{"id":350917,"date":"2025-08-17T05:29:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T05:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/350917\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T05:29:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T05:29:14","slug":"the-10-million-welsh-business-park-that-still-has-no-businesses-in-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/350917\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u00a310 million Welsh business park that still has no businesses in it"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a rural area near the Welsh town of Bridgend on the borders of the Vale of Glamorgan, there is currently a series of unused roads and pavements that lead to nowhere.<\/p>\n

Nestled between the M4<\/a> and A48, Brocastle Business Park was built to give an economic boost to the area, with the \u00a310 million site funded by the Welsh Government<\/a> with the aim of creating thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n

However, despite the numerous plots of land being ready and waiting to be filled by businesses, there is no hum of machinery or chatter of workers here at the moment, but instead an eerie silence as none of the land has yet been used.<\/p>\n

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Brocastle Business Park was completed in November of 2021 on land next to the A48, around five miles away from junction 35 of the M4.<\/p>\n

It was built with Welsh Government funding to provide a \u201csubstantial stimulus to employment opportunities\u201d with outline planning consent for up to 770,000sq feet of floor space.<\/p>\n

\"Brocastle<\/p>\n

The site is still hoped to bring in thousands of jobs to the area -Credit:John Myers<\/p>\n

The works were carried out by a local civil engineering contractor and funded with more than \u00a310 million from the Welsh Government, including around \u00a36.2 million awarded through the European Regional Development Fund.<\/p>\n

An additional \u00a32 million was also given to the project to link the new employment site to Waterton with an Active Travel Route.<\/p>\n

At the time of the opening, the then Minister for Economy Vaughan Gething said the \u201csignificant investment\u201d had been made for the plans that he hoped would lead to the creation of many new jobs.<\/p>\n

\"Brocastle<\/p>\n

It was first completed in November 2021 -Credit:John Myers<\/p>\n

However, despite the completion of key roads and provision for nine plots at the site, as of August 2025, none appear to have been used with marketing agents still showing them as being available.<\/p>\n

Local Community Councillor Keith Hughes said he like others felt the area was still in need of more jobs adding that he hoped the investment at the site would eventually pay off.<\/p>\n

A response from Welsh Government said they were still confident that this would be the case, with negotiations on two of the plots currently taking place and others being \u201cactively marketed\u201d.<\/p>\n

They said: \u201cSince substantial completion of the development plots, Brocastle has received a number of serious enquiries from interested parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are currently negotiating offers on two of the nine plots, one to a developer and one to an owner occupier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe remaining plots continue to be actively marketed by commercial property agents and have been attracting steady interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain confident that the site will attract further investment to Bridgend<\/a> and be home to many new jobs in the coming years.\u201d For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a rural area near the Welsh town of Bridgend on the borders of the Vale of Glamorgan,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5010],"tags":[748,124056,4884,124057,16,15,1764,14794,124055],"class_list":{"0":"post-350917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wales","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-brocastle-business-park","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-rural-area","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-wales","15":"tag-welsh-government","16":"tag-welsh-town"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115042462252615133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}