Cardiff Bay Development Corporation (Area and Constitution) Order 1987 (Hansard, 1 April 1987)

§ The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Lord Trefgarne)
My Lords, I beg to move, That the order laid before the House on 12th January be approved.
This order is made under provisions in the Local Government Planning and Land Act 1980. Under Section 134 of that Act the Secretary of State for Wales is empowered to designate an urban development area. Section 135 empowers him to establish a corporation for the purpose of regenerating the area. The order before your Lordships designates an area of 1,089 hectares in the City of Cardiff and the Borough of the Vale of Glamorgan in the County of South Glamorgan and will establish the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation to bring forward the redevelopment of the area. Incidentally, I am told that 1,089 hectares is 2,700 acres.
The order has been judged to be hybrid and a petition was made against it. A Select Committee of your Lordships examined the case put forward by the petitioners for the exclusion of an area of land from the urban development area. The Select Committee concluded that the order should proceed unamended. I am pleased to say that there were no petitions against the establishment of the corporation as such.
The Cardiff Bay area was once the hub of commercial activity in Cardiff, reflecting in particular the growth in coal production at the end of the last century and the early part of this. At one time, the port of Cardiff had a greater throughput of traffic than any other port in the world. The decline in coal exports from the time of the Great War however saw a decline in port-related activity and this decline has continued to the present day.
Some of your Lordships know the area a good deal better than I and will know that the two main communities in the area epitomise many of the problems associated with our inner cities. It is right that these communities should look to government both central and local to help bring about change. This is the objective, and we are confident that the future 659 holds out every prospect of new life being breathed into the area to make it once again a vibrant and important centre for the economy of Wales.
I am pleased that the proposal before your Lordships has met with widespead support in the area. All the local authorities in the area have pledged their full backing for the proposed corporation, including the South Glamorgan County Council under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Brooks of Tremorfa. It is, I believe, highly relevant that this support spreads right across the political spectrum.
It is for this reason that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has decided that the corporation, by working closely with the local authorities and other public bodies in the area, can be small but will have to provide the drive and motivation to bring this massive redevelopment forward. My right honourable friend has decided not to give the corporation all the development control functions given to the UDCs in England at the outset as he believes that the cooperative approach with the local authorities can provide the necessary stability in policy terms and produce the quick decision-making necessary if the private sector is to have the confidence to invest. The corporation will have all the powers necessary to see its task through, including the powers for land acquisition, land reclamation and servicing, the provision of infrastructure and will be able to work with the private sector to bring forward development.
The chairman-designate of the corporation has already been announced. Mr. Geoffrey Inkin knows the area well and has the enthusiasm and drive to make a success of this project. Other appointments to the board will be announced very soon and will include a number of local people who have close ties with the area as well as others who have the particular skills and experience necessary to ensure that the corporation is successful.
The studies that we have commissioned suggest that, this is a rare opportunity to develop a superb environment setting which will have few, if any, competitors in Great Britain". The corporation is needed to ensure that this opportunity is grasped. The local authorities and others in the local community agree with the Government that this is the way forward. I commend the order to the House. I beg to move.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, for his explanatory opening speech. We are also glad that he has found the time to sail from the unpredictable seas of the Ministry of Defence into the peaceful haven of Cardiff Harbour. We are also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, the Chairman of the Select Committee, and his noble colleagues for their work in the Select Committee.
Cardiff is a capital city of which we have every right to be proud. Its civic centre with its fine, well laid out buildings would grace any capital city. I remember the late Clement Attlee saying that it was one of the finest 660 in the world. Its people, moreover, are industrious and forward-looking. Wales, historically, had no fixed capital city although there were attempts to establish one over many years. It is the kind of subject upon which it is not easy to find a solution in Wales. Sir Owen Edwards, who was a Member of the other place for a time, begins his history of Wales with this sentence: The history of Wales is a history of tribal warfare.". When I was Chairman of the Welsh Parliamentary Party many years ago I had the privilege of leading a deputation of my colleagues to the then Home Secretary to recommend that Cardiff should be designated as the capital city of Wales. It was a bold, some say a rash, step to take because Swansea, Aberystwyth and Caernarfon also laid claim to the distinction. I confess that as a native of Gwynedd and then the Member for Anglesey I felt in my heart that Aberffraw, the capital of the great Llywelyns, had some claim to consideration. However, our task was made easy because at that time the Home Secretary was a Welshman—the late Gwilym Lloyd George. We overcame our tribal loyalties and decided that Cardiff was a worthy choice. We have not been disappointed; and all parts of Wales look to Cardiff as its capital city—even those from the far North.
