Volume Five - The Age of Decline & Crass Stupidity - Draining the dock - then oops! . . .

The building of the marina dam c.1985-86 and the 'Portway' marina in 1989.

In March 1993 it was announced in the Financial Times that "Nuttall has won the £8.3m Penarth Haven landfill treatment and phase one infrastructure works contract for the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation. the site is located at Penarth Dock, South Glamorgan and represents the largest single contract awarded by the corporation to date. The works comprise the containment and encapsulation of approximately 750,000 cu metres of domestic landfill within the old dock. The scheme includes the application of substantial landfill gas abstraction and leachate collection systems on the site, together with associated pipework." [285]

The "desirable retreats" of the Portway Marina opened prior to these works in 1987; but I just can’t help remembering the size of the local rats; or could it be that the mega-rats were imported from Australia on board the 'Pamir' and 'Passat'? This was the former basin and residual area of the main dock, 'developed' I think the word is, into a marina with town houses and apartments which were sold, I feel sure, to the unenlightened, unaware of their local environment and oblivious, in the main, to the heritage buried in waste and for the most part destroyed.