The Leckwith development is in the

Leckwith Leckwith () is a small village in the Vale of Glamorgan, just west of Cardiff. Historically, the parish of Leckwith also included land on the east side of the river Ely that is now part of Cardiff itself. This area is also commonly known as Leck ...

area of southwest

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

, Wales. Work started in Autumn 2007 with the construction of a new stadium for

Cardiff City F.C. Cardiff City Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Cardiff, Wales. It currently competes in , the third tier of the English football league system in the 2025–26 season following relegation. Founded in 1899 a ...

The proposal

The project consisted of: * A new 26,828 seat stadium for Cardiff City F.C. STADIUM NEWS – Official Cardiff City F.C. Website
/ref> * A retail park with 18 retail units * A New athletics stadium to replace the recently demolished

Cardiff Athletics Stadium The Cardiff Athletics Stadium (also known as Leckwith Athletics Stadium) was an athletics and football stadium in Cardiff, Wales. It opened in 1989 and was demolished in 2007, replaced by the Cardiff International Sports Stadium. The Cardif ...

* A new housing estate on the site of the current

Ninian Park Ninian Park was a association football, football stadium in the Leckwith, Cardiff, Leckwith area of Cardiff, Wales, that was the home of Cardiff City F.C. for 99 years. Opened in 1910 with a single wooden stand, it underwent numerous renovatio ...

Stadium * A 70-room hotel with bar and restaurant * A new

Glamorgan Archives The Glamorgan Archives (), previously known as the Glamorgan Record Office, is a county record office and repository based in Leckwith, Cardiff, Wales. It holds records for the whole of the historic county of Glamorgan but primarily for the po ...

to house archives from the historic county of Glamorgan and worldwide genealogical resources. Completion of the development was planned for Spring 2010.

Three way land-swap

To complete the deal, it involved a simple land-swap arrangement of existing facilities across three sites: *

Cardiff Council Cardiff Council, formally the County Council of the City and County of Cardiff () is the governing body for Cardiff, one of the Administrative divisions of Wales, principal areas of Wales. The principal area and its council were established ...

gave a nominal 125year lease to Cardiff City on a 40acre block of land, on which the former Cardiff Athletics Stadium stood *Cardiff City agreed to build a new athletics stadium on a further 20acre council owned plot north of the existing site *On completion of the new athletics stadium, Cardiff City gained the 125-year rent-free lease. On half of the land they developed the new Cardiff City stadium and retail park *The residual 20acres would be used for development of the new Glamorgan Record Office (at the cost of the council), a hotel (build by the football club, which they could lease off) and the community sports facility House of Sport (built at the cost of football club, run by the council). If the football club failed to complete House of Sport development by December 2009, then the lease on the hotel would forfeit to the council *The football club, once they had moved stadium, could sell the land of the former

stadium for housing redevelopment Unfortunately, due to unforeseen issues in construction across the two council owned sites, the football club incurred additional costs. This initially resulted in an agreement to lapse the development of the House of Sport until December 2010. In January 2009, with Cardiff City facing a winding-up order due to an outstanding £2.7M bill to

HMRC His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (commonly HM Revenue and Customs, or HMRC, and formerly Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) is a Departments of the United Kingdom Government, department of the UK government responsible for the tax collectio ...

, the club asked the council for permission to sell the residual 20acres to a developer.

Capital Shopping Park

The Capital Shopping Park in Leckwith, started building at the end of 2007 and originated from the idea of a new stadium for Cardiff City FC. The retail development was completed in 2009 and has a total of 21 tenants including

Costco Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, and as of August 2024, Cos ...

Asda Asda Stores Limited (), trading as Asda and often styled as ASDA, is a British supermarket and petrol station chain. Its headquarters is in Leeds, England. The company was incorporated as Associated Dairies and Farm Stores in 1949. It expanded ...

, ScS, Next, Hobbycraft, Smyths Toys and Costa. It has of retail space. It was originally owned by Capital Retail Park Partnership, which is owned by commercial developer PMG, but in February 2014 it was sold to

Aberdeen Asset Management Aberdeen Asset Management plc was an international investment management group, managing assets for both institutions and private investors from offices around the world. Its head office was in Aberdeen, Scotland. The company was listed on the ...

for £59.65 million.

