Cardiff’s ambitious new tower standing tall in UK

IT MIGHT not be known for its skyscrapers, but Cardiff is steadily climbing up a “tall buildings” league table of UK cities.

New rankings, based on the height of a city’s tallest building that is either already built or under construction, shows Cardiff is now in fourth place – behind only London, Manchester and Liverpool.

It has gained that rating for the 132m and 42-storey-high student accommodation tower in the centre of Cardiff from property development firm Watkin Jones.

The project, on Customhouse Street, was given planning consent last year and is due for completion next summer. It will be home to around 450 students.

The analysis by property advisory firm GVA includes projects with planning consent and yet to be completed.

There are, of course, far more buildings in London – including the BT Tower and HSBC’s corporate HQ in Canary Wharf – that are significantly higher than Cardiff’s new student tower block.

But the ranking is based on the tallest single building in each city. The top five cities are: London – the 310m-tall Shard; Manchester – the 169m Beetham Tower; Liverpool – the 140m West Tower; Cardiff – the 132m student tower from Watkin Jones; and

Birmingham – the 130m 10 Holloway Circus.

The new tower in Cardiff will be much taller than the existing highest building in the capital – the 80m-high Capitol Tower – and the current tallest completed building in Wales, Swansea’s Meridian Tower at 107m.

Owain Griffiths, of GVA, said: “There has been a clear political appetite for tall buildings in Cardiff.

“Cardiff council’s newly elected members of the planning committee appear to have the same appetite, having just granted planning permission for a 32-storey (97m-high) student accommodation development at Hallinans House on Newport Road, an application by Boardroom Properties and Howells Properties.

“Positively, the council’s supplementary planning guidance on tall buildings provides support and guidance for such proposals.

“It identifies examples of appropriate locations for tall buildings such as along railway corridors, urban corner sites in the core of the city centre, and sites that form part of existing clusters of tall buildings.”

Together with the Watkin Jones development, the other tall buildings granted consent since July 2016 in Cardiff include:

JR Smart’s office/retail development on John Street at 86m;

Watkin Jones’ student-led mixeduse development on Charles Street at 82m, as well as a student development of the same height on Herbert Street from the Bangor-based developer.

In terms of comparably sized cities, the 42-storey-high Watkin Jones development will also surpass Leeds, Brighton, Sheffield and Belfast’s highest buildings.

Meanwhile, across the water in Bristol, the local authority has recently granted planning permission for what will be the city’s tallest building in in its Redcliff Quarter development, standing at 82.7m.