ARENA TAKES CENTRE STAGE IN TRANSFORMATIVE SWANSEA PLAN

How big is the Swansea urban area population wise? What we seem to have seen with some cities and regions in recent years, often regions that had declined economically and cities where there was a move away from inner city slums, is that the centres have been re-invigorated. Think Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff in many ways. Students, some business investment, retail etc have brought benefits but the wider regions have lagged - think Rochdale, Sunderland, Merthyr. It seems odd that people would need to be told that Swansea is the capital of south west Wales but maybe Carmarthen is more Lancaster or Durham than Rochdale or Sunderland?

Newport and Swansea 'low wage, high welfare' cities

Newport and Swansea are among the cities which have "low wage, high welfare" economies, according to a think tank.
Centre for Cities said despite one million jobs being created in UK cities from 2010 to 2014, wages fell by 5%.
Of the 62 cities analysed, Swansea had the fourth highest spend on welfare.
In 2014, Newport's average weekly wage was £441, with £3,798 spent on welfare per person per year. Swansea's figures were £448 and £3,976 respectively.
Across Great Britain, the average weekly wage was £504 per week with an annual welfare spend of £3,358.
Cardiff's average weekly wage was £482, ranked 23rd out of 62, with an annual welfare spend of £3,222.
The report comes as Chancellor George Osborne continues to encourage city regions.
Ten local authorities in south east Wales have submitted a joint proposal for a city deal for the Cardiff area.
Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.
Media captionDr Mark Lang said people cannot rely on the "trickle-down" effect of wealth in cities
Welsh ministers have already pledged £580m towards the plan, with councils contributing £120m.
Combined with £580m from the Treasury, the deal would be worth almost £1.3bn.
Social economist Dr Mark Lang has been critical of the drive towards city region policies in the past and said, in reality, prosperity in some cities does not trickle down to others.
He said investment should instead be focused on areas like the valleys, to make sure wealth spreads.
Jump media playerMedia player helpOut of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.
Media captionPaul Swinney said Newport and Swansea face a challenging future
Report author Paul Swinney said: "For Cardiff, I think the future looks bright, we see that it's got a strong economy, lots of high-skilled people live and work there... but I think the challenge for Newport and Swansea is that they tend to have low-skilled economies, they've been hit fairly hard by the downturn in public spending."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-35383537

How big is the Swansea urban area population wise?

Swansea council area has a population is 241,300. Neath Port Talbot has another 140,000 and if you added Llanelli to the mix you'd reach 400,000 or so.

It's not negligable but pales compared to Cardiff which has over 350,000 in the local authority area alone before you even look to the Vale, RCT and Caerphilly. What Cardiff also has is capital city status. It's easy to overlook how much the city benefits in terms of profile, public sector jobs etc from it's official status.

I'm guessing that's why Swansea are pushing the SW Wales capital line.

Who on earth is going to bother adding a 3,500-arena event in Swansea to their tour?
Is that the best use of money for such a dilapidated town?

That was exactly my thought on the arena. If they had planned a 10,000 - 15,000 capacity arena then they could have stolen a march on Cardiff as the CIA is too small for many big tours and the stadium is too big. As it is they'll end up with a slightly bigger St. David's Hall. Not very ambitious.

Speculation here that it could mean an ice hockey team in Swansea.
No chance.

http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/forum/view ... start=1530

That arena won't attract top acts but it will attract the next rung down (which CIA does) and travelling musicals, comedians, etc. There is a question mark over whether there is a big enough market for that though - I'm guessing they must have done some market research on the topic.

In the BBC article on Swansea and Newport we yet again hear the siren call from someone called Dr Mark Lang - work against the tide and try to funnel investment into the Valleys rather than trying to improve connections and links to the cities where investment will more naturally flow. Now I'm sure this guy's heart is in the right place, but we have been trying to boost the Valleys for decades with EU and Welsh government funding. Its not working. Its barely holding back the tide. We need a new approach that works with the changing economic geography, not against it. It's not about forgetting the Valleys and the people that live there. Its about better connections to the cities, and new homes close to the cities, so that people can access those opportunities. And yeah, perhaps some business will flow back up the Valleys as people have more money from jobs in the cities and M4 corridor.

If you look up Dr Mark Lang you'll see his ideas are basically about moving towards an economy based on the one hand on a high degree of local self-sufficiency, but on the other growth through decenralised 'tech' hubs for things like e-commerce, which by definition is about distance-based trading. Its an incoherent recipe for subsidy-dependent poorer and more insular communities. Not the outward looking trading Wales we need for a more prosperous future.

The CIA/Motorpoint Arena has attracted the likes of Jay-Z and is twice (at least) the size of this proposed one.
I just can't see acts like that going to Swansea.

I assume that the arena would also double as a small convention centre. I don't think an arena of that size is doomed to fail - it would require an innovative approach to attracting artists/shows though.

I'm not sure what the angst is about Swansea positioning itself as the capital of south west Wales. It's the de facto capital anyway and the only sizeable centre of population. If we agree that city regions are a good thing then surely a strong Swansea represents the best chance for that region to climb up the economic ladder.

Also there must be millions of people who visit the Gower, Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire each year who simply bypass Swansea. Attracting a proportion of those to either visit for the day or stop over would be a boost. That doesn't happen very often now because Swansea is pretty much divorced from the tourist trail. A strong offering in retail, entertainment could make it an intergral part of the west Wales 'experience' especially as it is one of the few cities in the UK that has it's own beach.

I can't really comment on the plans as they are so vague as to be almost meaningless. I don't think they are overambitious and they do try to connect Swansea with its seafront. That can only be a good thing. The issue for me is that although they have two developers on board thats just the start. SD2 was at least 10 years in the planning and Cardiff was in a much better position than Swansea. Central Square has been earmarked for redevelopment for the best par of 20 years. We just completed the first building and it will take at least 10 years for everything else to be completed. The plans for Swansea cover a much bigger area and are likely to have lots of complicated ownership issues plus an uphill task to attract private sector employers to take up office space, decent retailers and hotel operators and is there a market for modern city centre apartments?

I think they should maybe concentrate on the civic centre site. There are no ownership issues and it's immediately more attractive to residential, hotel, bar/restaurant operators because it's on the seafront. There is enough land for discreet car parking plus open space. The proposed walkway over Oystermouth Road can be put in place. If it's a success demand will build for the city centre phase.

I think Swansea needs two things, a road connecting the west of the city to the city center as trying to get into Swansea from the west is a nightmare of little roads and probably why tourists to the Gower dont stop there. it needs to connect the city center to the waterfront via apartments and a 'boulevard' from the main shopping area, I dont agree that the road needs to be covered to enable this, many cities have busy roads, they just look better, its only 4 lanes of traffic with other cities making these lively areas (in my mind im thinking Orchard road in Singapore except more apartments than retail). I think there is a definite lack of modern water view properties in affordable areas in Swansea, Cardiff city center is much better because of the wealthier younger people living there, who gentrify the area, and is what most Welsh cities/towns/villages need to enliven the their centers, as people with money are put off from going to these places because they are full of the worst shops and makes an environment that allows anti social people to thrive (think Newport before the new shopping center). What i have seen is retail parks become majorly successful because people with money still want to spend locally, and see them as safe easy places to shop that in many respects are mini high streets on their own (think Merthyr). It would be nice to see places like Pontypridd capitalise on their geographic locations as well, the entire town turns its back on the river with little to no interaction, same can be said for many Welsh towns I've been to, even Cardiff does it to a large extent.