Companies House is the preferred site for a Cathays High School extension, but the land is yet to be bought, says Cardiff council
PLANS to relocate Maindy Velodrome may have been scrapped, but the site isn’t in the clear yet, as Cathays High School could still be built on its land.
Though the council says it is “increasingly confident” that their preferred site for the new school buildings at Companies House has been secured, the option to build on the velodrome site remains should plans to buy it fall through.
In a council report giving an update on plans to update Cathays High, the council says “the siting of the school on the Maindy site would remain a viable mitigation strategy” should the option to build on Companies House fail to come to fruition
Companies House in Cathays, now reaching the end of its life, had been the preferred site for the council from the start, but was not available for sale when the proposals for the new Cathays High school were first brought by the council in 2021.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, January 23, 2025, council leader Huw Thomas said he was frustrated to have to come to this decision in a “roundabout way”, but that had the Companies House site been available from the start “then it would have been our preferred site”.
With the proposed relocation now cancelled, the use of the Maindy site for the school would mean finding another location for the velodrome, something which Coun Thomas dismissed as it “simply would involve building a velodrome somewhere else”.
Criticising the change at the council meeting, Liberal Democrat leader in the council, Rodney Berman, suggested that the move was “a bit of an embarrassing U-turn for the administration”, a claim which Cabinet member for education Sarah Merry rebutted.
The move comes after years of debate over proposals to use the Maindy Velodrome site, a plan which would have seen the velodrome relocated to a new site in the International Sports Village.
The velodrome, home to the Maindy Flyers cycle club, has been the training ground for a number of cyclists, including once Tour De France Champion, Geraint Thomas.
The proposals, first covered by The Cardiffian four years ago, have since been scrapped with a recent announcement that the site intended for the new velodrome will instead be used for a golfing attraction operated by Topgolf.
Save Maindy Velodrome, which has campaigned to protect the velodrome has reacted positively to the news that plans to relocate the velodrome have been scrapped but are insistent the fight is not yet over.
