The British up for sale (From Free Press Series)

The British up for sale

2:00pm Wednesday 8th July 2009

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THE British former ironworks and pit site is back on the market, angering many residents.

PricewaterhouseCoopers put the 1,300 acre brownfield site, a former colliery and steelworks in Talywain, up for sale after Castlemore Securities went into administration in March.

A subsidiary of Castlemore Securities, Spring, planned to extract 360,000 tonnes of coal and transform the site with 800 new homes, a supermarket and leisure facilities.

Following a number of failed applications for the reclamation scheme, the site, which has been derelict for 30 years, is little more than a barren wasteland.

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ real estate partner, Barry Gilbertson, said: “The British has great potential for profit over time from a range of property development and mining activities, so it seems to be just the right kind of property to be marketing at this stage of the recessionary cycle.”

The site includes an estimated 360,000 tonnes of coal for extraction by opencast mining and subsequent development.

A 150-acre area of the site is included in the local plan as a general development area.

The company refused to say how much the site, the size of more than 750 football pitches, was worth.

Chairman of the British Liaison Committee, Dr John Cox, said: “We want to see the site taken back into public ownership rather than continually being sold to private developers as this is not working.”

Tony Harper, 66, of Church Road, said residents hoped the council could buy the land instead of selling it to private developers.

“In an ideal world we’d like a heritage park so everybody could enjoy the beauty of it,” he said.

Jean Quigley, of Pant Glas, which is on the site, firmly opposed the idea of opencast mining and said the site should be made into a recreation ground for people to make the most of the surroundings.

And Abersychan Cllr Wayne Tomlinson said: “Obviously the community is concerned about which company the site is sold to. We are just going to have to wait now and see what comes from this sale.”

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