Music venue owners are ‘gutted’ at having to close
CLUB 29, formerly known as Twenty Nine Park Place, Cardiff Arts Institute and Steam Cardiff, is closing its doors again – and one of its directors has said business rates, the council’s planning requirements and their neighbours’ complaints are to blame.
The directors announced the closure several weeks after Club 29 quietly shut its doors.
The venue, opposite the National Museum Wales in Cardiff, has undergone various makeovers under different owners, having focused on food at some times and music at others.
The current owners had been increasing their offering of live music and a happy hour that included pints and doubles for £3, and hosted their official launch party on Thursday, April 21.
But just three months later, Club 29 is closing.
Paula Hanley, one of the venue’s directors, said: “We’re gutted. We actually invested a lot of our own money into it.
“Our main reason for closing is that there was a licence for a public house in place but the barrister groups next door didn’t want it to trade as a licensed venue.
“They reported us to the council and it turned out the planning agreements weren’t in line with the licensing agreements.”
Ms Hanley claimed the venue’s licence allowed it to trade from midday until 4am, and that customers would drink in the sun in the garden in the early afternoon.
But after being reported to the council by a neighbouring barristers’ chambers, it was found that the planning conditions attached to 29 Park Place did not allow for this.
Ms Hanley said: “We needed that afternoon trading which is the bread and butter money. [After the reports], we couldn’t afford to maintain the venue.”
A spokesperson for 30 Park Place, the barristers’ chambers, said: “There are planning conditions attached to 29 Park Place for running it as licensed premises, most of which have been in place since it became a pub over 20 years ago.
“It appeared to us that the most recent operators were not adhering to some of those conditions.
“We passed our concerns to the planning department at Cardiff City Council for them to decide what action, if any, should be taken.”
A search of Cardiff Council’s planning portal reveals the planning history for the premises, which includes the refusal of permission for the consumption of food and drink outdoors in 2016, when an application was rejected as it would “create additional noise and disturbance and cause unacceptable harm to the amenities of adjacent occupiers”.
A spokesperson for Cardiff Council said: “These do appear to be unusual circumstances, but it is incumbent upon any new business to thoroughly check that all legal documentation and consents are in place when purchasing or leasing a property.
“It’s unfortunate that the licensee believed they had the right to open under licensing, but was unaware of the need for planning permission, which is a wholly separate legal process.
“When the matter was brought to the council’s attention it had to follow the law.”
But Ms Hanley said: “The main thing was the council planning rules were so restrictive.
“We’ve got a very successful business in Bristol that we couldn’t risk by propping up Cardiff.
“The problem was the complaint by the barristers and the council’s inability to support temporary structures.
“We have a festival tent in the back garden and some temporary tables and chairs in the front garden which we were told to move.
“We will reopen in another area, but it won’t be in Cardiff.
“We loved Cardiff but it won’t be there after our experiences with the planning department.”
Ms Hanley also said the fact business rates are calculated differently in Cardiff than in Bristol was an issue: “The rating system is different here. We were taking a lease from the previous owner and that was the reason they closed – the rates were untenable.”
The rateable value of 29 Park Place is estimated at £81,500, meaning the Club 29 owners would be expected to pay approximately £43,602 in business rates for the 2022-23 year according to the multiplier set by the Welsh Government.
In England, the owners would pay approximately £41,728 due to a slightly lower multiplier.
Minty, who runs the hugely popular Minty’s Gig Guide page, said: “It’s always really sad when a music venue closes its doors.
“The place has so much potential and that building has served as a live music venue in the past as Cardiff Arts Institute, and I remember walking past it earlier this year around January or February and saw the new Jimi Hendrix-style logo go up, thinking ‘this will be amazing’.
“When it was Twenty Nine Park Place before that, they were focused on the food side of hospitality – there was no real premise to have music there.
“In the short time Club 29 was open as a music venue, it provided massive opportunities to students at the Royal Welsh College, University of South Wales and Cardiff University.
“It gave students from those universities an opportunity to go there and play, put shows on for their friends to watch, to gain confidence for them to become better musicians, for them to have that experience of playing for real in a place that isn’t in their universities.
“It had and still has an abundance of potential. It is a real shame that so early on it’s come to this already.
“But venues do re-establish and reopen. New ideas come from local community members and we see new spaces blossom.
“It’s a beautiful building, it’s enriched in music history and some massive bands have played that place in the past.
“I just hope that whoever picks it up next sees the potential and the worth of it as a music venue.”