Hopes for ambitious £4m garden village scheme take a step forward
HOPES of more than 30 eco-friendly homes being built in Burry Port have taken a step forward.
A planning application has been lodged at Carmarthenshire Council for the ambitious £4 million garden village scheme in Glanmor Terrace.
If plans are approved, construction could start as early as the spring.
North Pembrokeshirebased Western Solar Ltd is behind the venture and the firm’s mission statement is to produce lowenergy, affordable homes that are built on sustainable principles.
A multi-million-pound funding package has been secured by Carmarthenshire Council’s new housing company, Cartrefi Croeso. The proposed scheme would create 22 two-bedroom homes and 10 one-bedroom apartments on land next to the existing Plas y Mor extra care scheme.
The proposals include plans for a mixture of homes, including apartments built over two-storeys with lift access, and bungalows.
If given the go-ahead, the homes will have environmentally friendly fea- tures such as solar panels and Welsh timber, which would both be sourced and manufactured locally.
The homes are designed to save residents up to £1,000 a year on energy bills and will offer openplan living space.
The walls would be insulated with recycled news- paper and the wooden windows will achieve Passive House standard. The design of the homes will also be easily adaptable to changing housing and health needs, as the twobedroom homes can accommodate future lift provision and a wet room on the ground floor.
A communal boules gaming court is planned as part of the scheme.
Within the planning application, a report into the project by Asbri Planning, acting as agents for Western Solar Ltd, states the scheme “will lead to the creation of a highquality place to live that offers contemporary and sustainable housing, and will contribute to the regeneration of the coastal region of Burry Port”.
It concludes: “The proposed development will provide the local community of Burry Port with a highly sustainable residential development, with facilities that are available for community use.”
A large proportion of the homes would be manufactured in a newly established factory in Ammanford, which will also create new jobs, and 80% of the raw materials and the labour would be locally sourced to help sustain local businesses.
The Welsh Government included the ambitious Burry Port Garden Village development in its £43 million innovative housing programme grant.
Cartrefi Croeso was established by Carmarthenshire Council in 2017 to open up new opportunities for hundreds of affordable homes to be built outside the boundaries of the housing revenue account (HRA), which limits investment to social housing.
The company’s main aim is to help local people get on to the property ladder, while also supporting the local construction industry.