Deadline looms for £200m adventure resort scheme
NEATH Port Talbot Council has given Afan Valley Limited until the end of October to confirm the £200 million adventure resort is deliverable following multiple deadline extensions.
The council’s chief executive, Mark Phillips, wrote a letter to administration company Afan Valley Ltd on September 11 asking them to confirm what steps it has taken to ensure the project can be delivered.
In his letter, Mr Phillips said: “Without tangible evidence that funding agreements are in place to secure delivery of the project in accordance with the vision set out in the application submissions, then I feel it is very likely that the goodwill and support offered to date by this authority can no longer be sustained, and a recommendation is likely to be made that the scheme no longer meets the required policy tests.”
The proposed development on 325 acres of land at Pen-y-bryn is expected to comprise of 600 lodges and apartments, a 100bed hotel and create around 700 full-time jobs.
Councillors approved outline conditional planning approval in March 2019 but it was halted due to allegations of serious financial issues concerning Northern Powerhouse Developments (NPD) and its Director Gavin Woodhouse by the national press.
The High Court then assigned the management of some of his companies to administrators Duff and Phelps.
The plans for the resort were handed over to its designer Peter Moore, who introduced Centre Parcs to the UK. Moore has cut ties with Woodhouse and remains responsible for making the project happen and working with the relevant backers.
In his letter, Mr Phillips also said the council has been “very impressed with
Mr Moore’s passion for and dedication to this project” but it is also keen to ensure Afan Valley Ltd will be able to deliver it “in terms of creative vision, option agreements and/or securing finance”.
During a virtual meeting with Neath Port Talbot’s planning committee, Mr Moore said: “We’ve been working with originally two credible funders and another to finalise a letter of intent from the preferred funder. We will push to secure this letter prior to the end of October.”
Planning committee chairman Suzanne Paddison said: “Sometimes it’s only in the last week or so that the deadline looms for people and people are struck to act. So I’m hoping that that is actually the case.”
She added: “We all want a successful conclusion but there does have to come a time when we, as much as we want it, might have to say no but I’m not saying that is now.
“We will leave it in the hands of our skilled negotiators and the chief exec and the director of planning and then we will take advice from them.”
Nicola Pearce, the council’s corporate director of environment and regeneration, said: “This is a really significant project for Neath Port Talbot and the Afan Valley in particular.
“As time has progressed and discussions have evolved I don’t think we’ve ever been as confident that now is the time to deliver this project.
“The delivery of this project is reliant upon the various parties working together to ensure that we have funding arrangements in place and a deliverable project.
“If that progress continues in a positive way we will of course give consideration because it would not make sense at all for us to cut the legs from underneath this project if we are very very close to delivery.
“That would be perverse upon us as a local planning authority.
“We are not going to continue extending these deadlines going forward. It is not a joking deadline, it is a deadline to ensure that all parties take this process seriously.”