St David’s 2 (which makes a change from “Millennium xxxxx” as most new projects have been named in Cardiff) has been many years in the planning. Since it’s conception at the beginning of the 2002 there have been numerous issues (location, impact on public transport and spiralling costs) that have delayed the project and subsequently shunted the launch date into the most uncertain financial period this country has experienced in my lifetime.

It’s easy to look at it with the benefit on hindsight and wonder why a city of Cardiff’s modest size (circa 320k inhabitants) needs a further 967,500 sq ft of retail space hosting up to 128 stores when the city is already in the top 10 shopping destinations in the UK and has a travel infrastructure barely capable of supporting it’s own citizens let alone the further hundreds of thousands the city attracts from surrounding areas on Weekends.

However, I think the timing could not have been more appropriate. In these desperate financial times the City is guaranteed to create 4,500 new jobs to support this project. Jobs have ranged from architecture and construction in the development stages to retail assistants and security when the site is opened. New parking zones and roads are popping up all over the City in the knowledge that such a big project is going to bring a massive amount of consumers to the City which will also have a knock on effect on tourism and leisure activities in Cardiff.

Of course, the main focus will be the shopping experience. St David’s 2  has attracted huge retailers such as John Lewis and many top brands including Reiss, Kurt Geiger and Hugo Boss – something the likes of Cardiff has never seen before. It is estimated that the introduction of these new shops will boost our shopping destination ranking into the top 5 along side London, Manchester and Birmingham which is no mean feat considering Cardiff’s location and size. Add to this the fantastic waterfront development and international airport, things are set to go from strength to strength.

Some may argue against the “spend our way out of the crisis” approach the Government has taken to tackle the credit crunch and when you look at St David’s 2 it’s very easy to see it as a perfect example of where we are going wrong. But look a little deeper and you may find that this is the very tonic needed to bring skills, jobs and wealth back to our struggling nation.