Coed Darcy II

The Coed Darcy development in south Wales stands as a testament to the transformative power of urban regeneration, with Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council leading on a project to convert a former BP oil refinery site into a thriving community.  With key stakeholders, The King's Foundation created a masterplan, Guidance and Town Code.  This once blighted landscape now boasts attractive housing, prosperous businesses, and a cutting-edge University campus.  The business district has already created 1,500 plus jobs, and the university has secured 183 contracts.

     I didn't realise until Thursday that I was so out of the loop on this subject.  I really should have been more aware when the story hit in Jan/Feb this year, after all there was a massive spike in the number of page views that my post on the Coed Darcy development was getting.  So, what caused this?
     At the beginning of the year, a local Swansea man, Jay Curtis, out filming with his drone, came across a group of abandoned houses he knew nothing about.  The subsequent video, posted on social media, went 'viral' sparking media interest.  Articles appeared on the BBC & Wales Online, and there were articles in the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and the Daily Mirror at least.  Quickly the story changed to talk about the whole redevelopment and it's very apparent failures.  Nor were these the first media reports of the problems at Coed Darcy; in November 2023 the Mirror published a lengthy article under the headline 'Newbuild Village Hell as 4,000 home development still has no school or shops'.

     As anyone who has watched Jay's atmospheric video can testify the houses are in a terrible state.  Not only that, there is something decidedly sinister about them.  Some of the garden walls, in particular, look like they have been witness to mass executions.  At the time the origin of this small cluster of houses was presented in the media as a bit of a mystery.  In fact, some of them (not the Telegraph) were really rather coy about the origins of it all.  

     However, before I get started, I need to say - for the record - that I know several people who were involved at the early stages of the development and now, as far as I aware, no longer are. I should also say that I am an alumnus of the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture (now The King's Foundation).

     It's probably best begin with a brief recap of the 20th century history of Coed Darcy.  From 1919 until its closure in 1998 the site was occupied by what was eventually called the BP Llandarcy oil refinery, what was, by the 1960s, the 3rd biggest refinery in the UK.  The following year, 1999, the Welsh Government called in the then Prince's Foundation to draw up a plan for the redevelopment of the site.  A Masterplan was drawn up by the Foundation in collaboration with Design LK and Alan Baxter Associates.

    In 2008 ten years after the closure of the refinery, and after a five year project by BP to clear the site of structures, the site was sold to the property developers St Modwen, and work commenced on a three year environmental remediation. In retrospect this seems an optimistic timetable.  It is more than likely that the developers found the site in a worse condition than they expected, such is the nature of such sites

     At some point in that process, that small hamlet of houses - some eight in all - which Jay Curtis came across one winter's day at the beginning of the year, was constructed (about the same time as construction began on the mass market housing at the further end of the site).  This 'Demonstration Village' was funded by BP.  And very good it was; the scheme even going as far as to furnish one of the houses in impeccable style.  Tom Gough from St Modwen announced the houses 'sat there ready to be occupied.'*  There was even talk of artists living there.  In July 2013 the Prince of Wales (as was) visited the scheme to give it his imprimatur.  It was a moment of quiet celebration, a milestone in the rehabilitation of the site had been reached. The event was filmed by the Prince's Foundation and posted on YouTube. On the video, Ben Bolgar, head of design at the Foundation, said:

     'The Prince of Wales is today visiting this part of Coed Darcy Development which we call the Demonstration Village.  And it was designed specifically with the idea of setting a standard and a vision and aspiration for the site as a whole.  So it uses ecological materials - clay block, lime renders and mortars, Welsh slate, Welsh stone - and is here to show really what people can do when they put their mind to it in terms of clearing up after activities of refining.  This really is for us a poster-child - saying when you're standing on a former tip of an oil refinery, probably the most polluted part of the site, and then you end up with something as beautiful as this, as clean as this, and you watch nature coming back - cormorants fishing; swans, ducks we've had this morning - then you really begin to believe that human beings are capable of living in harmony with nature.'

     So just what is going on at Coed Darcy now?

     To be honest, like so many other people, I don't quite know.  Let me, however, qualify that; it is apparent that the reality is a long way from the glowing statement from the King's Foundation with which I started this post.**  It doesn't say, for instance, that construction has ceased, has been stopped for years now, with only 294 houses have been built out of 4,000, and that the promised amenities - such as shops, doctor's surgery and schools are yet to appear.  No mention is made either of the developers successful attempts at changing the Town Code.

     Apparent also, that that 'poster-child', the 'Demonstration Village', a folie de grandeur, a Potemkin Village that was used for a few hours on a single July morning, was abandoned almost immediately afterwards and has been left to slowly rot over the past 13 years.  That is shameful, particularly when you consider it has been estimated to have cost up to £5m, but then, apparently, no effort was ever made at the time to connect it to the rest of the development or the world around it.  Regardless of what was said at the time, I doubt that St Modwen had any intention of letting anyone live there.  I also know from personal experience, that the company were very reluctant to allow potential visitors access.  And who could blame them, when less than a hundred feet to the east of the village, the remediation of the land was still continuing, and judging by a Google Earth image I found easily enough while researching this blog, it most likely continues today.

     The ongoing costs of remediation contributed to the financial difficulties of St Modwen.  The Coed Darcy site was, and remains, essentially a 'money-pit'.  Rendered therefore vulnerable to takeover, the company was acquired by the American Private Equity firm Blackstone in 2021.  St Modwen was then split into three subsidiaries: St Modwen Homes, St Modwen Logistics and Brighton STM, managed by another subsidiary of Blackstone, Revantage.  St Modwen Homes was then sold to the Scottish developer Miller Homes, which is in turn owned by Apollo, another American investment firm.  Wisely, at the time of purchasing St Modwen Homes, Miller refused to have anything to do with Coed Darcy.  Putting aside St Modwen Logistics, this leaves Brighton STM, and here things get even more labyrinthine (if things weren't labyrinthine enough at this point).  Brighton STM is a corporate shell company.  It does no active external business.  It is just a way of tidying up the legal liabilities and all the other leftover bits from Blackstone's acquisition of St Modwen and its subsequent sundering.  It does, however, have two direct consequences for the Coed Darcy development, and much more importantly for the residents. Firstly, there is the ongoing corporate administration and estate management functions of the site, and which are actually done by Revantage, and secondly Brighton STM has 'inherited' St Modwen's legal role as responsible developer.

     The combination of all these factors, and the continuing on-going remediation, has resulted in almost complete inertia, a standoff between the various 'stakeholders'.  Certainly nothing has changed since the Mirror article of November 2023.  Current residents have been left in stasis, and the built environment is beginning to fray at the edges.  Some of the residents have talked of the place as a 'war zone'.  Their disquiet is highly understandable.  People cannot make plans when the future is so uncertain.  'Stakeholders' - council, developers and the like - are almost silent and when they do speak, the emollient, dead-behind-the-eyes press statements do little to help.  Everything just seems to go round in circles.

     I honestly can see no way forward out of this mess at present.  It is unlikely that either Cardiff or Westminster will step in at this point with a Compulsory Purchase Order and thereby be saddled not only with the cost of compensation but the seemingly never ending environmental remediation.  Further, I don't see how any of the so-called 'stakeholders' come out this very well, be they the Welsh Government, Neath Port Talbot council, the King's Foundation or the developers.

* He went on to point out that this was reliant on the provision of services. 

** '35 years of Impact', published 2025.  There were meant to be a number of events to mark this occasion, but, I believe, they were all(?) shelved.  To be honest the quality of the architecture at Swansea Bay Campus is so poor, I hardly be inclined to chalk that one up as a win either.