Plans for the long awaited £700m International Sports Village on a 95-acre waterfront site in Cardiff Bay were considered by city planning chiefs for the first time this week. Even if it gets the go ahead at local level, it will almost certainly have to then go before the National Assembly for final approval because of its size.

The development will include an aquatic centre, snow dome with five indoor ski runs, a 10,000 seat indoor arena, almost 1,000 apartments and houses, including a 26 storey tower block, a 60,000 sq ft casino and 500-bed hotel. New roads and a chain-operated ferry across the city's River Ely are also unveiled in the outline application.

The long-awaited International Sports Village scheme was first proposed in the mid 1990s but a succession of development partnerships have failed to take off.

The application states that the first phase of the development is planned to include 751 waterfront houses and apartments, an aquatic centre, casino, hotel, conference centre and golf driving range likely to be built above a supermarket and a DIY store. The development will not be complete until 2011 and so we may have a nine year wait to finally see a snowdome in Cardiff.

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