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GOWERTON: Flood regulator says 216-home site ‘did not fully comply’ with flood guidance, then agrees flooding can be left out of the study

Natural Resources Wales has told planning inspectors that the site of 216 proposed homes at Fairwood Terrace “did not fully comply” with national flood guidance. It has also told them flooding can be left out of the developer’s environmental study.

The regulator’s letter, dated 15 September, is its reply to Persimmon’s request to limit that study to a single topic: the nutrients the homes would send towards the Burry Inlet.

It was sent two days before Swansea Council’s own reply, which asked for new wildlife surveys and said nothing on traffic.

The junction of Fairwood Terrace and Victoria Road, where a new signal-controlled junction is proposed beneath the low railway bridge, opposite Gowerton Rugby Club.
(Image: Swansea Bay News)

What NRW told inspectors about flood risk at Fairwood Terrace

NRW says its advice on the original planning application was based on the Welsh Government’s flood guidance for planners as it stood at the time, the July 2004 version of the document known as TAN 15.

“The site did not fully comply with TAN15 (July 2004),” the letter says. “However, we accept that there will be no likely significant effects in relation to flood risk and it can be screened out of the ES.” The ES is the environmental statement Persimmon must write before its appeal can be decided.

The regulator takes the same view on contamination. It says there have been “no material changes” since a site investigation in March 2022, and that any risks “will be controlled through the relevant planning conditions”.

It also says the scheme would not affect the purposes of the Gower Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and that pollution during building work is covered by Persimmon’s construction management plan.

On nutrients, NRW agrees they must be studied and accepts the housebuilder’s proposed approach, provided the work “adequately addresses the requirements” of both the environmental statement and the separate habitats assessment.

A second official body questions the age of the wildlife surveys

On wildlife, NRW is less settled. It was satisfied with the ecological proposals in June 2024, but says the information “may now be considered old enough to require updating”.

“Updated ecology surveys would need to demonstrate that previously agreed mitigation was still valid,” it says. It leaves inspectors to decide whether that work sits inside the environmental statement or in a separate report.

That echoes the council’s ecology officer, who pointed out this week that most of the surveys date from 2015 to 2020, and asked for new bat, dormouse and otter surveys.

One of the Save Gowerton From Gridlock campaign boards, now weathered and leaning in the grass beside the Fairwood Terrace site.
(Image: Swansea Bay News)

Campaigners’ 38-page case: Flood Zone 3, a missing spine road and the Trafle Mill bridge

Save Gowerton from Gridlock has filed a 38-page response with 28 appendices, asking inspectors to require nine further chapters, including transport, flood risk, air quality, ground contamination and GP capacity.

On flooding, the group says a significant part of the site now falls within River Flood Zone 3, the high-risk category, on the current Flood Map for Planning, and that NRW’s advice rests on a 22-year-old framework. It accepts the appeal may technically fall under transitional rules. NRW’s letter does not mention the current flood map.

On traffic, it says the spine road that Swansea’s development plan treats as essential to the wider Waunarlwydd and Fforestfach allocation is no longer proposed by any of the developers involved, leaving Victoria Road to take the traffic. It puts the number of homes in the planning pipeline across the corridor at 3,196.

It also wants a standalone risk assessment for the Trafle Mill railway bridge, saying April’s strike was the 35th on record and that Persimmon’s proposed pedestrian crossing would sit where debris fell. We reported that strike, and another on 7 August, when a lorry’s roof was torn open and trains were halted.

Traffic squeezed past the stricken lorry while it remained wedged (Image: The Gowerton Starch / Facebook)

The group’s submission also points to PFOS, a so-called forever chemical, which it says NRW has recorded in the Afon Llan beside the site, downstream of the former 3M factory in Gorseinon.

Carl Jones, speaking for the group, said: “We are simply asking that the Inspectorate exercises its statutory powers to ensure the developer’s final Environmental Statement reflects the interconnected realities of our local highway capacity, drainage systems, and public health parameters, rather than an incomplete baseline.”

Inspectors can only publish a non-binding view on what the study should cover. We have not yet seen the replies from Dŵr Cymru, Network Rail, Transport for Wales or the Welsh Government’s transport directorate.

The Fairwood Terrace story so far

GOWERTON: Bats, dormice and otters put back on the table for 216 homes
The council’s reply: new wildlife surveys wanted, and silence from highways.

GOWERTON: Developer wants traffic concerns omitted from environmental study
The request all of these replies respond to, and the ten topics Persimmon wants dropped.

GOWERTON: Lorry roof peeled open as notorious Trafle Mill bridge claims another victim
August’s strike at the bridge that guards Fairwood Terrace.

Every Fairwood Terrace story
The refusal, the appeal and the environmental ruling, in order.

#BurryInlet #FairwoodTerrace #Gowerton #NaturalResourcesWales #newHomes #PEDW #PersimmonHomes #SaveGowertonFromGridlock #SwanseaCouncil