Cardiff Council Update: 16 June 2023

Here's your Friday update, covering:Plan to upgrade Cardiff's Pentwyn Leisure Centre revealed; Council core office proposals move to the next stage; Future of Porter's secured as 20-year lease agreement signed; Refurbished Heol Llanishen Fach play area opens to public.

Plan to upgrade Cardiff's Pentwyn Leisure Centre revealed

Plans for an upgrade of Cardiff's Pentwyn Leisure Centre have been revealed by Cardiff Council.

The scheme would see the centre benefit from:

A new 20m x 8m pool, heated by a ground source heat pump.
A new cafeteria.
A new fitness gym on the ground floor.
A new full-sized 3G pitch and mini pitch.
A refurbished family-changing facility.
A new hall and external space which could be leased to a third partner - potentially to create an area for padel tennis on site.
Roof mounted solar panels.

Cardiff Council's Cabinet will consider the proposals in a report on Thursday, June 22. If agreed it is expected work on site could begin as soon as autumn this year, with some works, including pitches, the fitness centre and changing rooms, completed in early 2024.

Cabinet Member for Culture, Parks and Events, Cllr Jennifer Burke-Davies, said: "I'm delighted we can bring these plans forward now. Cost pressures being felt across the construction industry and rising energy bills have delayed our desire to upgrade the facility, but the Council has always been committed to the project.

"Our initial plans for Pentwyn have had to be reworked in the light of those increases, but importantly we believe we have found a way forward which will not only see Pentwyn Leisure Centre benefit from a big refurbishment, but which will also ensure that swimming will remain an option at the centre."

Read more here

Council core office proposals move to the next stage

A report exploring the options for the Council's long term office requirement is to be considered by Cardiff Council's Cabinet.

Proposals under consideration could see City Hall benefit from a multi-million-pound investment to address ongoing maintenance requirements to secure the heritage venue for future generations.

An Outline Business Case commissioned by Cardiff Council has looked at several options to better align the local authority's office space with business need and energy efficiency and carbon standards. The key consideration for the Council is whether to refurbish the existing County Hall building or build a new, smaller office building.

The report indicates that a new building would be substantially cheaper, while the difference in terms of carbon impact is likely to be marginal. The assumptions set out in the Outline Business Case will be tested in detail through a Full Business Case as the next stage in the process.

Cardiff Council currently has three core office sites: City Hall; County Hall and Willcox House. The report to Cabinet also confirms the current phasing out of Willcox House, with the lease for it coming to an end in March 2024, now that it is surplus to the Council's requirements.

The business case found that, following the move to hybrid working, Cardiff Council requires 140,000 square feet of core office space. The existing County Hall has 277,000 square feet of office space. The next stage will determine the long-term use of City Hall, and the size and cost of delivering a new, smaller County Hall.

In 2021, a report projected the cost to remain in City Hall and County Hall in their current format, considering maintenance and the improvements required for decarbonization, was around £140m, or £180m today, after inflation and the additional work required since the report was published, are factored in.

Commenting on the rationale behind the proposals, Cabinet Member for Cabinet Member for Investment & Development, Cllr Russell Goodway, said: "As the owner of City Hall, a Grade I Listed Building, Cardiff Council has a duty to invest in the fabric of the building, as well as renewing its mechanicals and electricals, such as heating and ventilation, so that it remains fit for purpose as a heritage venue of historical significance, both now and for future generations.

"County Hall, our other core office building, is too big for what the Council now needs, so to keep that level of accommodation would be unsustainable, especially at a time when budgets are extremely tight. Not only that, if we were to continue with County Hall as it is, tens of millions of pounds would need to be spent on maintenance, and to bring it up to a standard to meet future legislation and carbon commitments and given its form of construction the long-term life span of the building would be limited.

"There is not much Grade A office stock available in Cardiff, and the office space that is available would require significant spending to bring it up to standard, on top of the multi-million-pound purchase price.

"Partial demolition or the potential to rent out the surplus office space of County Hall were both considered as part of the review, but the costs associated with any retention far outweighs building new."

Although a new County Hall could be built on several sites in Cardiff, the current Atlantic Wharf location is the preferred option.

Read more here

Future of Porter's secured as 20-year lease agreement signed

The future of popular independent Cardiff bar and music venue Porter's, which also hosts Cardiff's pub theatre The Other Room, is finally secure, with a 20-year lease now agreed and signed for a bigger venue, spread across three floors, at the top end of Barrack Lane.

Expected to open just after the summer following extensive renovation works, the new venue aims to maintain the character and ethos of the original Porter's - but in the words of owner Dan Porter, "do it better."

It was March 2021 when the news broke that the venue would have to leave its current home in Harlech Court, as the landlord had plans to develop the site.

Sitting beneath an elaborate chandelier, in an old velvet armchair left behind from the café that once occupied the site on Barrack Lane, Dan explained that it "didn't come as a surprise to me. It would have been very easy to get despondent, but I couldn't change what was inevitable, so I just had to turn something that many people would see as a negative, into a positive."

One of the first steps Dan took was to reach out to Cardiff Council to see how they might be able to help. "They've been fantastic, I really can't fault them at all, they've been very generous with their time, helping us identify potential venues, facilitate conversations and broker meetings, being there for advice. It's just been nice to have people that I felt I could turn to, who I felt were listening, who I felt understood the situation, and what it was I was trying to do to make the best of a bad situation."

In collaboration with the Council a number of potential new venues were identified and eventually Dan settled on a venue just visible "if you stand at our current front door and look beyond the left of the Admiral building."