The most frustrating things about our city

Cardiff used to have a comprehensive tram network. From 1910 there were motor buses, then tramcars and then trolley buses.

Trolley buses ran between Gabalfa, Wood Street and Llandaff Fields – part of the oldest route in Cardiff – for the last time in April 1966.

There has been plenty of talk about getting trams back, and the new Metro, but getting an effective public transport system back in the city isn’t easy, as schemes in Edinburgh and Sheffield have shown. Once, waterways were the heart of the city. They were the way coal and steel were transported. The 25-mile Glamorganshire Canal was opened in 1794 between Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff. It progressively closed between 1898 and 1951.

But they were all got rid of. Other cities like Birmingham and Manchester have made an effort to restore and make them attractive and key areas in their cities. Imagine what a difference a network of waterways could make to Cardiff. While the Wales Millennium Centre is an eyecatching building, imagine what could have been there. Zaha Hadid designed the Cardiff Bay Opera House. The Iraqiborn architect was at the centre of a plan to build an opera house in Cardiff Bay – predating the Wales Millennium Centre – in the mid-1990s.

She won an international competition, beating more than 250 others, to come up with the designs, but after opposition from local politicians, the Government refused to pay for the project. Instead, her designs were used to build the criticallyacclaimed Guangzhou Opera House in China.

Afterwards, she spoke of the prejudice she faced in the Welsh capital and the architectural community spoke of their shock at an unprecedented snub. Talking about Cardiff Airport almost always provokes a reaction. The responses most commonly include “I want to use it”, “It’s too expensive” or “It’s easier to go to Bristol”.

On what planet should it be easier to drive 50 miles to another country to use an airport? But thousands do just that every week.

As well as the better