The Four Winds pub on Aberavon seafront, empty since January 2020, would be flattened for 61 affordable flats with a coffee shop on the corner, under plans now out for public comment.
Hale Group and the housing association Codi Group want a three and four storey block wrapped around the corner of Princess Margaret Way and Dalton Road, with the cars pushed round the back and a cafe terrace facing the sea.
It is the third version of the scheme. The first, in December 2021, was seven storeys high with a shop on the ground floor and up to 81 flats for the over-55s, and Neath Port Talbot Council told the developers five was the most it would wear.
The consultation runs to Thursday 27 November, and a full planning application is expected to follow.
What is proposed
All 61 flats, 52 of them one-bedroom and nine two-bedroom, would be affordable housing built to the Welsh Government’s space standards. Sandfields East councillor Sean Pursey says they are general needs social housing.
The ground floor on the seafront side is a 285 square metre unit the applicants describe as a coffee shop, with outside seating along the pavement. Flats, not shops, line the Dalton Road side.
There are 34 parking spaces for the 61 flats, two of them accessible, plus two for cafe staff and none for cafe customers. The developers lean on the 2021 census, which puts car ownership in Sandfields East at 0.51 cars per flat, with more than half of flat households owning none.
The documents promise an EPC A rating, solar panels and a green roof on the set-back top floor, electric vehicle charging, 61 cycle spaces inside for residents and 12 outside for the cafe, and rain gardens in the car park.
It would be built in light buff brick with a grey brick ground floor and a dark grey metal top floor stepped back from the edge, the look in the artist’s impression.
Seven storeys, then five, then this
Councillors saw the earlier drawings. Cllr Pursey calls them “completely unacceptable”: “The buildings were poorly designed, far too tall (7 storeys high!) and the developers were pushing a shop/retail unit on the ground floor which is not needed and would not enhance the seafront.”
After the council’s 2022 verdict and a Design Commission for Wales review in November 2023, a new architect produced a four and five storey version with 71 flats, a 400 square metre convenience store, a cafe and parking tucked under the building.
The council backed the principle but would not accept the undercroft parking, and wanted a gentler face on Dalton Road, where the houses opposite are two storeys. Out went the shop and a floor, and the count fell to 61.
Cllr Pursey said: “I am pleased to say a lot of our feedback has been taken on board in getting to this scheme. I am much happier with this scheme as it now stands.”
His one caveat is that the cafe unit has to work for a real business, and he wants anyone interested in it to tell the consultation what size they need.
Why the pub is not coming back
Five different operators took the Four Winds on between 2017 and 2020 and none of them lasted past the rent-free period, according to the viability report lodged with the plans. It has been on the market since 2020 with no takers.
Bringing it back as a pub would cost about £630,500 before the roof, the report says, and lose money. Eight other pubs, restaurants and cafes sit within a mile.
The architects, Roberts Limbrick, also drew up the council’s 2024 masterplan for the seafront, which left the Four Winds out because it is privately owned but singled it out as a key site for the seafront’s regeneration.
It is the second big social housing scheme on the front this year. Along the promenade, Tai Tarian wants 135 social rent flats and a six-storey block at the County Flats, where parking was the sore point too.
A daylight study of the houses along Dalton Road, numbers 84 to 126, found every window that counts passes the standard tests, the applicants say. The site is in the lowest flood risk zone.
The documents are on Simply Planning’s website and comments go to fourwinds@simply-planning.com by 27 November. Developers must say in the application how they answered what comes back.
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