Cardiff Parkway station? Don’t hold your breath
Traffic jam. Pic: Nayeel Sayed
Press headlines assert, ‘Major Cardiff Parkway train station project finally approved by Welsh Government’. Cardiff Council leader Huw Thomas claims it will provide ‘a game changing public transport option for a part of the city which has suffered for far too long with connection issues’.
Don’t believe the hype. Eluned Morgan has granted outline approval to Cardiff Parkway Development Limited’s plans to build a 90,000sqm business park on a Site of Special Scientific Importance for its ecological value. But her decision will not provide public transport for the people of east Cardiff.
The Planning Inspector had proposed a condition obliging the developer to build a rail station before any offices in the development. At CPDL’s request, the First Minister has removed that condition.
Instead, it now reads, ‘As part of this phasing schedule and plan, occupation of employment floorspace (B1, B2, B8 use classes), 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.’
This gives the developer the right to build and occupy a third of the promised office space before work even starts on a station. That could accommodate up to 2,000 workers, nearly all of whom will travel there by car. How can Huw Thomas claim this will ‘help tackle traffic congestion’?
These offices will not be built until they can be let. That will take many years. Everyone in Cardiff knows the interchange saga: a ten year wait for a bus station half the size our city needs. East Cardiff will be waiting longer that that for a rail station.
There is no guarantee CPDL will ever build one. It complained that building the station first would make the development ‘unviable’, not profitable enough for giant financiers Investec and the Roberts family, who together own 90% of CPDL. If the business park ever reaches 30,000sqm, nothing obliges CPDL to continue construction beyond that.
CPDL’s owners have no interest in the transport needs of Cardiff residents. Politicians like Jo Stevens fixate at the prospect of infrastructure funded by private capital. But it is already clear from press coverage that CPDL would demand a large public subsidy.
Cardiff Parkway is promised to be an intercity station with direct trains to London. It will not be. Great Western have already said they have no intention of stopping there. It could cost £200 million, three times that for a commuter station. Public expenditure must be justified by its benefits but there is no business case for this grandiose dream.
One day, there might be a rail station in east Cardiff. It badly needs one, and it would be better to build this closer to where people live. But the First Minister’s approval of a car dependent business park will not deliver train services. Don’t hold your breath.