Opponents pour cold water on claim that Gething-backed project could create 5,000 jobs
Martin Shipton
Opponents of a controversial business park project promoted by former First Minister Vaughan Gething have poured cold water on a claim that it could create around 5,000 on-site jobs.
Estate agents Savills have made the claim about the Cardiff Parkway Developments (CPD) project, which would involve building a business park adjacent to a new mainline station on the eastern outskirts of the capital.
The claim was made in an unpublished report commissioned by the Cardiff Capital Region (CCR) – which strongly supports the proposed development – that has been leaked to the Business Live website, another strong supporter of the project.
Undemocratic
Responding to assertions apparently made in the report, which has not been seen by Nation.Cymru, Lyn Eynon, the planning lead for Cardiff Civic Society, said: “The Savills report has been leaked to those who will use it to justify the proposal, but I cannot find it in the public domain.
“No surprise but this behaviour hides its arguments from public scrutiny and is profoundly undemocratic. Its claim that job displacement [under which jobs created at the site would be lost nearby] will be ‘modest’ is questionable and should be subject to such scrutiny. Savills have of course been paid to produce the justification CCR/CPD want.
“As I’ve argued before, the idea that Rolls Royce might bring ‘thousands’ of jobs to this site is fanciful. The company estimates AUKUS [a nuclear submarine partnership involving Australia, the UK and the US] might generate 1,000 for it in total and most of those are intended for Derby.
“East of Hendre Lakes [in east Cardiff] is not the optimal location for a train station to serve Trowbridge or St Mellons. CPD wants the Welsh Government and / or the UK Government to pay for its grandiose plans, seeking to blame delay, but a mainline station there never had a solid business case.
“A leaked report from PEDW [the Welsh Government body that evaluates planning developments of national significance] stated that the station should be built before office development started. If we are forced into mitigation, then we should insist that condition remains. Lack of finance could stop this even if environmental concerns do not.
“The claim that this development would provide specialist space not available in central Cardiff is at best exaggerated. The plans show that most of the office space would be provided in city centre style towers, even though that is not what the Local Development Plan expects.
“Planning Policy Wales 12 does not provide for a ‘planning balance’ justification for concreting over a Site of Special Scientific Interest [SSSI – as the project proposes}.
“Natural Resources Wales (NRW) ‘approval’ is central to the case being made by CPD and its supporters. If it does go through, NRW will carry a large part of the responsibility. My reading is that approval is conditional in that NRW accepts that the scheme could be environmentally neutral or even beneficial but not that it will be in practice. NRW has clearly been leant on heavily on this.
“I would also add that the UK Government is looking at legislation to make flexible working a permanent thing, which makes the idea of new office space even more anachronistic.”
Office space
A spokesperson for Friends of Gwent Levels said: “The application would completely destroy acres of the Gwent Levels SSSI. These are supposed to be the jewels in the crown of our nature in Wales. SSSIs only cover 8% of the land and surface areas of Wales
“The business park is not needed – there is a great deal of empty office space in Cardiff and the vicinity – even a lot in nearby business parks – and in any case, the pandemic has resulted in much less overall need for office space. Indeed, the Welsh Government has a target for further reducing the need to travel to work
“The railway station is a red herring – it was not in Transport for Wales’ plans, who are already proposing to build at least four other railway stations between Severn Tunnel Junction and Cardiff, and it only covers a small proportion of the development site. It is merely a trojan horse to build this unnecessary and damaging white elephant over our wildlife.
“Even if you did want a railway station on the east side of Cardiff, this is not a good location for it.
“The days of these mega office developments are over, as we move to a more sustainable way of providing workspace. It’s about time this dinosaur was finally put to rest.”
Hype
In a letter for publication to Nation.Cymru, Paul Williams of Cardiff said: “This last week has seen further lobbying in support of this scheme, parts of which include the familiar hype and hyperbole which accompanies an application for a new business park.
“While a new Welsh Government Minister and advisers are pondering whether to grant planning consent for this scheme, it is worth reminding ourselves of the key issues, and also to consider how the Welsh Government has found itself in such a contradictory situation to determine this application.The application is for a c900,000 sq ft business park and a second intercity station for Cardiff on a site of special scientific interest.
