Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - A History of Penarth Dock by Roy Thorne . . .

The coal exporting trade had dwindled from the South Wales ports so much that by the middle of the decade 1950 to 1960 Barry and Cardiff were exporting only about half a million tons of coal , a tremendous drop in export from the great days of pre-1914. The dock at Penarth was not shipping coal, but the trade at the harbour works fell below that shipped in 1860.

In 1962 the total exports and imports were 324,351 tons of which 101,431 tons were exports of coal and coke. In 1963 the total trade was only 222,431 tons with no trade in coal and coke.

The pontoon had stopped work in September 1962, [I am indebted to W. J. Quinnell, the last manager of the pontoon for this information] and as the dock had only really remained open for access to this facility the closing of the pontoon effectively closed the dock.

The reason the pontoon closed was that ships were becoming bigger and the pontoon had deteriorated. It was not an economically sound action to refit and continue. The pontoon had been a highly efficient concern with a high reputation in the shipping trade, and a highly skilled conscientious workforce.

Before and after World War Two it had serviced the passenger ships of the Great Western Railway Company. During the war amphibious craft had been serviced there and the United States Navy thought is had the best facilities in Western Europe. After the war frigates and minesweepers of the Royal Navy, and Campbell's steamers were refitted on the pontoon.

Although the ancillary works of the pontoon were taken as scrap in 1963, [101] [31st May 1963] the actual pontoon is still in the dock buried beneath the filled-in part.

The local council, then the Penarth Urban District Council, made strenuous efforts in 1962 and 1963 to make an industrial site and a yachting harbour at the dock. The Earl of Plymouth Estates sold their interest in the dock to the British Transport Dock Board in 1962. [101] [11th January 1963]