Creative industries in Cardiff are on the rise, with an emerging digital media cluster and a fast growing TV and film industry focused at Cardiff Bay’s Porth Teigr. Here the BBC has created 170,000 square foot of drama studios at Roath Lock, which has the largest drama studios in the UK. There’s also GloWorks, which is a Welsh government creative industries centre for independents, and Pinewood Studios, which opened a Cardiff facility in 2015.
At a grassroots level across the city there are burgeoning arts, creative and entrepreneurial scenes, with a growing appetite for like-minded people to share and celebrate their passion and knowledge in an increasing number of networks. Cardiff is undergoing exciting changes as it expands and key areas of the city centre are redeveloped, including the relocation of BBC Wales from Llandaff to a prime site opposite the central train station. It’s a resurgence that continues to gather pace.
Between 2002 and 2010, a larger proportion of the city’s companies were classified as ‘high growth’ than any other UK core city. Economic strengths lie in the financial and business services sector – motor insurer the Admiral Group plc was founded here.
With a turnover of £700 million and employing 10,000 people, Cardiff’s higher education bodies also play an important role in the local economy, while the 42,000 students who live and study here (with an extra 30,000 throughout the city region) help to make it a vibrant place to live and socialise. These institutions are also training up the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs, alongside technically skilled and proficient workers.
Further developing this culture, Cardiff University is investing in an innovation campus that will feature the world’s first social science research park, and a state-of-the-art cancer and mental health research centre. A Life Sciences Hub, with £100m accelerator funding, also hopes to facilitate this growing field and increase the sector’s contribution to the Welsh economy by more than £1 billion by 2022.
On the subject of medical breakthroughs, the BBC now shoots major television series such as Casualty and Holby City in Cardiff, as well as Doctor Who and Torchwood and many other one-off productions. This ensures that you’re never more than 200 metres from someone who at least appears to be a medical professional. Or a Dalek.
Pictures from Flickr by Jeremy Segrott, Llandaff News & Laura
