Thursday 30 July 2015

Brynmefys Estate - 'The land and people the council forgot' - Carmarthenshire Herald




Brynmefys Estate from PEMBS.TV on VimeoAlan Evans reports for The Herald.


A detailed report appeared in last week's Carmarthenshire Herald about the Brynmefys Estate near Llanelli, the full article is not yet online but the video above is well worth watching. To cut a long story short, over the past fifteen years or so the Council have neglected the site and now and again have been trying to sell it off to developers.

The few remaining owner occupiers who have maintained their properties, despite having to machete their way through the undergrowth to get to them, have been offered a paltry £30,000 by developers to move. However, as the neglect continued, so the bats moved in and, as the report states, the council then built a bat-house on the site for an astonishing £60,000.

In 2005 the council's own 'Empty Homes Strategy' earmarked the site for 80 affordable homes to be supplied in partnership with developers.Various expressions of interest were made over the years including one from housing association Gwalia to build 103 affordable homes in 2010, but the application was, for reasons unknown, withdrawn.

The latest plan by the council is to offer the site on the open market with a very loose condition that a mere 14 affordable homes are built, and they don't even have to be built on the site but could be dotted around elsewhere...if at all.

The irony is that the council operates a policy to actively pursue landowners and landlords, through the courts if necessary, if they have allowed their properties to fall into disrepair. In the case of this site, the landowner and landlord of the derelict homes is Carmarthenshire County Council itself.
But as we know they have different priorities from the rest of us - a white elephant stadium a few miles down the road being one of them.

(Update 4th Aug; Herald article now online here)

1 comment:

Jac o' the North, said...

With the remaining residents gone this area becomes prime development land. 'The Council' has obviously promised the land to developers and are a) forcing the remaining residents out and b) ensuring that their properties, and the location, become as unattractive as possible to potential buyers.