"Failed" projects

Thought I would kick off a new topic about schemes in Cardiff that have either not come to fruition, or have not lived up to expectations. I wanted to kick off with a biggie...

Bute / Lloyd George Avenue

Here are two articles trumpeting the plans for the new "continental style boulevard" from 1999:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/regions/wales/390055.stm
http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/cardiff-gives-green-light-to-bute-avenue-boulevard/772895.fullarticle

And here is the most over-hyped quote about the scheme I could find...

"The go-ahead was given for a £120m scheme to create a new Champs-Elysees style tree-lined boulevard in Cardiff."

Now what we have is far far far from this. I would say its a glorified bypass for Bute St... but I'm not sure it's even that. I think there are five main problems:
1) The interface with Tyndall Street at the top makes it an avenue to nowhere. Very difficult to resolve given the bay railway line remained in place and Edward England Wharf was a building to be retained.
2) The design of the road, with its bushy central reservation and fencing off of pedestrian crossings. This makes it a very car-centric road - which admittedly many European Boulevards are - that does not feel very urban.
3) The overly wide pavement on the eastern side. Probably makes the living conditions in the apartments nicer, but given the low height of the apartments, the whole scheme is out of scale.
4) The lack of buildings on the western side add to the feel of it being a bypass rather than an urban boulevard. Difficult given current location of road and railway. But if the pavement on the eastern side had been made half the width, say, there would have been room for buildings (and pocket parks for greenery).
5) The quality of the residential building along the avenue. The only one I find "OK" is the reconstruction of the old granary - and even that ends up a bit of a pastiche. The rest could be in Pontprennau or even one of the newer builds in Llanedeyrn.

Did the original plans show what we ended up with? In which case how could they ever make such bold claims?
Or was it scaled back during the process of development?

Ultimately, I don't know how much control the planning authorities - at this time, still the CBDC, but soon to be CCC - really would have had to ensure implementation lived up to the trumpeted plans. But the contrast between the rhetoric and reality is disappointing.

On Lloyd George avenue, it has turned from being an up and coming area for young professionals to live in, into cheap rented housing for migrant worker families and social housing for asylum seekers.
Walk down and every second window has was washing hanging out, not how the designers envisaged it I'm sure.

low height of the apartments

This is the max height you can get away without lifts!!

The housing stock is wooden framed cheap and nasty, which will probably be pulled down in 10 years.

Oh and its other purpose for the road is to get closed for bike/foot races and to be used as a coach park when there's an event on.

The whole design is bonkers. Bushy areas are a haven for rats, the cycle lane is immediately outside the entrances to the flats, instead cyclists use the foot path as do the new bread of Cardiff taxi driver.


And the cost of this "boulevard".....

Treasury reveals Cardiff's Lloyd George Avenue set to cost taxpayers up to £189m

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/treasury-reveals-cardiffs-lloyd-george-1809289

Yes Zach, you've encapsulated many of the problems in your post.The shrubbery is full of rats. There are probably thousands of them living there.

Walking back from County Hall at night a few years ago I was chased by local thugs. The locals aren't entirely friendly.

Swansea

Swansea

Lloyd George Avenue is absolutely exhibit A, when it comes to failed projects in Cardiff.
An interesting perspective on how the project morphed from a highly ambitious vision (with some pretty lofty social goals) into a PFI fudge can be found here:

http://rhcroydon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11 ... david.html

Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be much on the internet in the way of information / visuals of David Mackay’s original vision. I did find this though:

http://www.rudi.net/books/11767

While it would be easy to dwell on where it all went wrong with Lloyd George Avenue, for me the interesting question is that of what happens next.

Reuniting the city centre and the Bay remains the key strategic town planning / urban design challenge for Cardiff. However, although LGA in its current manifestation fails miserably to do so, there is still hope and the metro project offers Cardiff the opportunity to at least begin to rectify the mistakes that were made in the late 90s.
Some thoughts:
1) The original design concept for “Bute Avenue” was largely based around the idea of a new light rail link to the Bay. It seems that the Metro project will finally allow this part of the vision to be delivered.
2) With new hybrid tram/trains able to operate on the street and railways, this part of Cardiff could become one of the best connected parts of the whole city, with the current shuttle service to Queen Street being replaced by a light rail system linking to both Queen Street and Central, direct services to Cardiff Bay from locations across South Wales and opportunities to extend the current line to areas like Roath Lock and (possibly) the Sport Village.
3) The end of heavy rail also opens up the Western side of LGA for redevelopment. The strategic significance of this parcel of land cannot be overstated. It is essential that the lessons of the Eastern side of Lloyd George Avenue are learned. Development here needs to be of the highest design standards, higher density and with a genuine mix of uses in order to make the area more vibrant - ideally a destination in itself (sorry for the cliché), rather than just a through route.
4) The removal of heavy rail also means the demolition of the ugly wall dividing Bute Street and LGA. Rightly or wrongly this wall is widely viewed as symbolic of a highly divisive approach to regeneration. Removal of the wall is therefore of psychological significance. More importantly though (from my perspective) it offers opportunities to deliver major improvements to the physical appearance of Bute Street and should be a key element of the regeneration of Butetown.
5) There will need to be significant changes to the road layout as a result of a new light rail system and this offers a brilliant opportunity to completely redesign the current layout of LGA, perhaps removing some of the traffic lights and those unloved hedges.
6) More ambitiously, the opportunity to completely reconsider the wider road layout in Cardiff Bay should also be grasped. At least one (if not several) new East – West links, linking Schooner Way to Dumballs Road would transform the area.

