How Margaret Thatcher nearly left Cardiff Bay Barrage dead in the water
It cost £120m and 20 years ago was one of the largest civil engineering projects in Europe. But the Cardiff Bay Barrage project was bitterly divisive and could have been scrapped, as John Jones reports
WITH summer right around the corner, it’s likely that many in the capital will be heading to Cardiff Bay in the coming months for a stroll, a bite to eat or simply to enjoy the picturesque waterfront views.
Home to the Senedd building, Wales Millennium Centre and a host of bars, restaurants and other attractions, the Bay is one of the most vibrant and popular areas in the capital, visited by tens of thousands each year.
It’s hard to imagine now that, 40 years ago, the area was still a derelict and muddy wasteland, following the decline of Wales’ once-booming coal and export industries.
The great regeneration process that took place between the late 1980s and 2000 aimed to breathe life back into the docklands.
But while the regeneration project is widely regarded as one of the most successful ccessful in the UK, it did not come about out without its fair share of conntroversy.
In fact, the e construction of the Cardiff Bay Barrage – which was needed to o provide permamanent high water for the bay – almost didn’t happen, n, due to opposition from rom several quarters, including such polar political opposites as then UK
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and future First Minister Rhodri Morgan.
The origin of the barrage dates back to a visit by Nicholas Edwards, the Secretary of State for Wales in the Thatcher cabinet, to the largely derelict docklands in the early 1980s. 1
An avid opera fan, Mr Edwards proposed a scheme to revitalise the area, which would incorporate new h homes, shops, restaurants and a w waterside opera house.
However, there was a problem – th the tidal nature of Cardiff Bay meant th that the extensive mudflats surro rounding the docklands were ex exposed for most of the day, which was seen by most as aesthetically unappealing.
To counter this, it was suggested th that building a barrage which st stretched over a kilometre across th the mouth of the bay – between Q Queen Alexandra Dock and Penarth Head – and trapped water from the rivers i Ely and Taff, would create a la large freshwater lake in the bay, making the area more appealing and more likely to attract investment.
In 1987, prior to the barrage scheme’s approval, the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was established to redevelop the docklands – an area a sixth of the size of the entire city of Cardiff – and put the capital “on the international map as a superlative maritime city”, as per its mission statement.
To achieve its aims, the corporation planned to close Cardiff Bay off from the tides and create a freshwater lake by building the barrage, construct an “arc of entertainment” around the Inner Harbour, and create a grand boulevard linking the Bay and the city centre, with major commercial developments alongside.
But cabinet papers from the previous year – which were made public in 2015 – show the scale of Mrs Thatcher’s reluctance to commit to the scheme.
Writing on a memo sent to her by her private secretary, David Norgrove, who warned her that an early embrace of the proposals risked “another public sector folly”, the former Prime Minister said: “We must not be committed.”
She continued: “The scheme just hasn’t been worked out enough and I fear an elaborate and expensive presentation will be seen to be premature.”
But the scheme’s backers saw an opportunity to transform the area from a post-industrial wasteland into a thriving new centre and an exemplar of regeneration.
Speaking in a House of Lords debate on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill in 1989, Lord Crickhowell – who as Welsh Secretary Nicholas Edwards had set the regeneration in motion – captured the high hopes
behind the plans. He said: “We can build in south Cardiff something of the highest quality which will not only be worthy of the splendid city built by our forebears around the castle and Cathays Park in the period of prosperity and confidence, but will attract investment from around the worldand make an immense contribution to the whole economy of south Wales and to the social condition of its people.”
The regeneration was inspired by the work that had been done in Baltimore in the US, a city that had also seen the decline of its maritime industries.
Michael Boyce, chief executive of the Development Corporation, told the Baltimore Sun in 1994: “We’re seeking to take the existing community along with the development so they are beneficiaries of it.”
A memo from the Welsh Office in November 1986 stated that there was “a unique and exciting opportunity for a first-class new maritime quarter in this country” which would have “an impact far exceeding that of any enterprise zone”.
However, those in the Treasury were concerned by Mr Edwards’ “imaginative proposals”, with Chief Secretary John Macgregor cautioning him against backing the scheme publicly unless it was entirely funded by the private sector.
Mr Macgregor even warned the Prime Minister that Mr Edwards’ plans gave only a partial indication of costs and “did not give any estimates of the value of the possible benefits, nor the criteria for measuring success”.
Defending his vision, however, the Welsh Secretary told Mr Macgregor that he believed “that the barrage proposal [was] fundamental to the successful development of south Cardiff” and that it would be “tragic” if the scheme was “thrown away”.
He would go on to send a handwritten note to Mrs Thatcher threatening his resignation from her cabinet, telling the Conservative leader: “If agreement cannot be reached, I will find myself in a position of very great difficulty.”
Not without support in Whitehall, Mr Edwards’ threat was enough to push it through cabinet committee, with the approval of the plans ultimately a political decision, rather than an economic one.
However, the fight to make the barrage a reality was just beginning, with further opposition from other quarters helping to delay construction.
Environmental groups opposed the scheme, not least due to the bay being an important feeding ground for birds, while local residents living near the edge of the bay feared that their houses would be susceptible to flooding due to the permanently raised water level.
Rhodri Morgan, then MP for Cardiff West, was one of the project’s fiercest critics, saying that it would cost too much money.
While Mr Edwards initially suggested that the scheme “could cost up to £50m” in a 1986 memo, a 2001 Assembly report into the creation of the barrage found that the estimated overall cost of the project increased from £191m in March 1995 to £220m in March 2000.
Also, while it was originally hoped that the construction of the barrage would begin in 1988 and take only three years to complete, work on the project did not start until May 1994 and was officially opened to the public in June 2001.
The biggest civil engineering project in Europe at the time, the barrage was the catalyst for the £2bn regeneration of the old docklands area. It is now managed by the Cardiff Harbour Authority after the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was dissolved in 2000.
A pedestrian and cycle route across the barrage – which cuts two miles off the journey otherwise taken by road between Cardiff and Penarth – finally opened in 2008, after a lack of agreement between Cardiff council and Associated British Ports caused years of delays.
Some remain unconvinced by the barrage, feeling that the project and the wider development of the bay failed to deliver on all of its promises, but there’s no denying the lasting impact on the city.