Sunday, June 08, 2008

Slumming it.

Very depressed after watching today's Politics Show. There was this Urban Design Professor named Punter telling us that the apartment blocks in Cardiff Bay are going to be the 'slums of the future'. I was momentarily cheered when the local Assembly Member appeared. Surely she was going to put Punter right. But No. All she did was make it worse. The bay has a "Ghost town feel" according to Lorraine. And to really drive the nail in, it was our block at Century Wharf that was featured on the film. That should knock another £20,000 off the price. thank you Lorraine. One thing that did catch my sensitive ear though. I could have sworn I heard Lorraine talking about landlords being tempted to let these empty flats to the wrong sort of people. Wonder what she could have meant - and her a socialist too. Surely not that we don't want any riff-raff in the Bay.

We bought our flat in Cardiff Bay when I was an Assembly Member - at the top of the market. Mind you we sold our old flat at the top of the market as well, so shouldn't complain too much. I suppose I should have sold it earlier, but we like it, and decided to keep it on for a while as a sort of city bolthole. (But its available for Eisteddfod week if anyone wants to pay a good rent for it.) Its a good job I think Professor Punter and Lorraine are talking total rot. I reckon that the builders will be back in action in the Bay in two or three years time. You'll have to judge for yourselves whether that me trying to talk the price up.

A passing thought though. If I'd made a bucketful of profit on the flat, the interest on which was partly met by the taxpayer when I was an AM, there would have been all these 'outraged' people talking about snouts and troughs and paying the money back. I wonder what they'd think of the idea of the taxpayer covering the loss! And No, I'm not making a serious suggestion.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

strange no one was mentioning all thsi, articularly Lorraine, when the going was good? i live in the bay and am not looking to sell so am quite happy, but think it has been poorly planned and ill thought out in many areas. The council has a lot to answer for

Dr. Christopher Wood said...

Anonymous wrote, in part: "The council has a lot ot answer for".

... that would be a Lib-Dem controlled council.

Anonymous said...

I think that you are little optimistic regarding the housing market in the Bay. The market for flats was driven by the buy to let mania of the past few years and that is now dead. Many of the existing planning permissions will not be implemented and housebuilders are in fact laying off staff. Persimmon last week gave notice to about 100 staff. Even with recently constructing flat developments ,housebuliders are trying to off load them to the social housing sector. It will take years for the market down the Bay to recover. The problem with the regeneration of the Bay was that it was good idea but then it all went wrong when the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation had to find some easy wins to bring in the money. The result is what you see today. A pretty soul less place with no community feeling whatsoever. I would also worry about the quality of the build in many of the new flats.I was shocked when I saw the poor finish on a flat I visited in Century Wharf. Put up for easy profits what will they be like in 25 years time?

Anonymous said...

dr chris, currently lib dem, but the previous labour admin was also responsible for a lot of the dross in the bay

Anonymous said...

Christopher Wood wrote:

"... that would be a Lib-Dem controlled council."

No that would be the Labour Council that ran Cardiff during the bay development until 2004.

Dr. Christopher Wood said...

Anonymous> "fair comment" - "fair cop".

Anonymous said...

Truly a man of no shame - complaining that a publicly subsidised flat (to the tune of 11k a year) might not make a fat profit!
Labour is targetting dole-ites and other benefit claimants. It should target the real welfare scroungers...

Glyn Davies said...

little red rooster - I'm not complaining really. But I do think you make an interesting point. I've come to the opinion that all these allowanes should be scrapped and the politician's salary should be based on no allowances - even if this would make it more problematic for someone living a long way from Cardiff or London to do the job. There's just too many people who adopt your approach. Perhaps we should simply return to a position where only poeple with wealth, or people who didn't want to be paid much should be encouraged to be politicians.