Volunteers revive plan to create headland link
AGROUP of volunteers – including engineers and other experts – has resurrected a project to create an uninterrupted walkway from Cardiff Bay to Penarth Pier.
An earlier attempt to complete the trail beyond the Penarth side of the Cardiff Bay Barrage was abandoned because it was seen as too expensive.
But the group, which includes former local MP and South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Alun Michael, is confident that the new plan is affordable.
Mr Michael said the Penarth Headland Link would deliver a boost to tourism and “active travel” in Wales. It would also fill the embarrassing gap in the Wales Coastal Path and deliver a project that was a key part of the Cardiff Bay vision.
Between them the board members of the registered charity set up to take the project forward have contributed “a wealth of professional, business and public service experience” and drawn on “pro bono” support from a number of major companies.
Mr Michael said: “We are prepared to take responsibility for delivering the project, but we are also ready to hand it on to a public body or any other delivery vehicle if that will make it happen. We simply want it to go ahead because of its importance to the economy and the environment.”
The group estimates that the cost of detailed design work, together with undertaking the surveys and other work needed to obtain the necessary consents, will cost around £500,000. The causeway itself will cost between £7m and £10m – well within the cost envelope envisaged by Welsh Government in 1999 and far less than the scheme that was abandoned when it reached £21m and rising. Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan councils have agreed to back the project in principle.