Following a Cardiff Council planning committee meeting this week, the demolition of the Manic Street Preachers recording studio, where hits such as Fear of Motion were created, has been given the go ahead.
The Manic Street Preachers are having to relocate their Faster Studios HQ after more than ten years. The land on which the studio is located has been bought to make way for a new housing development resulting in the band, known locally as “The Manics,” having to find a home for their music elsewhere. That new home is a small cottage in Newport.
Newport Council recently granted the band planning permission in order to convert the cottage, as long as they follow certain rules such as, having a maximum of eight people at a time and “The Manics” are the only musicians allowed to create music there.
New plans for the site – Image courtesy of Cardiff Council
The band are not the only ones to have created music at their Cardiff based studio. Artists such as Welsh Music Prize winners Future of the Left and Cardiff born Super Furry Animals have both recorded there. Thus the demolition of this building will arguably leave a punk-rock sized hole within the history of Welsh music that cannot be filled.
Lifelong “Manics” fan Richard Mumford, 53, certainly thinks so; “I am devastated that they are relocating,” he said. Richard, who has followed the band for a number of years, believes that the studio where the band created so many hits should remain untouched. “There are so many other blocks of flats around Cardiff,” he said, “we just don’t need another one. Especially when there is so much history here.”
Nevertheless Cardiff Council have said that redevelopment of the studio will go ahead, resulting in the relocation of “The Manics”. A Cardiff Council spokesperson said “The decision that has been made in line with Planning Policy and Law and I am also unaware of the decision made by the Manic Street Preachers to relocate.”
