5 days ago
Bridgend business park sits empty after £10m government funding
A multi-million pound business park in Bridgend remains empty four years after work was completed on on Brocastle Bridgend business park was finished in November 2021 on land next to the A48, around five miles away from junction 35 of the was built to give an economic boost to the area, with the site receiving £10m in funding from the Welsh government with the aim of creating thousands of jobs. However, despite nine plots of land now ready to be filled by businesses, there is no hum of machinery or chatter of workers at the moment. The Welsh government said negotiations on two plots were ongoing with others being "actively marketed".
According to the Welsh government the business park was built to provide a "substantial stimulus to employment opportunities", with outline planning consent granted for up to 770,000sq ft (71,535 sq m) of floor works were carried out by a local civil engineering contractor and funded with more than £10m from the Welsh government, including about £6.2m awarded through the European Regional Development additional £2m was also given to the project to link the new employment site to Waterton with an active travel route, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. At the time of its completion, the then Minister for Economy Vaughan Gething said the "significant investment" had been made in the hope it would lead to the "creation of many new jobs".However, despite the completion of key roads and provision for nine plots at the site, as of August 2025 none appear to have been used with marketing agents still showing them as being councillor Keith Hughes said he, like others, felt the area was still in need of more jobs adding that he hoped the investment at the site would eventually pay off.A spokesperson for the Welsh government said it was confident that this would be the case, with negotiations on two of the plots currently taking place and others being "actively marketed"."Since substantial completion of the development plots, Brocastle has received a number of serious enquiries from interested parties," they said.
