Have you been to Cardiff lately?

I've spent a few days in Cardiff over the last 6 weeks or so. Three of the occasions were to watch the Wales games, two of which were alcohol-based so I didn't really take much notice.

Incidentally the games were ok, not as good a performance as last years Autumn games, but enjoyable all the same. We were sat at the top of the stand, and I mean top - you could not get any higher.

Then last weekend my family and I took a trip there to do some shopping. I wouldn't normally spend my well-earned cash on our rival city down the road, but my wife was keen on going to John Lewis so I had no choice.

My view is that there has been one hell of a lot of development going on in the capital over the last few years and it has got to the stage that Cardiff is now light years ahead of Swansea.

I'll start with John Lewis. Previously the nearest one was at Cribbs Causeway in Bristol. A massive tradtional department store selling quality own brand and branded goods (and its not cheap). Cardiff has the first John Lewis in Wales and its a big one too, so it shows a huge sign of investment in the city from a quality retailer.

Not only that, but the other major department store Howells has recently undergone a refit and is now a flagship store from the House of Fraser chain.

If we compare with Swansea then all we have managed to do is to close our largest store, David Evans and replace it with? ........ a half arsed attempt at a new retail complex that can only attract 2 tenants.

Next lets talk about the development that John Lewis is part of - the massive St David's 2 Shopping Centre. This centre has 1.4 million sq ft of retail, contains the biggest department store in Wales (John Lewis), 304 luxury apartments on top of the complex, 100 new stores, 3000 space car park, 21 cafe's restaurants and bars (including a Jamie Oliver restaurant).

Incidentally they also took the time to modernise the original St David's shopping centre at the same time.

And more stats for you - it created 1000 construction jobs, 4000 retail jobs, and shall add £250 million in retail spending to Cardiff each year.

And what major shopping centre development has taken place in Swansea in the last few years? Nothing. The centre that replaced David Evans is miniscule in comparison. Our St Davids shopping centre is an embarassment that stinks of piss in the heart of the city. The Quadrant is dated, cramped and finds it hard to attract quality retailers. It is still living in the eighties and there has been no major new shopping development in the city for decades.

Next we'll take a look at the new Cardiff library. It was built at the same time as the new St David's 2 shopping centre as the old one was pulled down to make way for the new development. It really is a grand looking building that sits well in The Hayes. Massive bold sculptures stand outside with modern street furniture and wide pedestrianised areas that give a truly European boulevard feel to the area.

And what of Swansea library? It was recently moved from the old, but architecturally pleasing home at Alexandra Road to disused offices at County Hall. Yes I've been there and the library is modern, light and nice to visit, but by no means does it compare to the prolific new building that Cardiff has offered. It's just another example of the lack of vision, penny pinching, backward council we have at Swansea.

 

Finally, to top it all off Cardiff even has a bigger bloody Christmas tree than us.

 

 

And two of them. (Ok, one is a steel frame with fir tree branches spread over it that houses Santa's grotto, but you see what I'm getting at).

Slowly Swansea City is being bled to death. It's the fault of the council with years of neglect, mis-management, lack of development, poor decision making and changing of mind from focussing on out of town retail to city centre retail. This has gone on for at least 20 years so its the fault of the previous Labour administration and the current clueless rabble.

For the last 2 years the council thought it fun to put red dye in the Castle Square fountain to celebrate St Valentines day. Perhaps it was a sign of the times to come and their intention to kill off this great city centre. We have always lived under the shadow of Cardiff, but that shadow has now grown so large that I fear we may never get close to crawling out from under it.