Nothing is left to grumble about! (From Penarth Times)

Nothing is left to grumble about!

PENARTH Esplanade's "ugly" multi-storey car park is well on its way to total obliteration.

The 1960s-built blot on the landscape is now just a pile of rubble following work which began last November.

The long-awaited demolition is the first phase of the £7.8 million Headland Link project, which should eventually see a walk-way/cycleway constructed around the headland.

Feasibility studies and preliminary design are currently progressing at the Vale of Glamorgan Council, with an exhibition planned for the Paget Rooms from January 24-26.

The authority's tentative programme for the project is: l Planning application - spring; l Detail design - this April to March 2003; l Construction - April 2003 to March 2005.

Michael O'Neill, of Railway Terrace, said: "I was delighted to see it being demolished a month or so ago.

Several folk to whom I spoke on Penarth Pier one day wholly shared this critical view, as we observed the welcome demolition."

He added: "I would venture to suggest that many local people, as well as visitors to our town, would have liked the demolition to have occurred years ago.

"To have lived with an ugly and insufficiently-used building for nearly 35 years was surely a depressing phenomenon.

"In purely financial, let alone aesthetic terms, the project seems to have been a complete dud, a local version of the Millennium Dome in Greenwich perhaps."

Vale Council Environment and Economy Scrutiny Committee chairman Cllr Anthony Ernest said: "I think it looks much better - a great inmprovement. For the first time since the 1960s you can actually see what the sea wall looks like beyond the Esplanade. Losing the parking is an issue, but I think people would prefer we make other arrange-ments such as the extra parking on Cliff Hill."