Plans approved for Wales’ first sport technology hub

Richard Youle, local democracy reporter

Plans to create what is said to be Wales’ first sport technology hub have been approved.

The four-storey building will replace Swansea University’s pavilion by the Swansea Bay Sports Park athletics track, Sketty.

Inside will be laboratory and demonstration areas, workshops, office space, media studios and seminar rooms for the university, health sector and commercial partners.

The idea is to research and develop products which can help elite sportsmen and women and benefit people’s health more widely. This could include so-called wearable technology which collects data on things like physical activity.

Swansea Bay city deal

The university-led scheme is one element of a Swansea Bay city deal project and is expected to cost around £17 million, according to a city deal report last month. There are nine city deal projects spanning Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire involving the public and private sector. The new hub is also part of a university objective to develop a sports village.

Swansea Council’s planning committee unanimously approved the application at a meeting on August 5 after hearing from a planning officer who said there was currently no hub for sport technology in Wales. He said pedestrian crossings would need to be upgraded at the nearby junction with Sketty Lane and further down where Sketty Lane met Mumbles Road.

Parking

No dedicated parking spaces will be provided for the new split-level building and 15 existing spaces for pavilion users will be lost. There are more than 200 parking spaces for people using the adjacent sports centre and Wales National Pool Swansea so people driving to the new sport technology hub would have to use one of those.

A report before the committee said the 15 pavilion spaces tended to have a low usage and that highways officers were satisfied that demand could be met by the adjacent sports centre and swimming pool car park.

But Cllr Mary Jones said this car park was quite busy because some people visiting nearby Singleton Hospital ended up parking there. She said she would not vote against the application but added: “I just don’t think they have taken into account any extra car parking that will be needed. The car parking at hospitals is quite chronic.”

Cllr Mike Lewis said the pavilion by the athletics track looked old when he used to use it in the 1980s. “I’m completely in agreement with it being developed,” he said.

As part of the planning consent a £60,000 contribution towards the pedestrian crossing upgrades will be required.

The city deal project the sport technology hub is part of is called the campuses project. It also aims to establish a new road to Morriston Hospital from just north of junction 46 of the M4. It would lead to 55 acres of NHS-owned land by the hospital which could be developed into a medical technology park. It is hoped that more than 1,000 jobs will eventually be created.