10,000 are on the housing waiting-list; at least another 20,000 are functionally homeless as sofa-surfers or in overcrowded conditions; the city has 5,000 empty properties and 7,000 empty commercial premises. Yet the council still insist on permitting planning permission for 1000’s more of these overpriced, shoddy shoeboxes…
It’s a question all Cardiffians have asked: “Who the hell lives in those apartment blocks down the Bay?” Well, after weeks of surveillance watching comings and goings, I have the answer: some are let to businesses for managers attending a conference or a corporate jamboree; some are used by the BBC as temporary digs for actors or as venues for end-of-production parties; some are hired out as bases for weekend-long stag and hen dos; some are in the hands of nice retired couples from Ceredigion up in Sin City twice-a-year for a show at the WMC; some are brothels; some are cannabis factories; some are warehouses for knocked-off goods; some contain hives of illegal immigrants sleeping in shifts; some are left empty to accrue value as a pension pot; some are repossessed awaiting auction; and a few, a very few, are actually peoples’ homes. The poor sods.
The names, with their idiot-proof suggestiveness, vacuous…
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