A deteriorating former women's toilet in a historic Cardiff cemetery is set to become a new cafe. The former toilet block in Cathays Cemetery is described as being "currently vacant and in a deteriorating condition" and was last in use in 2003.
Development plans
While the ladies' toilets will become a cafe, the men's toilets will contain an accessible toilet as well as outside seating and tables. Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment agency, offered no objection to the plans, saying it would only result in "minor and acceptable impacts on the registered historic park and garden".
Planning documents argue the development, applied for by Neil Lewis, will bring a range of benefits, including offering a "sustainable reuse of two redundant buildings", and will respect the historic landscape of Cathays Cemetery.
Community benefits
The application reads: "The toilet blocks have been out of beneficial use for 25 years, and currently lay redundant and dilapidated. To bring them back into public service would be at huge expense and maintenance costs to Cardiff Council, unless otherwise privately funded, as proposed."
It continues: "The provision of a café in addition to the accessible toilets and baby-changing facility are considered an enhanced community service."
Conservation-led design
The design of the new cafe was created with a "conservation-led approach" due to the cemetery's historic nature. It took measures to respect the character of the site and avoid "over-commercialisation" through its "modest footprint" and "sympathetic/ minimal signage".
It continues: "The seating areas will be dependent on weather and pre-organised events held at the cemetery, and in prior notice of the Bereavements department. The seating will be modest and carefully integrated in the areas behind the curved walls of the entrance to the cemetery."
Cathays Cemetery is a well-preserved Victorian multi-denominational cemetery, retaining most of its original layout and ornamental evergreen planting. It contains some elaborate and interesting memorials dating from 1859.