Matalan Matalan Retail Ltd is a British clothing and homewares retailer based in Knowsley, Merseyside, founded by John Hargreaves in 1985. In August 1988, its operations director at the time, Duncan Sullivan, transformed Matalan into an out-of-town wa ...

were named in an original planning application, but pulled out in March 2005.

Cardiff City Stadium

The new stadium has 33,280 seats and is home to

club. The stadium also hosted the home matches of the

Cardiff Blues Cardiff Rugby () are one of the four professional Welsh rugby union teams. Based in Cardiff, the team play at Cardiff Arms Park. Originally formed in 1876, from 2003 to 2021 the first team was known as the Cardiff Blues before rebranding back ...

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

team until the 2011–12 season. It is the second largest stadium in Cardiff and also Wales (the largest being the

Millennium Stadium The Millennium Stadium (), known since 2016 as the Principality Stadium () for sponsorship reasons, is the national stadium of Wales. Located in Cardiff, it has a retractable roof and is the home of the Wales national rugby union team; it has ...

). The stadium cost £29,000,000,

Laing O'Rourke Laing O'Rourke is a multinational construction company headquartered in Dartford, England. It was founded in 1978 by Ray O'Rourke. It is the largest privately owned construction company in the United Kingdom. History The company was founded by ...

was contracted for the whole development.

Cardiff International Sports Stadium

The new athletics stadium, built to replace the previous

which was demolished to make room for the new rugby and football stadium. Construction started in March 2007. The athletics stadium is the only part of the development to not be built by the main contractor,

and instead individual contractor, Cowlin Construction. The stadium will include a gym, meeting rooms, and several offices, which should be completed in the new year. Members of the public are now permitted to come and watch the events that are taking place on the track or field in the now completed stand. The track and field are now open for public use.

Glamorgan Record Office/Glamorgan Archives

The Glamorgan Record Office moved to a site behind the new football stadium from the Glamorgan Building in Cathays Park at the end of 2009. The newly renamed Glamorgan Archives offers facilities for visitors to search its 8.5 km of archives relating to the historic county of Glamorgan, as well as conference space for workshops, lectures and school groups, and a modern paper conservation studio.

Leckwith and Droves allotments and city farm

The

retail park A retail park is a type of shopping centre found on the fringes of most large towns and cities in the United Kingdom and other European countries. Retail parks form a key aspect of European retail geographies, alongside indoor shopping centres, ...

now rests on the site previously occupied by Cardiff's city farm.

originally planned for the

to be built on the current site of the allotments, located on Bessemer Road. Some of the unused plots at the entrance to the allotments were planned to become the site for a new community centre for disabled children and people with learning disabilities, run by Cardiff-based charity,

Vision 21 Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

. This development was accepted by

on 20 October 2008, in their development control announcements. This site was to include a café, garden centre, a small shop, offices and meeting rooms.

Ninian Park housing estate

The stadium was handed over to Redrow Homes by Cardiff City chairman

Peter Ridsdale Peter Ridsdale (born 11 March 1952) is an English businessman who is a director at Preston North End. He was until December 2011 the Chairman of Football Operations at Plymouth Argyle. Ridsdale was previously the chairman of Leeds United, Barns ...

on 10 September 2009. Redrow was to build 142 new homes on the site. The development was still to be known as Ninian Park. A planted square was proposed at the centre of the new housing development, in the area of Ninian Park football ground's centre spot. The first show home of the £24m development was to open by late spring 2010, with a mixture of terraced, detached and semi-detached houses. The estate welcomed its first residents in November 2010. The main road was named Bartley Wilson Way after the founder of Cardiff FC.

References

External links

Cardiff City Stadium

Glamorgan Archives

Cardiff City F.C.

Welsh Athletics
{{Economy and Industry of Cardiff Economy of Cardiff Buildings and structures under construction in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in Cardiff Redevelopment projects in Cardiff