Central Square

Broadcasting house is absolutely riddled with asbestos - can you see anybody taking on a listed building with that much asbestos in it?

Broadcasting house is absolutely riddled with asbestos - can you see anybody taking on a listed building with that much asbestos in it?

sounds like the type of investment the Welsh Government would go for

I'm not sure this is the right thread for this... it could fit in quite a few places!

Major revamp of Cardiff Central Station and electrification in North Wales among plans to boost railways

Network Rail has unveiled plans to revamp Cardiff Central Station at a cost of several hundred million pounds.

It has also proposed modernising the railway across North Wales, which could involve the electrification of the North Wales Main Line.

Network Rail revealed its proposals, which aim to meet future growth in passenger and freight journeys in Wales and the borders.

Since announcing its vision for Cardiff Network Rail has funded a project assessing the feasibility of different options for improving the station to make it fit for a capital city.

Modernising the railway across North Wales, with electrification a possibility, are among the choices for funders included in the Welsh Route Study Draft for Consultation.

Early vision plans for Cardiff include:

* A significant increase in the size of its concourse and potentially more than 340,000 sq ft of new office and retail space built within its enlarged footprint and on land on its south side. The existing art deco designed facade would be maintained.

* Like landmark projects at other UK stations such as St Pancras and King’s Cross in London and Birmingham New Street, it will be far more than just a place to access train services, also being a vibrant business, retail and leisure destination in its own right.

The front of Cardiff Station would have a canopy added on overlooking the Capital Square concourse. The draft document from Network Rail covers the railway in Wales as well as the bordering counties. It has been developed collaboratively with Welsh Government, the Department for Transport and train and freight operating companies.

It is hoped the plans will be backed by the the UK Government’s Department of Transport for inclusion in the next round of funding for major rail infrastructure projects – from 2019 to 2024.

With growth for rail travel into Cardiff expected to be amongst the highest outside of London over the next 30 years, the number of journeys from Cardiff Central, the busiest station in Wales, is forecast to grow from 13 million to 33 million by 2043.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/major-revamp-cardiff-central-station-8765287

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local ... ar_twitter

Nice picture.

A few little updates in this article that are quite interesting, nothing firm, but worth highlighting

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/85m-housing-development-could-see-8823695

The article states that talks are underway regarding a relocation of a civil service department with circa 600 jobs transferring to Cardiff. Any jobs are welcome although I'm not sure that this was envisaged when the enterprise zone was set up.

I also read somewhere that Cardiff was being touted as a place for some of the larger law firms to 'north shore'. This is where some of the largest firms in London (and the world) set up regional offices to handle administrative functions and the more mundane legal matters. Baker McKenzie have set up a big office in Belfast with about 350 jobs and Slater and Gordon have an office in Manchester for exactly this purpose. I think other firms are also looking to do this. Apparently Cardiff has not even been on the radar so far which I find extraordinary. I'd have thought that the relative cheapness of staff and office costs plus the easy proximity to London would have made Cardiff a prime candidate for this type of set up and possibly more attractive than Belfast which seems to be way ahead of other British cities. The concept of 'north shoring' in legal firms has been in the pipeline for the last few years so if it's true that Cardiff is not even seen as a candidate then someone somewhere in the 'enterprise zone' has been asleep at the wheel.

An article on this exact same thing if anyone is interested -

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/su ... ullarticle

I found that a bit worrying as well Karl. Sure, they've brought more Deloitte roles, but to not have already been in conversations with some of these law firms is bonkers if it's known that they are looking to set-up offices outside of London.

As for the rest of the artile the change in timescales interested me the most. The last I'd heard about number 2 was that the planning permission going in was being pushed back to the end of this year, all of a sudden this could now be started this September as well as the 200,000 square foot at the new bus station site. If you add in the 135,000 square foot Number 1, 90,000 square foot of Number 2 as well that's almost 500,000 square foot of new offices appearing out of nowhere in that project all within a couple of years, and that's without the BBC Wales building. It's either a marketing ploy or real interest is being shown in Central Square.

All that is without what might be going on at Callaghan Square and Capital Quarter.

The article states that talks are underway regarding a relocation of a civil service department with circa 600 jobs transferring to Cardiff. Any jobs are welcome although I'm not sure that this was envisaged when the enterprise zone was set up.

as long as the civil service jobs aren't from Her Majesty's Retards and Cretins then I'm fine with it.

The article states that talks are underway regarding a relocation of a civil service department with circa 600 jobs transferring to Cardiff. Any jobs are welcome although I'm not sure that this was envisaged when the enterprise zone was set up.

as long as the civil service jobs aren't from Her Majesty's Retards and Cretins then I'm fine with it.

Didn't someone mention in the forum that HMRC were looking to move from Llanishen to Central Square or nearby?

Someone did mention HMRC moving from Llanishen didn't they ?

The only thing is the line in the walesonline article read as if it was a London relocation :

"There is currently an office requirement for around 160,000 sq ft, believed to be from a UK Government department, that is seriously considering Cardiff"

That doesn't seem to tie up with a relocation from Llanishen