“There is no identified funding source for the £120m plus intercity station (public funds would need to be provided), and no recognised demand for 900,000sq ft of out of town B1 business premises. The Planning Policy states that consent can only be granted for development in an SSSI ‘in wholly exceptional circumstances’.
“Well, there is simply nothing exceptional about these proposals: another out of town business park, together with a third Intercity station in the 11 miles between Cardiff and Newport, which has no funding. This station would have a 650 space car park which would attract rail passengers to switch from using public transport and taxis to Cardiff Central to using private cars to this out of town facility. There would be further public expenditure required to upgrade the local highway network to accommodate all the additional traffic.
“If the Planning Policy guidance is adhered to, then there can only be one decision: do not approve the planning application.
“What is now concerning a number of people is whether the Welsh Government is too seriously conflicted to make the correct decision. It is one of the three joint venture partners of the company, Cardiff Parkway Developments Ltd, which submitted the application (and it has already spent in excess of £6m of public money supporting the proposed scheme).
“The Welsh Government is in effect both the applicant and the body determining the application. How on earth did it get itself into such a position? Did the civil servants within the Transport Department not consult those in the Planning Division before advising the then Minister to support this development, on such an environmentally sensitive site? The site has been an SSSI for many years.
“Finally, no one wishes to deprive the residents of St Mellons of decent transfer links, but provide a suitable facility adjacent to where the residents actually live.”
Pressure
This week Mr Gething sought to put pressure on his successor Eluned Morgan during First Minister’s Questions to hurry the planning decision along.
We asked the Welsh Government for details of any further public money that may be committed to the project.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “The planning application is under active consideration and a decision will be communicated in due course. It would be inappropriate to comment further in relation to any aspect of the project until the planning issue is determined.”
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There is literally no station serving east Cardiff and no station at all between Cardiff and Newport. TfW’s plans to change this rely on the UK Government and Network Rail who promised ten years ago when we still had a working economy to upgrade Cardiff Central. That hasn’t appeared so it’s safe to assume more central government funded stations won’t appear any time soon. This proposal is the only one on the table that will connect one of the most deprived areas in Wales to the city centre in 7 minutes. Environmental protections matter but can aim for net zero… Read more »
This proposal is not designed to serve the deprived areas of east Cardiff. If it were, it would be located further west, closer to where people live.
Cardiff Parkway Development now wants government to pay for the station. There is no free gift here.
Nature does not always recover from human harm as evidenced by the increasing rate of species extinction.
But it will serve the people of Trowbridge.
What’s your source of the funding information?
Nature recovers “when given the chance”. Those extra words matter.
Even from Trowbridge the station would be a 15-30 minute walk; much further for most of those living east of the A4232. The Burns report acknowledged that active and bus routes to the rail station would need to be enhanced but there are no plans or funding for those. The rail station is intended to support the business park and commuters, not local people.
It’s about 2 miles from the proposed site to St Mellons Tesco, so even further to Trowbridge! This really isn’t intended to benefit local residents, it will just add loads of traffic to local roads and undoubtedly put more strain on local infrastructure which is already overstretched.
The WalesOnline article to which I was responding stated, ‘If consented, then Cardiff Parkway Developments would need to revisit its business and financial plans in light of planning delays. The initial pre-Covid indicative price tag for a four-platform mainline train station was put at £120m. With inflationary pressures, that would have gone up significantly. … Funding will be tight to deliver any new stations, and the Welsh Government will be looking to the new Labour Government in London for financial backing.’ I doubt the business case for ‘a four-platform mainline train station’ ever made sense, although there is certainly a… Read more »
The whole point of this development is the station is privately funded. Your sources do not back up the suggestion that £120m is coming from the public purse. And like any station it depends on where you live. Some residents will be 30s away. This doesn’t rule out another station between CP and the propsed Newport Road station. A proper metro should have stations 20 minutes walk apart. The Gwent Levels are 14,000 acres. This development is 176 acres, of which much should be rewilded after the work is finished. What species is at risk of extinction from this activity… Read more »
If the station is to be privately funded then why might Welsh Government be looking to Westminster for finance?
How does any cost-benefit analysis show a positive return on the additional £150m from building a mainline rather than commuter station? The gain is only that from several minutes saved from not having to change at Newport, and that just five trains a day in each direction even if Grand Union gets its licence. And that gain would be offset by delay (estimated at 7 minutes) for anyone travelling to/from west of there.
