Plans have been submitted to Neath Port Talbot Council for the £130 million Afan Valley Adventure Resort in South Wales.
Afan Valley Adventure Resort will be a Center Parcs-style adventure retreat reports Wales Online. A scoping report submitted to the council outlined the first details of the resort.
It will include 600 cabins, a 100-bed hotel, spa, central ‘plaza’ with restaurants and shops and dozens of different adventure sports.
The holiday destination will attract up to 260,000 visitors a year, it is hoped. Guests will be able to sample a “menu” of outdoor sports.
The proposed site is just south of Afan Forest Park, close to Cymmer and Croeserw.
Peter Moore, the man who brought Center Parcs to the UK, has teamed up with the chairman of Northern Powerhouse Developments (NPD), Gavin Woodhouse, to bring the resort to the Afan Valley.
“The area looks tailor-made for it, the natural topography is just perfect – it’s God’s own country,” Moore explained.
“I was seeing examples everywhere of people doing adventure experiences, like in Surf Snowdonia and at the zip wire nearby – people want the buzz of adrenalin. It became clear there was appeal for adrenalin activities.”
The resort will be split into four zones: Trail, Xtreme, Forest and Alpine. Across the park, guests can try their hand at skiing, go-karting, off-road adventures, canoeing, climbing, paintballing and mountain biking.
Indoor attractions will include simulated skydiving, inside surfing, roller skating, trampolining and ‘ninja warrior’ training.
Plans also reveal that the resort is set to house the headquarters of the Bear Grylls Survival Academy, the adventure man’s own bush craft school.
Northern Powerhouse Developments hopes to see 400 of the cabins, the hotel and all facilities to be in place by 2021. Over the next 15 years the final 200 cabins will be constructed.
Peter Moore explained: “People want to say goodbye to every day life and do something different.”
“We’ve done lots of research and we think it’s something people will like.”
Northern Powerhouse Developments hopes to fund much of the project by selling 80 to 85 per cent of the cabins to the public. The public will be offered an 8% net annual return for seven years and two weeks use of the cabin each year.
Indeed, there is so much confidence in the project that by June agents had begun selling the cabins – before a single plan had been submitted to Neath Port Talbot Council.
Nicola Pearce, head of Planning and Public Protection at Neath Port Talbot Council, said: “An application for a scoping opinion seeks the opinion of the planning authority as to the extent of issues to be considered within the developer’s Environmental Statement.”
“The Environmental Statement would in due course accompany a planning application. The scoping opinion does not consider the merits of any proposal. As a result, these types of applications are normally dealt with under delegated powers and this is also likely to be the case with this submission.”
Image: Afan Valley Adventure Resort
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/early-plans-go-600-cabin-13586965
