Plans withdrawn for housing on former hospital site

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

Plans for new housing at the site of a former hospital have been withdrawn after planning saga stretching back more than 20 years.

Permission to demolish the former Pontypool and District Hospital and build homes on the site in Pontnewynydd was first approved in March 2001 but legal wrangling has seen the plans repeatedly stall.

The hospital, which closed in 1994, was demolished following the 2001 permission, but the plans for new housing had to come back to councillors in 2016 and 2019.

Last November applicant Darren Morgan, of Abercarn, asked Torfaen borough council for an extension to the outline planning permission, approved in 2019, which granted approval for 34 homes and access points but required further detailed plans to be put forward.

The bid for an extension was made just a month before the three year deadline to submit the “reserved matters” application was up.

However the council’s planning website now shows that the application to vary the time limit has been withdrawn.

Since the application for an extension was made plans showing how the houses could be built on site and some technical details were submitted to the planning authority in April while an assessment on how the site meets local policies on sustainability was produced as recently as June.

The plans have been completed on behalf of firm Geminus while Geminus Developments, of Rotherwas, Hereford, along with Mr Morgan, was a signature of a legal agreement covering a contribution towards recreation and a children’s play area and affordable housing that was signed with the council as a condition of the 2019 permission.