This is hubris not business sense.
The argument that only a small proportion of land is directly affected doesn’t work. On that basis no development would ever be refused because of its environmental impact whether ecological or climate change. The cumulative effect is destructive. It is legally difficult to refuse one application on environmental grounds if another has been waved through.
There have to be rules, like those now incorporated into PPW12, to protect SSSIs and other land of high ecological value. Those rules then have to be applied to all planning applications.
Extinct species will never return. Nature cannot recover under concrete.
Don’t forget that blocking this development doesn’t end the battle. The owner of the land will still want to do something with it. And central government are making lots of noises about relaxing planning rules to help fix the housing crisis. Those rule changes will likely be duplicated here in Wales meaning this land could become 500 Wimpy homes, waved through to help fix homelessness. And without a station to attract high earners from the city centre it’ll just be an extension of New St Mellons for people willing to sit on a bus or in traffic for an hour.… Read more »
The strategic preferences paper for Cardiff’s replacement Local Development Plan states ‘Given this it is considered that no new greenfield releases are necessary, and further housing growth during the plan period will be through a range of brownfield sites within the existing settlement boundary.’ So there is no need for housing on the Levels. The bigger threat is from proposed solar farms. The evidence from the one that has been constructed at Llanwern is that the promised mitigation has not stopped environmental damage. But that has not stopped further applications being submitted. Welsh Government needs to stick to the principles… Read more »
If the new UK Government changes the rules and the Welsh Government aligns, Cardiff’s LDP won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on. I suspect Welsh Labour will be much harder to persuade that beetles must come before affordable housing than they are about beetles coming before jobs and opportunity. It could makes sense to someone under huge political pressure to deliver 10,000 new homes within 18 months to develop north of the railway line from New St Mellons all the way to Imperial Park and reopen a tiny halt at Marshfield while keeping the south side of the line… Read more »
There is plenty of land potentially available for housing in south east Wales without building over an SSSI. Approving this proposal would breach PPW12 and set a precedent that would make it harder to refuse future housing proposals on the Levels. If the business park proposal is approved, I would not be surprised to see the developer come forward later and ask if the towers he has been allowed to build could instead be used for housing if (more likely when) it transpires that there is insufficient demand for the proposed office space. This nearly happened with a new build… Read more »
A business park has a realistic chance of being a successful business park. If rejected as sure as night follows day a housing estate proposal will be put forward. Look at how the solar farms on green land are being waved through. A solid proposal for affordable housing will receive the same political response. It doesn’t matters that other land could be used. That argument didn’t help the solar farms. What will matter is the application on the desk. If the choice is only between a business park, another housing estate or you making a successful bid for the land,… Read more »
You’ve left out the option of following Welsh Government policy as expressed in PPW12 and rejecting developments, commercial or residential, on SSSIs.
Biodiversity matters. We can’t live without it.
The State of Nature Wales 2023 report shows 20% decrease in Welsh wildlife since 1994, 1 in 6 species at risk of extinction in Wales, 42% decrease in species distribution.
This is why WG has declared a nature emergency.
is housing allowed on the floodplain?
Nature can’t recover if it’s covered with tons of concrete ! Offsetting hasn’t worked elsewhere, and in any case, given the scarcity of peat wetland and its value to combatting the challenge of global warming, destruction on this scale should be viewed as completely unacceptable. A commuter station for local people might make sense, as it would actually take traffic and pollution off the roads, but this proposal will just bring a lot of new traffic and pollution to the area.
That’s the point. There isn’t (yet) a housing estate development proposed for this area that really would be all tarmac, brick, slate, and concrete drives. What there is is a proposal with a huge potential to rewild all the areas between the buildings so nature and humans can coexist in the same area. Green roofs, native trees, mini rainforests, green walls, bug hotels, nesting boxes, ponds. Anything and everything like this benefits the development. The developer should have the will and the budget to fully support this because the wilder the area can be the more attractive the development becomes.… Read more »
Trying to spook opponents with the threat of housing won’t work. It’s not even Halloween. This proposal opens the door to further development on the Levels.
And rejecting it doesn’t rule alternatives out. The direction of travel from central government is clear. Millions more homes will be built.
But there is no need for houses to go onto SSSIs. Wales has plenty of poorer quality land. Why not use that?
