Cardiff South

The wards in Cardiff include the traditional working class areas of Butetown, Grangetown and Splott. These sections of the city are home to a multitude of ethnic groups as well as communities whose past is rooted in the Docks and the Steelworks. In the early part of the twentieth century, Cardiff was the biggest coal exporting port in the world. The old docklands has now been reborn as the regenerated Cardiff Bay.

The regeneration of south Cardiff has been spectacular, with the creation of a freshwater lake by the Cardiff Bay Barrage, the building of Wales’ first five-star hotel, and the creation of the cosmopolitan Mermaid Quay café quarter. The basis of the regeneration was the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill for which Alun Michael campaigned for eight years.

These developments have led to an influx of new residents, many of whom have moved into new luxury accommodation, around Cardiff Bay, also home of the National Assembly. Prudential, NCM Insurance and AXA Insurance have headquarters buildings here, and Harry Ramsden's opened their biggest fish and chip restaurant here in 1995! By early 1996 the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation calculated that they had created 10,500 jobs of which 5,500 are permanent.

The Wales Millennium Centre, on Cardiff Bay waterfront, is the most exciting cultural initiative happening in Europe today. Not only will it be an international receiving house for opera, ballet, dance and musicals, it will also house under one roof seven diverse and exciting cultural organisations. When the Centre opens on 26 November 2004, it will quickly establish itself as one of the world’s leading performing arts and destination venues. The opening will give the local MP particular pleasure, as Alun Michael has campaigned for a major cultural centre to celebrate Welsh creativity in Cardiff Bay since the idea’s conception.

The suburbs of Rumney, Trowbridge and St Mellons, in the east of the constituency, are largely residential and have been the focus of a number of housing developments in recent years.