Major housing development approved for Welsh city

Richard Youle, Local Democracy Reporter

The final phase of a major housing development in a Welsh city has been given the go-ahead, despite concerns.

The third phase of Hendrefoilan Park estate in Sketty, Swansea will consist of 92 two, three and four-bedroom homes and a play area.

The completed first phase was for 43 homes and the second 113-home element is nearly finished, a report before the council’s planning committee said.

Around half the development site – formerly Hendrefoilan Student Village – is woodland and the trees there have largely been retained, although 48 of them will need to be felled to make way for the remaining 92 houses.

Concerns were raised about woodland management, the completion of footpaths and measures to reduce construction dust when the committee met on March 10.

Cllr Mary Jones said dust sweeping only took place onsite once week, less than previously. “That is not acceptable,” she said.

Outline planning permission for up to 300 homes at the former student village was first approved by the council in 2016 prior to detailed plans for phase one and two getting the green light.

Developer St Modwen Homes – recently acquired by Miller Homes – has paid the council £942,325 for an extension at Hendrefoilan Primary School and £28,995 to improve the traffic light junction at nearby Gower Road and Wimmerfield Road as part of a legal agreement. In addition the 248-home estate, once finished, will include 25 affordable homes.

The key issues for planning officers to consider for the third phase were layout, highway and traffic, and ecology and bat mitigation as bats were roosting in one of the remaining student blocks which will be demolished.

Miller Homes submitted further information on various matters and officers went on to recommend approval, subject to conditions. A bat licence will need to be obtained separately from environment regulator Natural Resources Wales.

A planning officer told the committee that three replacement trees would be planted for every one cut down.

Rhys Govier, director at Savills and planning agent on behalf of Miller Homes, said the third phase comprised “much-needed” housing and that the developer was confident of delivering an “excellent” scheme in a “very sustainable” location.

Cllr Mary Jones asked when the play area would be completed and also why a previously agreed footpath onto nearby Dunvant Road hadn’t been built. She also said it didn’t look to her like the woodland was being managed.

The planning officer said the Dunvant Road footpath was outstanding and that pressure would need to be put on the developer. He said the play area will need to be created before the third phase was completed and that woodland management was a condition of the original outline permission. Enforcement action, he said, could occur if conditions were breached.

Cllr Jones said parents of school children living at Hendrefoilan Park had created an informal path onto Dunvant Road themselves. “If it (the footpath) should have been done, it should have been done,” she said.

The committee went on to unanimously approve the application.