cardiff city centres that are already well-served by public transport. Given supply and demand for office space, I suspect this means no station east of the A4232 for a decade or more, if ever, at least without public funding. This is not implementing the Burns report [which proposed improving public transport in the area following the decision not to build the M4 relief road at Newport.”


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Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
18 days ago

The gift of the First Minister…how easy was that…

Amir
Amir
18 days ago

There was a lot of pressure on the FM to approve the project: Cardiff council, MPs, former FM, local councillors seeking re election. Without a railway station anywhere in sight for the local residents, this was a poor decision made by a weakened FM.

Martin
Martin
18 days ago

Hahahahahahha cry more hahahahahha

FrankC
FrankC
18 days ago
Reply to  Martin

Spot the Labour politician getting a backhander for a project none of us want.

Arthur
Arthur
18 days ago

Station in wrong place, business park that is not needed and is being built before the station, surely no party seeking reelection next year would agree to it, unless……

Iago
Iago
18 days ago
Reply to  Arthur

Do you have a complete thought about this or what?

David
David
18 days ago

Well well…… Cardiff getting things again. No wonder so many want the glass shed in the bay smashed. It’s there for Cardiff only. The rest of Wales can take a hike. No shame at all from labour.

Bob McIntyre
Bob McIntyre
18 days ago

More money wasted on Cardiff whilst the rest of the country’s rail system goes to pot and also – unlike the rest of Wales – St Mellons has decent bus services already. So why spend money on a white elephant?

Howie
Howie
18 days ago

Follow the money over the coming years, existing occupiers of office space are giving up entire floors and in some cases whole buildings as now with the home working cat out of the bag, they do not need the space, subsequent financial savings for those occupiers.
For anyone to fully believe that amount of office space is required in future are in my opinion being negligent in their due diligence.

Peter
Peter
17 days ago
Reply to  Howie

That’s not stopping them building more skyscrapers in London. Here’s another one today:

https://www.cityam.com/city-of-london-approves-major-new-skyscraper/

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