Former bank in Welsh town centre could be turned into a cafe and restaurant under new plans

Anthony Lewis, Local democracy reporter

A former bank in Pontypridd town centre could be turned into a cafe and restaurant under new plans.

An application has been submitted to Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) Council for part of the ground floor of the former Barclays Bank in Taff Street to become a cafe/restaurant.

South Shore Productions Limited has submitted the change of use application from a financial services use to a food and drink use with conference and meeting rooms.

The building has been empty since Barclays left it in 2023 and the proposal is to create a high-end cafe that offers training, work experience, and employment for people supported by local charity DACW (Developing a Caring Wales).

It will be run and managed by the charity, volunteers, and those they support.

It is expected to create five full-time and 10 part-time jobs and it will provide extensive on-the-job training and development for 25 other people, a planning statement says.

In other rooms space will be created to be used flexibly for training and support for those in recovery and their families.

This could include things like CV workshops, confidence-building exercises, and food hygiene training and these spaces could also be used by community groups, the planning statement says.

The likely opening hours are between 7.30am to 6pm daily but the statement says given the context of the site, the nature of the use, and the variety of opening hours in the immediate surroundings there is no justification for imposing opening hours through condition.

The wider building extends across a basement, ground, and two upper floors but these proposals apply to part of the ground floor only.

The planning statement says the landlord has separate proposals for the conversion of the remainder of the ground floor and upper floors.