Skip to content

BBC Wales staff start move to new Cardiff headquarters

BBC Inside new BBC Wales HQBBC
About 1,000 staff in Cardiff will move from Llandaff to Central Square over the next few months

Staff at BBC Wales have begun moving to their new home in Cardiff city centre.

About 1,000 production and support staff are due to make the move to Central Square over the next few months, bringing an end to more than 50 years of broadcasting from Llandaff.

Central Square is the first BBC centre in the UK to use Internet Protocol (IP) technology for controlling cameras, TV editing and output.

The building is also designed to be the BBC's most open and accessible.

The public will be invited into the centre for a range of tours, and community and learning activities.

The centre will also be a base for S4C, as well as the independent production sector - with meeting and production facilities available to the BBC's key partners.

"Central Square is all about opening up," said BBC Wales director Rhodri Talfan Davies.

"Broadcasting and media are changing before our eyes. And our audiences these days expect to 'get up close and personal'.

"We've designed this building to let the light in - not seal it off - and the fantastic location means that we'll be more accessible."

New BBC apprentices with Rhodri Talfan Davies
Ten new digital journalism apprentices, pictured with Rhodri Talfan Davies (centre), have made their first visit to Central Square
Presentational grey line

Central Square's vital statistics

  • The internal size of Central Square over several floors is 155,582 sq ft (14,454 sq m) - about 1.5 times the area of the Principality Stadium's pitch
  • It is roughly half the size of BBC Wales' Llandaff sites
  • The excavated material from the site would fill 19 Olympic-sized swimming pools
  • There is more glass in the building than the glasshouse roof at the National Botanic Garden for Wales in Carmarthenshire
  • Rainwater harvesting tanks at Central Square collect enough rainwater for 27,000 toilet flushes