Somewhat to the surprise and certainly to the disappointment of some of our council's top brass, the Welsh Government has overturned the planning inspector's decision to approve a mixed housing and retail development on the heavily contaminated former Grillo zinc oxide works site at Burry Port.
Despite being on a C2 flood plain, Carmarthenshire County Council and the planning inspector felt that the benefits of regeneration and decontamination of the site outweighed the niggling nuisance of flood risk.
Decontamination of the site was expected to cost over £1 million, and the council was hoping that a private developer would foot the bill.
The Grillo site was to have accommodated up to 230 homes and up to 465 square metres of retail space.
Residents of Llanelli concerned about the Stradey Park development and all those worried about the council's plans for a new secondary school on a C2 flood plain at Ffairfach close to Llandeilo will no doubt be noting this decision with interest.
3 comments:
There is a definite split in politicians from all parties over the grillo site, unfortunately the land will remain contaminated and the bill will eventually be paid by us the tax payer. I don't think this story can be positive in any way. Llanelli's industrial legacy means that we will be left with many polluted sites which should not be left to the taxpayer to clean up. It was always going to be a difficult decision faced with contamination cleanup versus flood plain.
It is good to see WAG actually implementing their planning policy on C2 flood plain development for a change.
This development was nowhere near the quality of the housing development on the other side of the harbour, and is no great loss.
When the time is right we can hopefully get a non-residential development worthy of this location, that will be of long term benefit to the community and not just the developers.
The responsibility for cleaning up polluted land is with the owners and if this site is leaking toxic chemicals, then the environment agency and county council should investigate its safety. If it is dangerous the owners can be taken to court and forced to clean it up.
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