OWNERS of the rejected site for a prison in Caernarfon have announced a leisure and retail project that could give the town a huge boost.
Bluefield Caernarfon Ltd planning director Gary Goodman said that the company is looking to build holiday lodges, leisure facilities, shops and a hotel on the former Ferodo site on the outskirts of Caernarfon.
“The town needs investment in housing, leisure and retail and we are working very closely with Gwynedd Council to bring a quality development to Caernarfon,” he said.
He added that a multi-use planning application had been submitted to Gwynedd Council, but that he could not reveal any further information at this time.
Mr Goodman criticised the UK government for their handling of the search for a prison site in North Wales, and said that Prisons Secretary Maria Eagle’s statements to the Welsh Affairs Committee on Tuesday has been “grossly misleading”.
“We provided information on the environmental issues based on external advice. The guide price related to development, not a prison.”
Prisons Secretary Maria Eagle told the Welsh Affairs committee that the site was rejected as a viable location partly due the £32 million difference in Bluefield’s site valuation of £12-24 million and district valuer’s figure of minus £5.4 -7.9m.
She added that there were concerns over the removal of more than 60,000 cubic metres of land to make it viable for development.
Mr Goodman said that Bluefield owns the majority of the site, with two further pieces of land held under an option agreement, and that this was standard practice.
Maria Eagle told the committee that announcing the Caernarfon site as the Government’s preferred option had raised hopes in the area.
“I do accept that announcing the preferred site in the way we did raise expectations that we would build on that site,” she said.
“We knew that there was contamination of the site but we didn’t have a full picture of the remediation that was necessary.”
A new search for sites was announced in October, and Anglesey Council announced it was preparing a bid.
The shortlist of potential sites will be published in spring 2010.