Plans for tallest tower scrapped

Chris Hamilton with a model of the Bay Pointe development

Plans to build Wales' tallest building as part of a £500m development in Cardiff have been abandoned.

At 33 storeys, Bay Pointe would have contained 1,800 flats and would have eclipsed the 28 storey Meridian Quay development in Swansea Marina.

Instead, a scheme for 400 town houses and apartments near the International Sports Village in Cardiff Bay is due to be submitted to Cardiff council.

Developer Chris Hamilton said the market for apartment blocks had gone.

Originally the development was going to consist of 10 residential buildings with one of the towers 403ft (122.8m) high.

It would have provided 360-degree views of Cardiff and beyond.

But when the plans were announced in 2007, residents in the area had complained the towers would have been overbearing.

Plaid Cymru AM Chris Franks also criticised the scheme for containing too little affordable housing and for putting pressure on the local traffic infrastructure.

"We need to readjust the market" Professor John Punter

The project should have been completed between 2014 and 2016.

Mr Hamilton, managing director of Bay Pointe Ltd, said the market from customers and in terms of funding had disappeared for big developments made up of apartments.

Professor John Punter, a professor of Urban Design at Cardiff University, said: "Nobody picked up on the signals that there was a huge over-supply in (apartment) building. As a result we are now in a situation with eight or nine thousand apartments in planning consents, lots of empty apartments but virtually no family housing, which of course has always been the mainstay of demand.

"I think we have got a long term housing shortage in this country, which explains why so many people bought apartments to buy to let or buy to leave; they were essentially speculating on the market and once the market recovers we are going to face an acute shortage of housing.

"We need to readjust the market; we need to reallocate the land in suburban Cardiff, ie: north Cardiff, for family housing, and that needs to take place in the very near future really."

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