The first steel of Swansea‘s cable car is going up. A crane has lifted a curved steel section onto a concrete pier at Landore Park and Ride, the start of what Skyline says will be the base station where passengers board for the ride up Kilvey Hill.
Skyline Swansea says the foundations for the station are now complete and the steel “superstructure” is going up. Over the next few months, it says, the building “will begin to take shape”.
The company’s photograph shows the section, with a walkway and ladder already fitted, suspended from a crane with the bare slopes of Kilvey Hill behind. A large yellow component sits on timbers beside it, waiting its turn.
It comes five months after the £49m gondola and luge scheme formally began construction in May, and two months after piling started on the site.
From piling in August to steel in October: how the Landore base station has progressed
Piling for the base station started in August inside the hoarded compound at the park and ride and at the Hafod Copperworks site, and was expected to take about five weeks.
Diggers had moved in at the park and ride in the spring, and parking there has been reduced since. Skyline has not said when the full car park will return.
The station will sit beside the restored copperworks, where the council is putting new floors into the Laboratory Building and scaffolding the engine houses as part of six schemes running along the Tawe at once.
The build reaches the road on Sunday 1 November, when the southbound A4217 between Brunel Way and White Rock Roundabout closes from 8am to 5pm with a signed diversion through Landore and Hafod.
Up the hill: a meadow being sprayed on, a windmill fenced off and towers going in
Along the gondola corridor, Skyline said in August that tower piling would run alongside tree clearance, and crews have since been hosing seed and mulch onto the stripped slopes to grow a meadow before native saplings go in.
Near the summit, where groundworks for the restaurant and cafe began in August, the ruins of a windmill first built in 1680 have been fenced off as the work goes on around them.
Skyline has said no further walking trails should close at this stage of the build, with diversions in place since June and an access map on its website.
The finished attraction is expected to employ more than 100 people, with applications opening in early 2028, the company has said.
The scheme has drawn sustained opposition from a small group of residents who live close to the site, with demonstrations on the hill and questions raised in the Senedd. Swansea Council has so far committed £10.2m to the project.
Cllr Rob Stewart, the leader of Swansea Council, called the steelwork “another welcome milestone” in a post on his Facebook page. “It’s great to see work progressing at Landore, with the foundations now complete and the next phase set to bring the gondola terminal building to life,” he said.
He added: “This is a major investment in Swansea’s future, helping to strengthen our tourism offer, create new opportunities and further establish the city as a fantastic place to live, work and visit.”
“We look forward to seeing further progress on this ambitious project over the coming months,” he said.
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