By SC Cook. Image: Museum of Military Medicine planned for Cardiff Bay, credit Scott Brownrigg
The fate of one of the last remaining green spaces in Cardiff Bay will be decided on Wednesday when the council votes on whether or not Britannia Park will be all but destroyed.
In its place is set to be a museum of military medicine, a tourist attraction that aims to promote the history of medical advancement through conflict and which will put a positive spin on Britain’s long history of war and colonialism.
If the museum were to be built, it would take up the majority of the park and render it all but redundant as an open green space. Britannia Park sits near the Norwegian Church by the waterfront and is the only publicly available green space in the bay, surrounded by high rise flats and offices, is regularly used by visitors and houses a children’s play park.
A previous threat to the land was headed off by local residents, resulting in it being owned by Cardiff council, but in 2019 plans emerged to sell it to the company now planning to build the military based museum. But the museum has already been rejected by several councils on account of the potential debt it could accumulate, leaving locals wondering why it is being imposed on Cardiff.
The business plan for the museum is has been attacked as “pie in the sky” by campaigners, who says it relies on an unrealistic model which would require a 1750% rise in visitors to sustain it. If the project fails, public money may be used to bail it out or re-purpose the building.
At no point has the local community asked for the museum. In fact, local people have overwhelmingly expressed their desire to keep the park and a decision to go ahead with the development would be against the wishes of the local community, who have led a campaign to save in and held rallies and protests.
Speaking to voice.wales, Huw L Williams, from the Reclaim Cardiff group said that residents had thought the park would be protected as it was owned by the council, and if he wanted to, the council leader Huw Thomas could simply stop the decision by refusing to sell the land. Instead, his council cabinet are pushing the decision on to the planning committee, who vote today.
Huw says that behind the issue was a broader question about how Cardiff council refuses to engage in any meaningful way about the future of such spaces and takes power out of the hands of the people.
“That the council think a main attraction for Cardiff Bay, in the historic community of Tiger Bay and the Docks, should be a Military Medicine Museum celebrating British imperialism raises serious questions about their competence and moral compass,” he said.
There have been calls instead for a fully funded museum of the history of Cardiff Docks and Tiger Bay, the area with a majority Black and Brown population that was partially demolished and turned into Cardiff Bay in the late 1980s. The local community was displaced or pushed into Butetown, with many unable to afford the new properties that sprang up in its place. A museum marking the important history of the docks and its community would not be built in Britannia Park and would be vital for the whole of Wales, advocates of the idea point out.
Yesterday, over 50 people, including community groups, cultural figures and political leaders signed a letter to ‘save Britannia Park’ from destruction.
Nirushan Sudarsan and Elbashir Idriss, speaking on behalf of the local group Butetown Matters, said that the Butetown community had to be consulted on major developments and that the planned museum had been ‘dumped’ on the area.
“Local communities are losing their vital spaces without proper consultation and discussion,” they said. “Our city is changing rapidly, and communities are being sidelined and marginalised as developers are coming in and changing the spaces we value and want. Communities need to have the right to challenge the unfair power of developers. We need to give communities a real voice in the planning process and make community objections so they can be consulted properly.”
The situation brings into sharp focus Cardiff council’s overall attitude to the city’s heritage and green space, and its willingness to give the go ahead to unwanted development projects.
“This is of course at the core of the gentrification of the city and so we are seeing an episode play out here that simply reflects the autocratic and arrogant approach of this council that is destroying the city as we know it,” said Huw L Williams
