I HAVE contacted BCBC chiefs to raise concerns about their plans for Porthcawl.
I was lobbied by the town’s Civic Trust and some individual residents who are all worried that the council’s plans, as laid out in various council strategies, will not achieve their stated goal of transforming Porthcawl into the “premier seaside resort in South Wales.”
In my letter, I raised the lack of a major new attraction to draw in visitors. There are no plans to replace the fair and the only leisure facility which the council is proposing is not a swimming pool or sports centre but a hotel which would be provided, owned and operated by a private company.
But the main concern raised with me is the damage that will be done to the town’s tourism trade by removing approximately 2,000 of the 2600 parking spaces currently available in the town centre. Most of these will be at Salt Lake which is to be developed for housing, shops and cafes.
In their reply, The council says a multi-storey car park is proposed at Hillsboro Place but at this stage there are no details about its capacity or who will build it, pay for it and how much people will have to pay to use it.
It is very unlikely to be big enough to replace all the spaces that are being lost so where will day trippers park? However, the council admits hat their aspiration is that travel to Porthcawl in the future will be “principally by public transport, greatly reducing the number of private vehicles requiring parking facilities.”
They talk about ”facilitating a modal shift towards increased use of public transport” and state that the “Metro link” is integral to this aim. Let’s get real here. The Metro link, despite its fancy name, is actually a four-bay bus station – there will be no tram or light railway connection to the town.
And this facility will be provided at a cost of £4 million just in time to see the reduction in bus services to and from Porthcawl from the current four to just two as a result of Welsh Government cutting back on its Bus Emergency Scheme which funded services during Covid. So bus companies throughout Wales are busy cutting their services back to only those which are commercially viable.
So, given this reality, does the council seriously expect people to leave their cars at home in order to take their families with all their paraphernalia onto an infrequent bus service? Or will they drive to Aberavon instead?
This short sighted policy will have massive repercussions on Porthcawl’s viability as a tourism resort and result in the loss of many hundreds of local jobs.
I intend to organise a public meeting shortly to which BCBC will be invited to send the relevant officers and councillors to answer the many questions and concerns from local residents directly.
Watch out for details of when and where it will take place.