Neath Town Centre, Phase 2

A masterplan involving eight new retail units and a first floor unit with retail, restaurant or leisure use. It will provide a wide range of benefits for the town centre including additional quality retail floor space, new and improved anchor stores, and the creation of a much-needed circular route linking to other shops in the town. A future phase is planned at the corner of Water Street and Prince of Wales Drive, which would allow for additional retail space over three floors and other uses.

The first phase of the re-development has successfully been completed, with the construction of a new multi-storey car park and the Wilko unit, which have received very complimentary feed-back. In addition, the former multi-storey car park has now been demolished, providing a cleared development site. This development proposes to attract more ‘high street’ retailers, to complement those already existing in the town.

The vision for the development from the applicant (NPTCBC) is to provide a further phase and continuation of the modern retail offer within the Town Centre, as part of the wider regeneration initiatives:

• To both enhance and complement the existing Town Centre.
• To reverse retail expenditure leakage and enhance the retail experience for visitors to Neath and to retain visitors within the Town Centre for extended periods, to the benefit of the local economy, and supporting uses.
• To enhance the public realm and aesthetic experience for visitors to the centre.

The brief provided from the applicant included the following headline requirements:

• To provide approximately 3000 sqm of additional ground floor retail space, with a variety of unit sizes to accommodate a wide range of retailers, together with potential mezzanine and subdivision flexibility.
• The provision of first floor accommodation for further uses, suitable for possible D2 and A3.
• To provide suitable servicing facilities to serve the scale of development proposed without impacting detrimentally upon highway and pedestrian safety, or the free flow of traffic.
• To provide a continuation of the enhanced public realm works as undertaken as part of Phase 1 of this re-generation strategy, including ecological and landscape enhancements.