Pupils at Ysgol Pen Rhos were kept indoors for the afternoon after a suspected unexploded shell was found at the recycling centre next to the school. The Llanelli primary told parents at 12.38pm it had been advised it was safe for children to stay in school.
Children were kept off the 3G pitch and all outdoor areas for the rest of the day as a precaution.
The message said: “The suspected ordnance and the area surrounding it are far away from the 3G pitch.” Parents were told the end-of-day arrangements would change, with details to follow.
The recycling centre is run by AMG Resources, the waste firm whose site Natural Resources Wales confirmed in July as a source of the fly swarms that hit Seaside, Morfa and Tyisha through the summer.
Dyfed-Powys Police said officers were called to Nevills Dock at around 9.30am. The area around the shell has been sealed off and an explosive ordnance disposal team is dealing with it.
Northumberland Road and Copperhouse Road, behind the new Pentre Awel development at Delta Lakes, are closed. Police are asking people to avoid the area.
When Swansea Bay News went to the scene shortly after 2pm, a neighbourhood policing car was parked across the entrance to Northumberland Road at the junction.
The force said in a statement: “There is no ongoing risk to the public and we ask that people avoid the area.”
What the bomb disposal team does
Explosive ordnance disposal teams are military specialists called in by the police when a suspected munition turns up. They examine the item and either make it safe where it lies or take it away to be destroyed in a controlled explosion.
Police have not said what kind of shell it is, how old it might be, or how it came to be at the waste site. They have not said who found it or how long the roads will be shut.
Nobody has been reported hurt and police have not said that any homes or businesses have been evacuated.
The site blamed for the summer’s flies
NRW ordered AMG Resources to clean up the site within 21 days in July and then suspended part of its permit, before lifting the ban in August and saying the site was no longer contributing to the fly problem. An enforcement notice and weekly monitoring visits stayed in place.
Glanymor’s two county councillors launched a petition last month demanding the site is reviewed, with moving or shutting it on the table. AMG Resources said in July that it was not the source of the flies and had pest control in place.
Not the first call-out this year
It is the second time this year a bomb disposal team has been called to Llanelli. In May, residents on two streets in Felinfoel were moved out of their homes for more than six hours after a suspect package was found on Long Row, before the team confirmed there was no risk.
Last October, a wartime bomb found in Cheapside in Bridgend closed the town centre, emptied Aldi and Asda and stopped trains between Cardiff and Swansea for the afternoon before it was removed.
Suspected finds do not always turn out to be what they seem. In 2021, homes in Birchgrove were evacuated after a suspected Second World War bomb was found in a garden, and specialist teams later decided it was “not as reported”.
Swansea Bay News will update this story when police confirm the roads have reopened.
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