A Chippy in the Dylan Thomas Centre? 🐟🍟

Good morning, Swansea!

This week, read about how Harry Ramsden's bid to build a fish and chip shop in Swansea's Dylan Thomas Centre sparked controversy and outrage.

Catch you on Sunday!

Andrew.

In 1999, Swansea was working hard to shake off its reputation as "the graveyard of ambition." As a new millennium loomed, the city had ambitious plans to build a new football stadium, the National Waterfront Museum, and more.

But amid this forward-looking vision, one proposal caused particular controversy that year - an idea to convert part of the Dylan Thomas Centre into a Harry Ramsden's fish and chip restaurant.

The Dylan Thomas Centre, housed in the former Guildhall building, had been restored at a cost of £3.6 million and opened on St David's Day in 1995 - just a handful of years prior. However, the centre was haemorrhaging money - losing a reported £365,000 a year.

Harry Ramsden's, which branded itself as serving "the world's most famous fish and chips," was already operating a successful restaurant in Cardiff Bay and was due to begin work on a £500,000 takeaway on Aberavon seafront, set to open in October 1999.

George Ostreicher, one of the partners holding the South Wales franchise, had spent several years discussing various potential locations with Swansea Council, first considering sites at either the Maritime Quarter or Blackpill.

The proposal for Blackpill sparked an immediate backlash in March 1999, with West Cross councillor Martin Caton opposing it on grounds it would harm existing businesses. "Lots of people who currently head down to Mumbles or West Cross for their fish and chip suppers would get no further than Blackpill," he warned, urging the company to choose the Marina site instead.

The Dylan Thomas Centre eventually emerged as Harry Ramsden’s preferred choice, with Ostreicher noting that use of the existing building would slash the restaurant’s opening timeline from two years to just three months.

Although the proposal wasn't to take over the entire building (the centre's Dylan Thomas exhibition would remain untouched), the response was scathing. Liberal Democrat leader Peter Black provided perhaps the most memorable criticism, declaring that "Swansea's literary heritage is being relegated to a fish and chip emporium in which the only literature will be found on the wrapping around the chips."

Local Evening Post columnist Brian Walters was equally upset, declaring the centre "culturally sacrosanct" and insisting it "must remain a fish and chip free zone." 

However, not everyone dismissed the idea outright. Another Evening Post opinion piece suggested that while the proposal seemed "bizarre" at first, given the centre's significant losses and the potential for a "financial windfall," the "unthinkable may make a semblance of sense."

By June 1999, the council had made its decision. Behind closed doors, they rejected Harry Ramsden's bid, announcing instead plans to develop a 1940s-style theme pub at the site - and revealing they had secured £450,000 of European funding for developing it with a Dylan Thomas theme.

The rejection sparked a bitter response from Ostreicher, who claimed the council was "losing credibility" among developers. "If we had taken over the catering at the centre we would have turned a £365,000 annual loss into a very neat profit for the council," he said.

"We went to a lot of trouble and expense on this," he added, announcing that the company would abandon its Swansea plans entirely to focus on their Aberavon seafront development (which reportedly closed after just 6 months). "There'll be no Harry Ramsden's in Swansea for the foreseeable future," he added.

It would actually be over two decades until Harry Ramsden’s finally debuted in Swansea. But in an ironic twist, the city’s first Harry Ramsden’s outlet opened within the Sainsbury's supermarket in 2023 - just a stone's throw from the Dylan Thomas Centre.

Would you welcome Harry Ramsden’s back to another location in Swansea? Let me know in the comments below!