While it would be easy to dwell on where it all went wrong with Lloyd George Avenue, for me the interesting question is that of what happens next.

Reuniting the city centre and the Bay remains the key strategic town planning / urban design challenge for Cardiff. However, although LGA in its current manifestation fails miserably to do so, there is still hope and the metro project offers Cardiff the opportunity to at least begin to rectify the mistakes that were made in the late 90s.
Some thoughts:
1) The original design concept for “Bute Avenue” was largely based around the idea of a new light rail link to the Bay. It seems that the Metro project will finally allow this part of the vision to be delivered.
2) With new hybrid tram/trains able to operate on the street and railways, this part of Cardiff could become one of the best connected parts of the whole city, with the current shuttle service to Queen Street being replaced by a light rail system linking to both Queen Street and Central, direct services to Cardiff Bay from locations across South Wales and opportunities to extend the current line to areas like Roath Lock and (possibly) the Sport Village.
3) The end of heavy rail also opens up the Western side of LGA for redevelopment. The strategic significance of this parcel of land cannot be overstated. It is essential that the lessons of the Eastern side of Lloyd George Avenue are learned. Development here needs to be of the highest design standards, higher density and with a genuine mix of uses in order to make the area more vibrant - ideally a destination in itself (sorry for the cliché), rather than just a through route.
4) The removal of heavy rail also means the demolition of the ugly wall dividing Bute Street and LGA. Rightly or wrongly this wall is widely viewed as symbolic of a highly divisive approach to regeneration. Removal of the wall is therefore of psychological significance. More importantly though (from my perspective) it offers opportunities to deliver major improvements to the physical appearance of Bute Street and should be a key element of the regeneration of Butetown.
5) There will need to be significant changes to the road layout as a result of a new light rail system and this offers a brilliant opportunity to completely redesign the current layout of LGA, perhaps removing some of the traffic lights and those unloved hedges.
6) More ambitiously, the opportunity to completely reconsider the wider road layout in Cardiff Bay should also be grasped. At least one (if not several) new East – West links, linking Schooner Way to Dumballs Road would transform the area.

Great points! I'm reasonably optimistic for the Avenue as and when the Metro 'arrives'. I was only looking at this the other day which contains plenty about Lloyd George Ave - from 2013, but very much more up to date than when we first got this avenue...

https://www.cardiff.gov.uk/ENG/resident/Planning/Local-Development-Plan/Examination/Core-Document-Library/Cardiff-Council-Docs/Documents/Appendix%202.pdf

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It's interesting that in Bob Croydon's blogspot he says that CBDC effectively spunked all the money on the Barrage leaving little left for the infrastructure between town and Bay. Would I prefer the vision of a genuine public square and the proposed Bute Avenue (with appropriate density) terminating at the mud flats? Or quickly scuttling through the the mishmash of mediocrity that represents the area south of the GWML to the freshwater lake?

It's an interesting one and I'm not altogether certain what I would choose.

I think that the area between town and the Bay is potentially saveable. LGA shoulders much criticism which is deserved but the development so far of Callaghan Square is in my view equally culpable. The area at the top of Dumballs Road is just an architectural disaster zone. I think CS does as much as anything else to cut off the Bay from town - if you didn't work there who would venture past Bute Terrace?

But the proposed offices in John Street will at least make CS seem more like a square and hopefully add some life to the area. Capital Quarter may not be architecturally excellent but I think the sum will be greater than it's parts. Atlantic Wharf has a number of proposed developments that will make it seem more like an inner city neighbourhood than a suburb. Butetown is slowly being redeveloped and there are the plans for Dumballs Rd.

The big issue is the heavy rail line. That needs to be removed otherwise east to west links will always be compromised and the completion of LGA will never take place.

I must say I think the initial masterplan was flawed too. The width of the 'boulevard' relative to the buildings on either side was just far too wide. It was never going to attract enough foot traffic to warrant such an expanse of paving and parkland, and all those trees would make it seem like an urban bypass rather than an urban boulevard/street. 5-storey bolder blocks, with an office or two at the town end, and a hotel at the bottom end.. buildings on the western side, albeit with parks and paths linking to Bute street. Would have been more urban. Less "empty" feeling.

I think things could be improved a fair bit if the road layout around callaghan square were simplified (get rid of that roundabout!), and the infrastructure of Lloyd George avenue made more urban (get rid of those shrubs, fences, etc). Getting rid of the railway line would be useful, but I fear wouldn't actually add much, unless Lloyd George avenue were moved to the left, allowing construction between the avenue and the new light rail / tram link. (It would open up the possibility of east-west links and views, but at the moment those views would be rather bleak.)