Businesses in Cardiff Bay say they’ll lose trade when the Doctor Who Experience closes next year.
Cardiff City Council announced that the popular attraction will be closing permanently in summer 2017, when their leasing arrangement with BBC Worldwide expires.
Staff in the pubs and cafes near the exhibition said they were shocked by the decision.
Natalie McCarthy, 28, works in the Waterguard pub and said the decision will have a huge effect on tourism to the Bay.
She said: “It’s the little places that are going to suffer. Removing the Doctor Who Experience is a really bad move when you’re trying to bring people in and trying to make money from it.”
Other businesses have similar concerns. Julia Fodor, who works at a cafe opposite the attraction, said people come to Cardiff Bay from as far as Australia, Singapore and the United States to visit the exhibition.
She told CJS News: “It’s not only going to affect us, as a coffee shop, but the entire area.”
The Doctor Who Experience opened in 2012 and proved popular with fans. A petition to save the attraction has received nearly 4000 signatures in a single day since the news was announced.
A spokesman for Cardiff City Council said: “The land currently occupied by the Dr Who Experience is owned by the Welsh Government and their development partner, Igloo Regeneration. It was leased to the City Council for 5 years to enable its relocation from Olympia to Cardiff on a temporary basis.”
“It has always been the intention for the site to be developed as part of the ongoing Porth Teigr regeneration project. The decision to close the Experience at the end of the lease next summer has been mutually agreed by all parties involved, including the operators BBC Worldwide.”
