Coronavirus delivers a lifeline to troubled tourist resort plan
A TROUBLED £200m major tourist development earmarked for Port Talbot has been thrown a lifeline by the coronavirus outbreak.
Last September, planners at Neath Port Talbot Council gave the team behind the proposed Afan Valley Adventure Resort an extended deadline of yesterday to come up with paperwork regarding the project’s credibility and sustainability in order to keep it alive.
But now the global spread of Covid-19 has led to an indefinite grace period, with the leader of Neath Port Talbot Council, Councillor Rob Jones, saying he refused “to hit the nuclear button” to scrap the plans while there are so many other more things going on.
“In an ideal world, the documentation would have been submitted as required and a decision made, but pressing we’re not in a ideal world right now,” said Cllr Jones, adding that outline planning permission for the resort had been granted in March 2019, on the condition that legal agreements would subsequently be signed off.
“Given everything that’s going on, it wouldn’t be responsible of me to simply hit the nuclear button to scrap the project, into which has gone a lot of hard work, just because a deadline’s not been met.
“Because of Covid-19 everything’s ground to a halt, and I don’t know how long that will last, but it all pales into insignificance compared to ensuring things such as health and social care and schooling are all in place for those that need them,” he added.
Intended for a 325-acre former forestry plantation at Pen-y-Bryn by Croeserw
and Cymmer, Afan Valley Adventure Resort would consist of 600 lodges/apartments, a 100-bed hotel with associated spa, restaurants, shops, a vast range of adventure activities – including the world’s largest artificial downhill ski slope – and parking for around 850 cars.
Once operational the attraction would employ 970 full and part-time staff.
But the future of the enterprise was plunged into disarray last summer when its developers Northern Powerhouse Developments Limited went bust.
The firm went into administration after investigations carried out by The Guardian and ITV News into the business dealings of its founder, entrepreneur Gavin Woodhouse, raised serious concerns over other uncompleted projects and highlighted how investors had been left facing a multi-million-pound “black hole”.
The High Court in London appointed financial consultants Duff and Phelps as interim managers of NPD Ltd – Woodhouse having had his powers removed – and it’s believed the Afan Valley resort plan is now in the hands of its designer Peter Moore, the man who first brought Center Parcs to the UK.
Having cut ties with Woodhouse – he resigned as non-executive chairman of leisure at NPD Ltd – Moore has remained resolute in making the project happen and pulling together all the relevant backers despite the financial concerns.
Speaking at the time he described the development as “too important to the local community to let fail.”