Cardiff Central: The price tag of regeneration and renewal
Currently celebrating its centenary as a city and its 50-year anniversary as capital of Wales, Cardiff is the youngest capital city in Europe. A forward-looking and dynamic city where sport and the arts flourish, Cardiff has seen a renaissance in recent years.
Investment in regeneration has not come cheap, despite a recent decision by city authorities to cut £240,000 from the centenary celebration budget; part of £9.2 million saved after the National Assembly threatened to cap their budget if the council did not rethink its spending plans.
The cuts may be of little comfort to residents in the 86,000 properties in the city that have recently been rebanded, with some areas seeing tax increases of 22 per cent. It is certain that council tax will play a significant role in the campaign in Cardiff.
This year the election in Cardiff Central is something of a two-horse race between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Incumbent MP Owen Jones gained his seat in 1992 and held on against Liberal Democrat Jenny Willott by a margin of only 659 in 2001. The Tories and Plaid Cymru polled third and fourth place respectively.
On the ballot paper this year in addition to the incumbent MP, and Jenny Willott making her second attempt at the seat, are Conservative candidate Gotz Mohindra and Richard Grigg for Plaid Cymru. Frank Hughes stands for UKIP with Raja Raiz as the Respect party candidate.
Liberal Democrat Jenny Willott argues that under the Liberal Democrats’ plan to replace council tax with a local income tax, 70 per cent of people would pay the same or less than they do at present, but Jon Owen Jones believes these plans contradict the Lib Dems’ record in Cardiff’s local government, accusing them of “opportunism and hypocrisy.”
“The rebanding decision taken by the Assembly at a time when it was run by a Lib-Lab coalition,” he insists.
Owen Jones says there is “no simple solution” to the issue of council tax and that under the Liberal Democrats an extra nine pence could be put on tax in Cardiff Central.
“They are not very keen to discuss that their local income tax would come in on the poorest sections of society just beginning to earn.”
The Tory candidate meanwhile describes the council tax as “outrageous” and says the rebanding of homes has been a “double whammy” for the Cardiff public.
Jon Owen Jones has now entered his 13th year as MP for Cardiff Central: “unlucky for some” he jokes. He may well be in need of luck on election night – Cardiff Central is the most marginal Labour/Liberal Democrat seat in the UK.
“Labour and the Liberals are vying for the seat. There are very few seats in which that is happening,” states Owen Jones.
He is “pretty confident” that his seat will be lost if local people choose to use their votes to protest against national issues such as Iraq.
“I am not confident. I am determined but I am not confident, I realise there is a fight to be had here.
“I will win the election if people look at the broad balance of Labour’s record.”
The incumbent MP describes the Tories as an all but spent political force in Cardiff Central. The Tory vote in Cardiff central, he claims, has “collapsed and gone almost entirely to the Liberal party.”
Although the last election saw the Conservatives taking only 16 per cent of the vote, Tory candidate Mohindra Gotz believes that the party can make a “huge impact” on Cardiff Central and says he expects to increase his vote share this year.
The sitting MP has strong criticism of the Liberal Democrat electoral strategy in Cardiff Central, saying they are “paradoxically, some might say hypocritically appealing to Left voters.”
“You can’t realistically be representing those who are former Tories while also representing those who are critical of the Labour Government from the Left.”
Jenny Willott is also gearing up for what she describes as “quite a battle.” She is cautiously optimistic about her electoral chances, pointing to a Lib Dem sweep at the local council elections last year and AM Jenny Randerson’s doubling of her majority in the last Assembly elections.
“I think it is going to be very close but it’s going in the right direction,” she says. “I would never say I was confident but it is looking good.”
None of the candidates from the three main parties seem overly concerned at the presence of smaller parties on the ballot paper.
“Cardiff Central always attracts every marginal party under the sun because as the name implies Cardiff Central is the most metropolitan constituency in Wales by far, and every fringe party is drawn to it as if by magnets,” states Jon Owen Jones, unfazed.
Willott is similarly confident that the smaller parties pose little threat. She says that the tight majority in Cardiff Central made people “much less likely to waste their vote on a protest” by voting for UKIP and Respect. She states there has been a “huge positive swing” towards her party rather than votes used as a protest.
“Sometimes people assume that everyone who is switching is voting tactically,” she says.
Gotz Mohindra meanwhile says that the Conservatives have “distinct” policies and are unlikely to be threatened by the smaller parties taking a share of his own vote.
An issue of major local electoral concern is the state of the local health service. MP Jon Owen Jones acknowledges improvements could be made and notes that there have been four reports on the Welsh health service in the past three years, each of which have been critical.
“South East Wales, Cardiff included, is suffering more than most other parts of Wales. Our waiting times position is worse than parts of the rest of Wales,” Owen Jones remarks.
Willott agrees that the NHS will play a major role in Cardiff’s election campaign, and argues Jon Owen Jones has failed the Cardiff public on health.
“The only hospital in this constituency is the Cardiff Royal Infirmary and that was downgraded when he was the Health Minister for Wales.
“Many people feel quite resentful of the fact that that hospital is sitting there and half of it is not being used properly,” she remarks.
On health, says Mohindra, Labour is “not working” in Cardiff, pointing like Willott to the downgrading of Cardiff Royal Infirmary and highlighting long waiting lists.
With a large proportion of accident and emergency cases across Britain directly linked to alcohol misuse, the problems of binge drinking have significantly affected Cardiff. The city centre now has a capacity in excess of between 60,000 and 70,000 drinkers.
The sitting MP believes that the number of large scale drinking establishments in Cardiff city centre should be cut, believing an ever-growing number of bars and nightclubs is “not a sustainable way to regenerate a city centre.”
“The essential problem is the density of licensed properties within a small area,” he argues.
“Whatever regulatory systems you use whatever policing measures you use, that density is going to case a problems.”
“I’ve called for more policing in city centres and I have suggested that should be resourced out of the people who cause the problem.”
Willott, too, is concerned about the level of binge drinking in the city and says that she spent a Friday night out in Cardiff alongside AM Jenny Randerson observing the work of the police.
“It was really interesting. The police have really got it sussed. I was extremely impressed.”
Sceptical that 24-hour licensing and the staggering of closing times would help to tackle the problem of binge drinking, Willott says that greater awareness of the problems surrounding binge drinking is needed.
“The Students’ Union are very good. They run campaigns regularly about keeping the noise down, not disturbing the neighbours and so on,” she remarks.
Willott is in agreement with the incumbent MP on the issue of new resources for the police: “Pubs and clubs should be making a contributions to that because they are part of the reason we need that. It should be to some extent part of
