Chalet park gets green light despite opposition

CONTROVERSIAL plans for a chalet park in one of Snowdonia’s most popular areas have got the go-ahead.

Forest Holidays, which owns the former Eryri Forestry Park near Beddgelert, applied to Snowdonia National Park Authority to create its first lodge site in Wales.

The site currently has space for 195 camping pitches and the firm wanted to site 16 singlestorey wooden chalets, with space remaining for 59 touring pitches and 26 camping pitches.

It prompted 200 letters, a 413-signature petition and a 3,613-signature on-line petition against the plan, with 120 letters of support.

Planning officers on the park authority recommended the development for approval.

Now the scheme has been given the green light by the authority’s planning committee after a “lengthy discussion” at the meeting yesterday.

The objectors had argued the changes would not only have an impact on the environment but also on the local economy, creating a precedent for other sites in the area.

One feared it would become a “Center Parcs-type development”, taking trade away from the village, but the applicants said one of the benefits would be that the chalets would extend the season beyond the current June – August period

A report by planning officers notes: “The proposal would not result in the loss of a tourist facility, rather one with less intensive use.”

Both the authority and the applicants commissioned studies of the economic impact and concluded the reduced capacity at Forest Holidays could produce a spin-off for other sites in the area.

The firm says it will create an additional 20 full and part-time jobs at the nine-hectare forest location, owned by the Welsh Government, and it will support a similar number off-site.

The site is next to Afon Colwyn and the Welsh Highland Rail- way runs along the western boundary of the development.

Forest Holidays was formally created in May 2006 as a partnership between the Forestry Commission and the Camping and Caravanning Club.

Following a partial buyout in 2012, Forest Holidays focuses on cabins, with camping in the forest operated by the Camping and Caravanning Club.

It now owns nine sites in the UK.