ON MONDAY, March 9, Carmarthenshire County Council’s Executive Board met and rubber-stamped approval for building a £5m link road to service a new housing development.
However, the way in which the council has tried to spin the link road’s development has the potential to cause it significant difficulty.
In last week’s Herald, we reported that the developers of a 1,200 home development and land south of Pentremeurig Road were due to fund the road’s development via a £12,500 levy on each property. The council has, however, now announced that the road is needed to service the new S4C headquarters and that 1,200 homes are needed to house the workers who will flock to Carmarthen when those headquarters eventually open.
S4C plans to transfer fewer than 100 staff to Carmarthen when its new headquarters is completed.
The council will fund the road development from its own reserves, from Welsh Government funding and from contributions from as-yet-unidentified third parties
Carmarthenshire blogger Y Cneifiwr has reported that the development company is now querying the level of its contribution to the development, bearing in mind the Council’s claim that it is essential to service S4C. In relation to that issue, Carmarthenshire County Council Head of Corporate Property Jonathan Fearn said: “Negotiations are ongoing but the intention remains to secure 100% reimbursement of Carmarthenshire County Council’s costs for the road and other infrastructure required for Carmarthen West from the developers and partner organisations.” The use of the word ‘intention’ suggests that the council could be adjusting its stance towards the obligation it placed upon the development company.
While it is certainly convenient that S4C employees will have the incidental benefit of using a road that was a condition of an ongoing and long-debated housing development before the broadcaster decided to relocate to Carmarthen, the link road does not seem to feature in the considerations of the broadcaster to relocate to the town. In a press release following the decision to press ahead with the transfer of £5m to fund the road, Executive board member for resources Cllr Jeff Edmunds is quoted as saying: “In order to maximise the community benefit from early delivery of the road and ensure delivery of the new transport link in time for the planned occupation of the proposed S4C development, Executive Board has agreed that the Council pre-funds and delivers the whole road at an early stage, with the cost recovered from the developers and partner organisations.”
The release concludes: ‘Executive Board also agreed to a number of safeguards to ensure that the funding was recovered and construction of the road would only start once these conditions have been met. The Executive Board’s recommendations will be considered by all Members of the County Council at a future meeting and also include a mechanism to secure contributions towards the new school and other infrastructure for the area’. As the matter was dealt with in private, no further details of the claimed safeguards have been made public. The Executive Board’s willingness to commit money from its own reserves to fund the road, whether for the benefit of S4C or that of the development company, is in stark contrast to refusal to touch the reserves to cushion the effect of cuts on Carmarthenshire residents.
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