NEW hoardings are needed to replace a fence that has failed to secure the site of Gwent Police’s now demolished former headquarters.
The force and construction firm Wilmot Dixon was given permission in 2023 to put up fencing and hoarding around the former police headquarters which is beside the main A4042 Croeysceiliog bypass between Newport and Cwmbran.
But their planning consultants have now asked Torfaen Borough Council for permission to replace a section of heras – or heavy duty wire mesh – fencing along 200 metres of the site boundary beside Turnpike Road.
The current fencing is two metres high but the application, to vary the existing permission, wants approval to replace it with 2.4m tall boards which would be the same as those put up at entrances to the triangular shaped four hectare site.
A planning statement submitted to the council states: “The existing section of heras fencing along Turnpike Road (approximately 200m length) is proving inadequate to stop incidents of trespass into the site.”
It states 2.4m is the “minimum height now considered to be required for site security” and its route is intended to protect the roots of the trees and hedgerows on the site and it will be set back, where possible, to reduce “any perception of visual impacts”.
The former police headquarters site is listed in Torfaen’s current development plan, approved in 2013, as a potential housing site and permission was given in 2020 for new housing on the adjoining former County Hall site.
A planning application for new police custody suite at the former headquarters was submitted earlier this year, which is still under consideration by the planning department, but the Gwent Police and Crime Commissioner’s Office said no decision on whether the development should go ahead will be taken until 2026 with the planning application intended to help establish the proposal’s viability.