More than 29,000 patients have had a blood test at Canolfan Pentre Awel since June, when the health board moved its Llanelli blood test service there.
The figure comes from Carmarthenshire County Council, a year after the centre opened its doors on 15 October 2025.
For Llanelli patients, the move ended two years of being sent from place to place. Blood tests had been moved out to the Dafen Mass Vaccination Centre in 2024, on an industrial estate with no bus service.
They arrived at Pentre Awel on 1 June. Over the summer, more NHS clinics were due to follow, from heart failure and continence services to ear wax microsuction and a new IV clinic.
Nearly 70,000 visits to exercise classes in the first year
On the leisure side, exercise classes run by the council’s Actif Sport and Leisure team recorded 69,889 attendances in the year, the council says.
The hydrotherapy pool, which opened in February, has had 1,388 users at its public sessions.
For some people, the exercise starts with a referral. Patients with health conditions can be sent for supervised exercise through the Welsh Government-funded National Exercise Referral Scheme, known as NERS, which had 535 referrals at Pentre Awel in the first year.
The team ran 291 group exercise sessions and 156 supervised gym sessions, according to the council.
One participant said they had been “very nervous and apprehensive” before starting, but felt “much more hopeful” after the first assessment.
They added: “The classes are good fun, everyone is welcoming and I have definitely felt the health benefits. I have more energy and now look forward to attending every week.”
Another described the support as “fabulous” from the very first session.
A summer food festival, and a place in a UK award final
The building has drawn people in well beyond the gym and the clinics. More than 2,000 came to its first Summer Food and Drink Festival over two days in July, and 1,314 attended business, community and partnership events in its activity rooms.
That same month it won the community benefit category at the RICS Awards Wales. Next Thursday, 22 October, it’s due to represent Wales at the RICS UK Grand Final.
Council leader Cllr Linda Evans said the centre had “already made a tremendous impact on our communities” in its first 12 months.
Cllr Hazel Evans, cabinet member for regeneration, leisure, culture and tourism, said working in partnership had brought “services closer to the people who need them”.
Built where Llanelli once made tinplate
All of this happens on ground that once did very different work. William Thomas opened a brickworks on the site in 1861 and built workers’ homes known as Brick Row.
The South Wales Tinplate Works came next, filling the land with mills, rail sidings and loading bays in the days when Llanelli was known as Tinopolis. The works were expanded in 1911 and declined after the war, and they had been demolished by 1951.
From the 1960s, the old shipping channel was landscaped into Delta Lakes, and the roundabout laid then is still there today. The new name, Pentre Awel, means “breezy village”.
Five years from City Deal approval to opening day
The plan to bring health and leisure to the site cleared the Swansea Bay City Deal’s joint committee in November 2020.
The UK and Welsh governments signed off its £40m business case the following March. The council said it would bring around 1,800 jobs and a £467m boost to the local economy over 15 years.
That October, the council appointed Bouygues UK to design and build the first phase.
Work formally started in March 2023, when completion was expected in autumn 2024.
In February 2024 the council set aside another £16m to finish it, and the doors opened in October 2025.
The move closed Llanelli Leisure Centre and the Jubilee Pool after 62 years. In April 2025 the old leisure centre site was put forward as a possible new home for Ysgol Gymraeg Dewi Sant.
Next: assisted living, a nursing home and a 120-bed hotel
The Canolfan is only the first phase of the £218m Pentre Awel development on the 83-acre site.
The council has said later phases will bring around 370 assisted living units and beds, a nursing home, housing, and more space for business, research and healthcare.
Across the road, plans for a five-storey, 120-bed hotel were submitted in January 2025.
The council leads the scheme with Hywel Dda University Health Board, Swansea University, Cardiff University and Coleg Sir Gâr.
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