The House will be aware of some of our problems in Wales at the present time. We suffer from unacceptably high levels of unemployment, especially in some areas, and there is a need for urban renewal on a substantial scale. The chief cause of our difficulty has been the decline of our basic extractive industries on which we had become over-reliant and upon which the great ports of South Wales, notably Cardiff, depended for their prosperity. The tragic disaster of Aberfan, which shocked the world, was a poignant reminder that major changes and new developments are urgently required.
As Secretary of State at the time—Aberfan was the worst moment in my career in politics; and I know I have the sympathy and understanding of my noble and learned friend who was Attorney-General at the time—I recall in a discussion of the implications with Sir Goronwy Daniel, the Permanent Secretary, asking if there was anything we could extract from so awful a catastrophe. Out of that we created the derelict land unit which has during the intervening years carried out one of the most extensive programmes of land reclamation in the whole of Europe.
Cardiff inevitably suffered from the decline to which I referred, but it has also developed into a great administrative, commercial and cultural centre and many interesting projects are now under way there. But the greatest project and the most exciting enterprise is the one we are discussing this evening. If it is fully realised it will bring a new impetus and a new opportunity to Cardiff and also to the adjoining areas. I sense an atmosphere of hope and of excitement in Cardiff which does not exist in many places today. I remember sensing the same spirit when I visited Aberdeen a few years ago.
This proposal to develop the Cardiff waterfront is partly responsible for this expectant atmosphere. It is comparable with the London dockland development and a few other similar projects. A study by the well- 661 known firm of Messrs. Jones Lang Wootton found that there is an area in South Cardiff of about 3,000 acres which is immediately available for development; of which 600 acres are immediately available for development close to the water's edge. I note that the right honourable gentleman the Secretary of State for Wales, who has played a major role, compares it with the waterside development of the Baltimore inner harbour in the United States which is now world famous and which attracts over a million visitors each year.
The commercial, cultural and entertainment possibilities are endless and there are ample attractive sites for imaginative housing development. I understand that it comprises 65 per cent. of the land immediately available for industrial development in the whole of the City of Cardiff. What is proposed is that this huge derelict area can be transformed to the immense advantage not only of Cardiff but of the economy of South Wales, and especially the valleys of South Wales which have suffered so much in terms of employment and industrial dereliction over many years.
The support for the scheme in the Cardiff area is widespread and enthusiastic and my friends from the local authorities are anxious to get it under way. This can be summarised in the words of Mr. Eurfyl Davies, the Cardiff City Planning and Development Officer, who said: Cardiff City Council has long been concerned about its docklands area with its serious problems of declining economic activity, social deprivation and physical decay and is highly committed to its regeneration". Mr. Davies was one of the witnesses who appeared before the Select Committee of this House but he was reflecting a general view when he uttered those words. He also emphasised the importance of the inclusion of the whole Roath Basin area within the early development.
As the noble Lord said, this is a project supported by all local authorities including the South Glamorgan County Council, the Vale of Glamorgan Council and, of course, Cardiff City Council. It also embraces all political parties and all public bodies. It is right that I should also mention that my right honourable friend Mr. James Callaghan has taken a great interest in this venture and is in full support of it. The city council has underlined its commitment in several ways and I should like to pay tribute to it for the enterprise and the work it has done.
This is a substantial commitment, as the House must agree. One obvious and essential point is that this great scheme must be adequately planned and administered. There must be effective central control. We note with great interest the composition of the corporation; with five directors from the local authorities together with eight others and a chairman who has already been appointed by the Secretary of State, as the noble Lord mentioned. We wish the new chairman every success in his important task. We hope that the other members will be able, experienced and with a commitment to Cardiff and to Wales.
This scheme will be in our capital city and it must have a Welsh flavour and be identifiably Welsh. We give this enterprise our warm support. We shall watch 662 its progress with great interest and we wish all those who devote their energies to it every success.

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for the warm welcome he has given the proposal that I have ventured to bring before your Lordships this evening. Perhaps I may finish on a personal note. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State has been very much the architect and supporter of this project from the start; indeed he has given it his close and continuing personal attention during the preparation of the various orders and their passage through the other place. He was, in fact, good enough to assist me in preparing my remarks to address to your Lordships this evening. My right honourable friend has made it clear that he does not intend to stand at the next general election. I venture to suggest that this project will remain as a memorial to his time in the Welsh Office; and a very splendid memorial it will be.