A housing estate of 176 homes could be built on the site of Caerphilly’s Catnic factory, under plans submitted by developer Asbri.
The scheme will be considered by members of Caerphilly County Borough Council’s planning committee on Wednesday, March 8.
If approved, the new development would see Catnic’s office building and manufacturing facility demolished at Pontypandy Industrial Estate, which is off Pontygwindy Road.
The redevelopment of the industrial site is part of a plan to move the steel construction products firm, which owned by Tata Steel, to Dyffryn Business Park, in Ystrad Mynach.
Developer Asbri Planning has submitted the application on behalf of MC295 Ltd.
The scheme includes a mix of one-bed flats and two,three,and four-bedroom houses. It also includes public open space, a multi-use games area, and parking.
A report by planning officers has recommended the application for outline permission is approved by councillors.
It reads: “In conclusion it is considered that the development of the site for housing is acceptable in principle subject to the imposition of suitably worded conditions.
“The duty to improve the economic, social, environmental and cultural wellbeing of Wales, has been considered in accordance with the sustainable development principle.”
A single letter of objection was received by the council from a resident who raised concerns over traffic congestion. However, planning officials have said there would be a reduction in traffic if the scheme were to be approved.
Catnic’s site, which the manufacturer has occupied since is adjacent to the Kingsmead residential development and already shares an access road with the Taylor Wimpy estate.
Labour candidates for the Morgan Jones Ward Shelly Hodder, Cllr Shayne Cook and Cllr James Pritchard said they have consulted residents on the proposed development.
In a joint statement they said: “We’ve been in touch with local residents and from those who we’ve spoken to and had responses from, there were a mix of views.
“Some residents are in favour or have no concern, while others are against, mainly on highways grounds.
“We’ve asked for further detail on any highway implications and we intend on representing the views of residents at committee on March 8.”
This is a brownfield site so in theory I see no objection if infrastructure can cope. I cannot accept what planning officials have said here that “there would be a reduction in traffic if the scheme were to be approved”? 176 houses thats at least another 300 cars going down Pontygwindy Road – what improvements to local schools and roads will be done?
While cars for workers will be moved elsewhere thats just 2 journeys a day, residents will make far more. Let’s plan the infrastructure let’s invest in our infrastructure than turn Caerphilly into a bottleneck.
Why make it sound worse than it would be. In reality I don’t think it would be 300 cars as i know a lot of people with only one car per household and there would only be one or two cars extra going down Pontygwindy Road at any given time. Focus your interest on Pwll-y-Pant roundabout as that development has been put off time and time again.
You are right Michael I don’t think it would be 300, it will be a lot more. You must be living in a dream world. I would say it’s at least 3 cars per household now. We are not living in the 1950’s, over the years I have seen cat numbers raise in my street alone I have seen house holds with 4 cars one per person
Rubbish.How many people actually have 4 cars per household? That’s definitely in the minority, if i look into my street most people have one and some have 2. You must be living in a dream world because i could walk around the whole estate i live on and not see a 4 car household
3 in mine.
1 in mine.
Yes Edward, there are four car households in my street too. A look at the two neighbours on either side of me also points to an almost exponential rise in the next few years. This is because of these four houses three have two teenage children apiece that are almost certain to become car owners. Nextdoor, which had no car, is for sale; let’s be optimistic and assume one car goes here when new people move in.
Therefore in couple of years there would have been an increase of seven cars from five houses. The children will eventually, one would hope, have homes of their own but this is unlikely until they are in their twenties. In the meantime there will likely be three houses from five that are four car households. I don’t believe this is rare, what is increasingly rare is a zero car household.
This is councilor claptrap talk to bamboozle people. Lets break it down, 3 houses have 2 children each who in your words are going to have a car each. Let’s just say for argument’s sake that Caerphilly needs more houses ( it does) as there is a shortage and these children grow up and move out but want to stay in the Caerphilly area, they all move to the proposed new houses being built and take their cars with them. Still the same amount of cars.
Now those kids might all move to Cardiff ( with their cars) and six people from Cardiff will move into the new houses, guess what! Still the same amount of cars.
It’s not as straight forward as you making it sound.
Also i will repeat myself, 4 cars to 1 house where i live is few and far between. maybe you live in a more privileged street?
If the young people of three houses buy cars there is no possibility of there being the same number of cars as before, even if they move elsewhere in Caerffili. This is because their parents are still here and their existing cars too.
This is demonstrated by government figures, when I was in school there were 13 million vehicles in Britain. In the third quartile of 2011, there were 23.4 million. Between then and 2015 the figure rose to 25.2 million. This increse is made up of 1.6 million in England, 142,000 in Scotland and 69,000 in Wales.
Where you live there may well be only one car per household, same as my house, but the official figures and the experiences of the other commentators on this page indicates that there is an ever increasing number vehicles on our roads.
First of all I know that there is a lot more cars in the UK, I am not disputing that fact and i am not disputing the fact that Caerphilly is congested.
I did not say before they bought cars, you said once they have bought cars there would be more cars in your street.
The comparison was that they had already bought their cars while still living in your street then moved to another location in Caerphilly. In that scenario it equals the same amount of cars.
My point is if there is not enough houses and you have more people living in one house then you are going to have more cars per household which causes problems with parking.
If 176 houses are built and say for arguments sake 46 houses are bought by people living in Caerphilly with their parents who already own cars then that would change how many extra cars are added in total to Caerphilly.
Most people have a moan when they hear of a new build developments but as i understand it we need a certain amount of houses built , or am i wrong?
I think we are going in circles, a bit. We both recognise there are ever more cars in the town. It is a fact that in the town centre there are more cars than there are parking spaces. This derives from the Victorian design of most of the streets which made no provision for cars nor any other type of vehicle.
This in turn makes the roads congested and there is no magic bullet. to solve this. The building of yet more houses, in a town that has little to offer in terms of employment or road infrastructure, will inevitably lead to further congestion and air pollution as people travel to work in cars. I spent 18 years travelling 52 miles to work, six days per week.
The elephant on the room, in modern parlance, is population growth. None of the major parties are willing to address this fact. The Green Party, to their credit, once had a policy of a gradual reduction of population in the UK to 45 million. Sadly even the Greens dropped this policy and our descendants will suffer the consequences in terms of loss of food production, open spaces and deteriorating quality of life.
Congestion has never been fixed with asphalt and junctions.
Caerphilly needs the houses but also needs to tackle the congestion issues. Not building new, efficient homes due to the vehicular payload they deliver is not a solution.
Minimising and discouraging vehicle needs, penalising poor parking, encouraging walking, cycling and public transport is a much better idea?
People will ditch their cars when there is a more convenient option and at the moment there isn’t – eventually there will be though.
You only need to sit in a traffic queue of single-occupancy, peak-time commuters to realise that something has gone awfully wrong and it needs a good shake up to fix it.
And this is on top of the 300 houses destined for Pandy Road (adjacent to Dol-y-Pandy ) !
The planned road improvement scheme for Pwll y Pant / Corbetts roundabout seems futile with all the additional traffic these developments will attract.
We can’t we renovate all the old houses in the borough first instead of building new, as conservationist I don’t think building new houses is the key