Experience move to Cardiff (update)Bookmark and Share

Thursday, 16 June 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Earlier this month, BBC Worldwide revealed details on its plans to install the Doctor Who Experience at Cardiff Bay during the spring next year. Today, Welsh media outlets have been reporting on how this project will be partly financed by Cardiff County Council through its council tax revenue.

A council spokesperson explained how the initial financing will prove ultimately beneficial to the city's future economy:
The council is progressing the feasibility of a commercial agreement to house the BBC Worldwide Doctor Who Experience on a site at Porth Teigr, Cardiff Bay.

The principle of the deal is for all the council’s costs to be covered by income generated by the scheme.

Feasibility costs are between £50,000 and £60,000 but projections show that the Doctor Who Experience could bring in around £13m per year to the city’s economy. The Doctor Who Experience would attract 40,000 new overnight tourists each year, worth some £7m per annum, and will support over 200 full time equivalent jobs in the city each year.
Councillor David Walker observed:
Once the council has agreed terms with the BBC we then need to know the investment that the public purse will make in this development.
However, what was initially thought to be a permanent home for the Doctor Who Experience has now been revealed as a temporary measure being built on land that is earmarked for residential purposes; permission is currently being sought to construct what is being described as "a massive tent" to house the adventure and exhibition aspects of the attraction over the next five years. Whether this is an interim solution before a final, permanent home has been built remains unknown.


Update: Leader of Cardiff Council, Councillor Rodney Berman has informed Doctor Who News that:
Just to clarify Cardiff Council fully supports securing the DW Experience despite some nitpicking by press and opposition.



(with thanks to Simon Watkins and Cllr Rodney Berman; original details via the South Wales Echo)






FILTER: - Exhibitions