ARENA TAKES CENTRE STAGE IN TRANSFORMATIVE SWANSEA PLAN

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.

That's because the rivers were filthy things when these places were developed. I'm old enough to remember just how rank the Taff was back in the day. Quite literally if you put your hand in it, it would come out black with coal dust! It's not an easy job to carve out a 'river-front' in most valley towns although in principal it's a good idea.

In the 1970's someone died from Wiel's disease after falling in the Taff at Cardiff.

Now there are salmon in the river and otters in Bute Park, anglers travel from all over the UK to fish the Taff for trout and grayling.
In 2009 The Rivers International Fly Fishing Championships was held on the Taff at Merthyr!

Sounds like its time to capitalise on people wanting a water view then, and throw in a local shop and cafe for residents and visitors, and you have a small hub to build on that might attract other developers much like i can see happening to Newport, thought their waterfront is blighted by the tide!

I've often thought that the strength of river bank between Taff St and Ynysangharad Park would be fantastic for some sort of water-view development, be it shops or cafe or something. It would really help link the town with the park too. When there was discussion about redeveloping the Precint, that should have been their focus.

There's a total lack of imagination in the RCT for encouraging such development. Worse still, there are an awful lot of people who don't see any fault in Pontypridd. Sure, they'll say it's not what it used to be, but many of the old generation are so stuck in the past is just sad.

I agree with previous posts, people like Dr Mark Lang are well-meaning, but simply aren’t in the real world. This constant drive to spread out crucial funding is just wasting money! There’s never enough put in all these little pots to make a serious impact in some of these former industrial towns. At the same time, it damages Cardiff’s prospect of achieving some sort of critical mass as a city.

The only way the Valleys are going to see drastic improvements is for them to see themselves as suburbs of Cardiff, as part of our Metro area, with good transport links into the capital. Cardiff as a city with population of say 341,000 is not worth writing home about. Cardiff drawing upon a population pool of around 2,000,000 and suddenly it’s a more serious player. And thinking in these sort of terms it’s all about mind-set.

Consider Melbourne, the capital city of the state of Victoria, Australia and a city I know extremely well have lived there for years. It has a population of around 4,348,000 and is the fastest growing city in Australia. Its metro region covers an area of 3,857 sq miles. Melton, with a population of c.110,000 is a suburb of Melbourne, but it’s 45km (28 miles) from Melbourne’s CBD. Frankston, with a population of c.135,200 is about 54km (34 miles) from Melbourne’s CBD. People think nothing of commuting every day from these suburbs and from towns farther away. In comparison, Cardiff to Merthyr is only 23 miles away! Cardiff to Blaenau Gwent is only 32 miles on the A470. Yes, Melbourne is much, much flatter than Cardiff and the Valleys, but the principle still holds.

Swansea needs to think in the same terms too.