Given all the empty properties in Cardiff city centre it is hard to imagine why we need another business park with loads of office space. Especially as the trend for office work is towards flexible working. Another mad cap scheme by the sounds of it
The demand is for high quality grade A office space that staff enjoy spending time in, not the depressing 90s call centre battery cages Cardiff can’t shift.
Some grade A offices are now being proposed for conversion to residential.
The proposal contradicts Welsh Government Town Centre First policy. Even the developer’s plans show that two-thirds of those travelling to the business site would do so by car compared with only half to the city centre.
Which grade A office accommodation is being converted?
And this development is distinctive from city centre offices because its semi rural location will attract R&D businesses such as biotechs and VC funded university spinoffs which want to be well connected (especially to funders in London) but prefer a quieter Cambridge science park style environment to work in.
Exactly the sort of businesses Cardiff should be luring away from the golden triangle.
And the transport mode of workers is pure speculation without knowing which businesses will occupy the offices.
Definitions of ‘grade A’ vary but modern office buildings in Cardiff are certainly being converted to residential. A recent example is approval for plans to convert Scott Harbour in Cardiff Bay to 101 flats. Demand for office space has fallen, which has weakened the case for new offices when many lie empty. Newport city centre is worse than Cardiff. ‘Semi-rural’ means contrary to Welsh Government’s Town Centre First policy. I agree that some businesses prefer such locations but what is being proposed consists largely of city centre style towers not a science business park. The two-thirds car travel estimate is… Read more »
This article from last week says otherwise: https://www.business-live.co.uk/commercial-property/big-rise-take-up-office-29943025 And the commuter habits of occupants is completely unknowable without knowing what connections will be available. The Grand Union London services will attract investors but won’t suit many local commuters. The game changer will be the proposed termination of Cardiff Crossrail at Parkway. A turn up and go service to the bay and city centre will tempt many out of their cars. But once you have that service, it’s very likely that GWR would want to stop its regional services from Taunton and Portsmouth at CP so their customers could switch to… Read more »
You’re making up numbers. The Traffic and Transport chapter of the 21/00076/MJR Environmental Statement says, ‘61% of journeys made to the site are therefore estimated to be car drivers’ (p.28). Add in passengers and it’s up to the two-thirds I stated.
As the developer is trying to emphasise the rail station, this figure is unlikely to be an over-estimate. The travel attraction of this land is not just the not-yet-built rail station but its closeness to the M4, which its supporters would rather not talk about.
What services does that statistic assume? Just Grand Union, or Crossrail plus regional GWR?
Severn Tunnel Junction is much closer to the M4. That’s the station to upgrade for park and ride into Newport and Cardiff. There’s a junction that can be opened to the public and decked parking added to ramp up the capacity.
The figure is the developer’s. Read the documentation. As such it is more likely to have under rather than over estimated the proportion of car traffic.
https://www.cardiffhendrelakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Cardiff-Hendre-Lakes-NTS-English-Aug-2020-ISSUE.pdf#:~:text=This%20document%20is%20the%20Non-Technical%20Summary%20(NTS)%20of%20the%20ES,https://www.cardiffhendrelakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Cardiff-Hendre-Lakes-NTS-English-Aug-2020-ISSUE.pdf
Regional services do not require a 4-platform station long enough to support 10-12 carriage trains to/from London.
Any kind of decent rail service needs four platforms because there are four lines. The length isn’t a big deal, it’s just concrete blocks and tarmac.
None of the other new stations proposed between Cardiff and Chepstow will have more than two platforms. Are you saying they will not provide decent service? Four long platforms at least triples the cost. It is unnecessary over-engineering that should not receive public subsidy.
Four platforms are required to future proof for intercity services. Currently the four lines are I believe used as two for freight and two for passenger services. This needs to be reconfigured as two slow lines used by metro stopping services and two fast lines for intercity services to avoid metro trains delaying intercity services. Both metro and intercity services should be stopping at CP. Severn Tunnel Junction is the same, with four platforms which is why Grand Union also plan to stop there.
But there is no need for intercity (London) trains to stop at CP. It would delay journeys for a marginal gain. There is no commercial case for this which is why CPD wants a public subsidy.
