A FORMER care home in Cwmbran is set to be sold for £50,000 by Torfaen council to allow for an affordable housing development on the site.
The county borough council is proposing to sell the former Tŷ Gwyn Care Home in Fairwater to a registered social landlord, with plans to redevelop the 1.16-acre site into 20 homes.
A surrender of the lease for the property has been offered to the council after the care home closed in the summer of 2020 with the building deemed ‘unsuitable’.
Since then, the property has been boarded up and subject to vandalism, according to a council report. Alternative uses for the site have been considered, with residents relocated to other homes, and the council seeking to avoid the costs of holding an empty building.
The site has been valued at £300,000, but this valuation is based on most properties being sold on the open market with just 20 per cent affordable housing.
However, a registered social landlord has put forward a 100 per cent affordable housing scheme for the site. The proposed development includes 20 homes with a mix of flats, bungalows and houses of different sizes.
A price of £50,000 has been agreed following negotiations, with the fact the development will have no income from private sales affecting the value of the land.
A council report says the authority is able to dispose of the land for less than the £300,000 valuation due to the benefits of the development.
It says affordable housing will “improve economic and social well-being of the eventual occupants”.
The report adds that the “replacement of a disused and boarded-up nursing home” with new homes built to modern standards will also improve environmental wellbeing.
The proposed development would be an extension of a site managed by the social landlord located next to it.
The price of £50,000 has been agreed subject to planning permission being granted and approval of grant funding to subsidise the costs of the proposed development.
Cabinet members will meet to decide declaring the site surplus to requirements and disposing of it for £50,000 for the affordable housing development at a meeting on Tuesday.
