Cardiff Bay Watch

It might never have happened.

The Cardiff Bay Barrage was almost strangled at birth by people who now are its main beneficiaries. It’s a spectacular success, environmentally and commercially. None of the bleak forecasts of the naysayers have come true.

A sell-congratulatory book was written on the fierce anti-Barrage campaign. For years it divided Cardiffians. There was a very vocal majority opposed to it. There was a fear that the water levels would flood the cellars of homes in Grangetown and the Docks. It did not happen. Magnus Magnuson forecast that there would be lake of stagnant water. When told it could be aerated, he mocked it as the biggest Jacuzzi in the world. The oxygenation is working fine. Circles of bubbles on the surface of the estuary of the River Ely are keeping the water fresh and wholesome.

The anti-barrage campaign may have been a model one that succeeded in getting a message across; but their success would have robbed Cardiff of its greatest asset. At different times a Tory, then a Labour Cardiff MP opposed the plan. They delayed the parliamentary bill. It stretched over three parliaments and lasted longer that the First World War. I think that it occupied more of the House's time than any Bill since the repeal of the Corn Laws.

Many Valleys MPs were opposed because they did not want investments to be made in Cardiff in case they deprived the Valleys. Some green Welsh MPs were opposed because of an unreasonable attachment to the status quo. It was at the time when bills ran through the night. Deranged with fatigue and fed up with repeated appeals to save non-threatened bird life, I made an impassioned appeal to a frazzled Chamber at 2.00 a.m. one morning. It was for a life form not protected by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

The permanently high water of the Barrage will drown the mud sludge habitat of the local rat population. ""Not only the Turd-grebe and the Litter-shanks are threatened"" I ranted " but what will be the fate of rare Grangetown Barking Rat? This blameless creature has no society to protect it. If there was one, it would not be “royal"". Inhibitions stripped away by exhaustion, I reached un-scaled heights of rhetorical gibbering in defence of these mythical creatures.

To my embarrassment three years later, Oliver Heald greeted me with a concerned inquiry about 'those poor rats.' The rats have probably gone or survive on the fringes of the bay. But other wildlife is flourishing, especially in the areas especially  dedicated as reserves.

Today was a joy as I sailed across this immense beautiful stretch of water and took these pictures. For the first 25 years of my life I lived in Grangetown. I worked at Victoria Wharf and at GKN. The bay then was a vast foul-smelling mudscape with grimy polluting industrial buildings lining the shores. 

The transformation is remarkable. Miles of the shoreline are the sites for thousands of desirable waterside houses and flats. Ten of thousands of boats used the vast marina.  The derelict Custom House is now a pleasant pub and Hotel. The dockside wharf is now Mermaids Quay, packed with Tapas bars, restaurants and pubs.
The Senedd and a crop of other magnificent buildings bracelet the bay. The fouled dockside has been replaced with Wales’s most impressive skyline. It is far better than what we the advocates of the barrage expected. None of the dire fears of the opponents came true.

The bay is a glorious triumph of hope over pessimism.

Comments

[patrick]

Cardiff Bay became the first SITE OF SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC INTEREST to be entirely destroyed.A precedent sadly mirrored in other parts of the uk.This experiment involving pretty little houses and rich people with boats proves that no British SSSI is safe!

[PaulFlynn]

THAT WAS THE ARGUMENT THAT DELAYED THE PASSAGE OF THE BARRAGE BILL THROUGH PARLIAMENT, PATRICK.

It was made by Ron Davies who was a sound environmentalist. He believed that the Barrage would lose a a precious habitat. He was wrong. We have gained two precious habitats. One on the wildlife reserve at Cardiff Bay and the second the newly created Newport wetlands. Both are teeming with life now.

The old Cardiff Bay was a paradise for nature in the early 19th century. In the twentieth it was polluted, fouled dump with open sewers emptying into it. That is what we have lost. Some birds did survive in the old- but only just. A film was made to convince us to leave the old bay as it was. It was full of wildlife in trouble. Some had lost legs on the rubbish that was routinely dumped in the bay. The Bay or tha Marl as it was shunned by the local children as a dangerous and dirty area. Now it is a highly prized area for living and for recreation.

[Baneswell boy]

I agree that the Cradiff Bay barrage has been a wonderful success, but it's difficult to judge these things without retrospect isn't it?

You will recall a similar plan to put a barrage across the Usk some nine or ten years ago. William Hauge, Secretary of State for Wales at the time, put an end it it.

On balance I think it was a good idea, but would have put an end to the wonderful privilege of watching the Usk rise and fall each day.

[PaulFlynn]

The 'thumbs-down' for the Newport Barrage was a great blow for the city. It would have transformed the riverfront for the better. The rise and fall would have still been visible from dozens of miles or river and shore in Newport. The bonus would have a great freshwater at the heart of the city.

If only.