CARMARTHEN: Demolition date set for the former Wilko

The former Wilko store in Carmarthen now has a demolition date: the end of October.

Site notices have gone up at Friars Park, with the building’s frontage now fenced off behind metal fencing carrying bilingual danger signs.

The application has been submitted by Carmarthenshire County Council to its own planning authority under what is known as a Part 31 prior notification, seeking a determination on whether prior approval is needed for the method of demolition and any proposed restoration of the site.

The town can have its say until 9 September

Anyone wanting to comment has until 9 September, with responses to go to the council’s building control manager at Tŷ Elwyn in Llanelli.

The notice gives 26 October 2026 as the proposed date for demolition to begin.

The demolition was approved by the council’s cabinet last month, unanimously and without debate.

The work is funded by £2.5m from the Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns grant. £1.5m of that must be spent this financial year.

Condition surveys found the building needed around £1m of investment, most of it on the roof, before it could be relet, and the council concluded it had reached the end of its usable life.

The 250-space car park behind the store will be rebuilt as part of the scheme, with the council saying it no longer meets modern parking standards.

Still no decision on what replaces it

What goes on the site afterwards has still not been decided. The council says discussions with interested parties are ongoing, but no agreement has been reached.

The council’s report to cabinet said there would be a temporary impact on businesses at Merlin’s Walk and on neighbouring residents while work is under way, without saying what the work will involve or how long it will last.

Two hundred skeletons and a Tudor tomb beneath the tarmac

Whatever is built next will stand on one of the most storied sites in the county. Friars Park covers Carmarthen Greyfriars, a Franciscan friary first recorded in 1282, where 1980s digs uncovered more than 200 skeletons, and where Edmund Tudor, father of Henry VII, was entombed until the Dissolution.

The store went up on the cleared site in the mid-1980s, traded as Tesco until the early 2000s, then as Wilko until the chain collapsed in 2023 with the loss of 400 stores.

The council already owned the freehold and bought the leasehold in March 2024 with the building standing empty, saying at the time it was anxious not to see a prime town centre site left vacant. The purchase price has never been published.

The planning authority’s determination comes next, with demolition able to begin from late October if the process runs to time, and the future of the site to be decided separately.