As that article explains, the increase in office take-up is explained by a single large acquisition by Welsh Government. Otherwise, ‘Office investment activity in Cardiff was modest in the first half of the year, with volumes totalling £13.9m, 59% below the equivalent period in 2023.’
Cardiff Council has itself cut back substantially on its own office space.
The point is it’s doing fine given the state of the UK economy. Suggesting more office space won’t ever be needed shows a very low ambition for the city. Suggesting there’s no need for a global science park to rival Cambridge golden triangle is to say to young people “be grateful for the call centre jobs”.
What is being proposed is not a ‘global science park’ but office towers that will compete with city centre offices. Look at the plans. They do not show the ‘campus style high quality development similar to existing business park at St Mellons’ proposed in the LDP.
It will take a lot more to rival Cambridge, whose critical advantage is the quality of its university, not concreting over an SSSI. ‘Build it and they will come’ does not work. How many times have we heard these fantasies before? The scale of this project is not justified by likely demand.
This development would be ideal for innovative startups with strong links to universities across south Wales and south West England, all financed by VCs based in London. Such startups can lead to new sectors of the economy developing with their own facilities which just need to be accessible from this location. That covers most of south Wales. You’re right that this outcome isn’t a given. But without a base for innovation like this, it’s far less likely to happen here. And I don’t see why a science park can’t have taller buildings. Are you imagining Bletchley Park huts? What matters… Read more »
You claim this would be a ‘science park’ but the word ‘science’ does not even appear in the 21/00076/MJR planning application. A science park is much more than a collection of buildings. Innovative companies do not choose Cambridge or Oxford for the pretty views but for the close connection with the university and active management of the business park to meet the needs of those companies. This is not what Hendre Lakes offers. The claims of five or even six thousand jobs are not credible. The Oxford Science Park was set up in 1991 and after more than 30 years… Read more »
It’ll be less than 20 minutes by train from Cathays, the heart of Cardiff University and well positioned between Swansea and Bristol universities.
A train link does not guarantee success for a science park. North Bristol already offers both the Bristol and Bath Science Park and Future Space at UWE.
Successful science parks are driven by innovative academics and grow organically over time. Hendre Lakes is property developer led with supporters now adding ‘science’ (not even stated on CPD’s own website) to fool both themselves and the public.
I’m not sure how they’re mutually exclusive? Why can’t a developer led project be attractive to innovative academics and their funders? If CPD haven’t pushed science and tech startups as potential tenants they’ve missed a trick because that’s the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the marketing images. No-one can foresee future demand. Who knows what collaborations could be spawned between Bristol and south Wales institutions. The UWE site being close to Filton Abbey Wood makes this very easy if GWR stop their regional services at CP. This aligns very well with the Western Gateway initiative… Read more »
Science/tech demand for office/lab space is not infinite. I see no good reason to assume a science park at Hendre Lakes (even it that were the intention) would grow to become 50% larger than that at Oxford. This is also not the only proposal in the Cardiff area. The recently submitted masterplan for ‘Cardiff Peninsular’ (next to the International Sports Village) includes the following alongside housing: ‘The Innovation Hub and Business Quarter is proposed to be a community of venture builders, academics, corporate innovators and scale up services supporting an emerging business community, working with Cardiff’s Universities and start up… Read more »
The developers have done a lot of work on this, and forecast an additional 5000 extra car journeys a day from outside the area to the business park. This is bizarre given it will be built next door to a station!
Not to the business park. Clearly the station will also serve as a park and ride.
The near business park that are all office blocks has never been full
to let signs constant
Surely if anything is needed that is mentioned all the time is more housing with a good public bus transport
You don’t want empty offices a place that will run down
This is another £6 million pounds of public money that has been wasted by this Senedd.
Demand is low because there’s no railway station with a direct connection to London.
GWR has no intention of running direct trains to London from this site. £200m of public money to build a station large enough for such trains would be a grotesque waste of public money.
Grand Union have committed to use the station. Where did that figure come from? Even the massive upgrade of Cardiff Central is almost half that sum.
WalesOnline states, ‘The initial pre-Covid indicative price tag for a four-platform mainline train station was put at £120m. With inflationary pressures, that would have gone up significantly.’
TfW is estimating that each of the new commuter stations will now £50-60m and the proposed mainline station would be 3-4 times that.
That’s talking about the costs for the developer, not the cost to taxpayers.
