Dai the Builder

The me-too-ism that has been a feature of the BBC's Celtic/national regions continued yesterday, with the news that the Taffia seek to move out of their Llandaff HQ by 2018. This campaign has been going on since 2007 - when Pacific Quay opened in Glasgow. The Welsh have still to produce a satisfactory financial strategy to deliver their significant ambitions (after six years of train journeys en masse to BBC Finance Committees) and, this time, by shroud-waving the infrastructure frailties of Llandaff, ensured a fire sale that will reduce the capital pot even further. (When will someone spot that Television Centre and New Broadcasting House Manchester were sold at a loss in any rational view of budgeting ?)

So the Welsh will be tied into a developer-led anchor tenant vanity scheme, funded by some PFI-variant bond deal, with a smidgeon of Welsh Assembly/EU support, tying their hands for 30 years, with no means of building capital for an alternative future. And the obvious answer, to refurbish an existing building, will be avoided. The we-must-have-a-new-building aspirations of BBC Northern Ireland cannot be far behind.

• You may have missed that, within a senior management pay freeze, Controller BBC Wales, Rhodri Talfan-Davies got a rise of more than 14% in April, taking his salary from £140k to £160k.