Regeneration of the Former Woolworths store, Blaenau Ffestiniog

We were engaged to act as Planning Consultants for the regeneration of the Former Woolworths store in Blaenau Ffestiniog which had been a vacant, eye-sore within the town centre for many years.

Previous attempts had been made to rent out the store in its current state, however mainly due to its large floor-space, no interest had been shown. Our client who owns the site, therefore sought to regenerate the site in order to provide an attractive and useable site within the town centre and as a result, the proposed scheme of 4 dwellings (one of which is an affordable dwelling) and a smaller retail unit fronting on to the town centre was submitted to the Local Authority.

During the application process and due to the scale of the building within the existing site, we had to tackle concerns from local residents with regards to overlooking along with inter-visibility concerns within the site itself.

Some minor amendments were made to the scheme in order to address the above and re-submitted to the LPA who have been practical and constructive throughout the application process and the application was later recommended approval.

Due to continued concerns of the local residents, a Local Member requested that the application was called into the Planning Committee where it was voted to conduct a site visit. Following on from this, the application was taken back to the following Committee and voted approval.

Consent has now been secured for an attractive and well-designed development on the site which will allow it to, once again, offer something to the town centre and local community.