Two town centres to receive extra £1.8m for regeneration plans

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

Nearly £2 million will be spent on plans to improve two town centres and attract more visitors.

Caerphilly County Borough Council has approved the release of funds to further develop new placemaking plans for Bargoed and Blackwood.

Other projects to receive extra funding include school shake-ups in Caerphilly town, Nelson, and Rhymney.

The council’s joint scrutiny committee agreed on Thursday July 18 to spend an extra £9.2million on various capital projects on the local authority’s to-do list.

Doing so will “unlock” government match-funding worth an additional £27.8m, the committee heard.

Unallocated capital funding

The council’s £9.2m contribution comes from “unallocated capital funding”, meaning that money will no longer be available in reserve.

The move comes after council leader Sean Morgan said capital and revenue funding streams available to Caerphilly were “reducing drastically”.

“You can only spend reserves once”, he warned, adding that the council currently has “more projects to deliver than it has capital funding [available]”.

The council will effectively prioritise the projects agreed on Thursday, while others sit on a “reserve list” and will be funded further down the line.

The following projects will receive a share of the newly-agreed funding:

Placemaking plans for Bargoed and Blackwood (an extra £450,000 each from the council, plus an extra £450,000 each in match-funding). The council said the plans will “help to attract investment to the areas and to assist in the regeneration of the locales”.

A new “fit for purpose” replacement for Plasyfelin Primary School, in Caerphilly (an extra £2.5m from the council, plus an extra £8.9 match-funding). Billed as the county borough’s first “net-zero carbon school”, it will also offer facilities for wider community use.

Creation of new “net-zero” school buildings at Ysgol Y Lawnt and Upper Rhymney Primary School, with a nursery, childcare and “special resource base” (an extra £1.2m from the council, plus an extra £2.8m in match-funding).

A “state of the art” extension and refurbishment to Llanfabon Infants School, which will amalgamate with Llancaeach Junior School to provide a new primary school offer for pupils aged 3 to 11 (an extra £2.6m from the council, plus an extra £6.5m in match-funding).

The Caerphilly Town 2035 regeneration project, including further plans for an 80-bed hotel on Cardiff Road (an extra £150,000 from the council, plus an extra £350,000 in match-funding) and to cover the costs of “specialist advisers” (an extra £480,000 from the council, plus an extra £1.1m in match-funding).

Work to tackle flooding, including in Edward Street, Ystrad Mynach (an extra £177,000 from the council, plus an extra £1.1m in match-funding), and in Van Road, Caerphilly (an extra £375,000 from the council, plus an extra £2.2m in match-funding); as well as development of a new local flood risk management strategy (an extra £644,000 from the council, plus an extra £3.7m in match-funding).

The committee also agreed to “set aside” the remaining unallocated capital funding, worth £7.2m, as “contingency for the overall capital programme”.