There is no guarantee that the developer will pay. All the indications are that he wants a subsidy, which Welsh Government should make clear is not going to happen.
It’s all speculation without the actual information but projects like this should be a partnership. Private companies can’t just build public infrastructure in isolation any more than they could build a new motorway. What matters is it’s value for money over the long term when you factor all the direct and indirect benefits for the city and south Wales. Ideally government would get on and build proper infrastructure without deals like this but that’s just not the way things are done anywhere in the UK. There is nothing else on the table for east Cardiff. And rejecting it sends a… Read more »
This is a very different story from the promises that have been made to justify this project. It’s turning out to be yet another exercise in dipping a developer’s hand into the public pocket without much prospect of the promised jobs arriving.
This proposal has blocked other opportunities for east Cardiff. It is why TfW has not itself developed proposals for a new station there. The prospect of a vast surplus of out-of-down office space is curbing interest in upgrading offices in Cardiff and Newport centres. The sooner it is put to rest the better.
It’s a totally different market. Ventures that want a busy urban centre with all the facilities on the doorstep will choose city centre locations. Those that want a calm beautiful location to HQ, that’s still well connected to two capital cities, will jump at this opportunity.
Tower blocks housing 5000 staff do not make for a ‘calm beautiful location’.
Compared to a city centre location or a typical business park with no nature allowed it will be both calm and beautiful.
It would have been better to regenerate brownfield land at Llanwern for both offices and green infrastructure. No need to build over an SSSI.
So why would Welsh Government need to talk to UK Government about financing it?
Cardiff parkway, will increase the time it takes to get to London from Cardiff, by the exact same amount that electrification reduced it!
Nonsense. The new Grand Union services will run nonstop from Bristol Parkway shaving 20 minutes off current travel times.
Yeah!! I won’t hold my breath waiting for Grand Union’s services to start.
Their website started in 2019 and after 5 years they still have “under construction” on it. At least the M4 relief road managed to get a website going 🙂
http://www.granduniontrains.co.uk/
That’s only recently changed, presumably the full website for live service is actually coming soon like it says.
The solution is obvious. Forget the business park, there are loads of empty offices nearby. Build the train station to the other side of Hendre Lake making it easy walking distance for residents of Trowbridge & St Mellons north of line. Bonus is that is next to an existing business park and DPD distribution centre south of the line. Lots of people work, but there’s almost no buses so a train station there would make a huge difference.
Who’s going to pay for it? The private scheme needs the business park to make the station viable and vice versa. A taxpayer funded station at Trowbridge could take 30 years to appear.
But CPD now wants government to fund the station.
Source?
WalesOnline as quoted above.
Again that doesn’t support the suggestion that the entire cost of the station is now unexpectedly to be met by taxpayers.
I’ve said that the developer wants a subsidy not necessarily the full cost. That is still an unanticipated cost to the taxpayer.
A less grandiose scheme would be more financially viable in infrastructure cost, more realistic in office demand, and less environmentally damaging.
Which isn’t what you wrote: “CPD now wants government to fund the station”. That’s not the same as contributing to the extra costs resulting from the delay.
It remains to be seen how much subsidy will be demanded. In the worst case, the development could be started then halted until government coughs up.
Blaming the delay evades the fact that there is not a viable business case for upgrading the station to handle direct trains to London. This was not in the original proposal nor in the LDP.
We can’t comment on the business case or the contractual terms which aren’t in the public domain. But it doesn’t benefit anyone to make commitments that aren’t delivered. The risk of a development like this should be shared by the private and public sector. This is how you know both sides are going to be serious partners.
Clearly CPD’s calculations have changed, otherwise it would not now be requesting public money. My guess would be realisation not just that construction costs have risen but also that demand for office space has fallen.
If taxpayer subsidy is required then the numbers should be put in the public domain so that they can be properly scrutinised.
The economy has had a rough ride the last few years. All projects have been replanned. If individual office requirements have fallen, it simply means more tenants can occupy the space. But it suits the move away from soulless offices to higher quality working environments and the move away from the car. The only way it won’t be needed is if the UK is in an inescapable downward spiral. Let’s hope that’s not true.
An office can be soulless wherever it is.
The real transport advantage of Hendre Lakes is not the train. Central Newport and Cardiff already have that. It is closeness to the M4 and the ability that offers to drive there without city congestion.