A FORMER care home in Cwmbran will be sold for £50,000 by Torfaen council to allow for an affordable housing development on the site.

Torfaen council’s cabinet has unanimously agreed to the disposal of the former Tŷ Gwyn Care Home in Fairwater to a registered social landlord which has plans to redevelop the 1.16-acre site into 20 homes.

The cabinet has also agreed to accept a surrender of the lease for the property, to allow the development to go ahead.

The home – which was named one of the top 20 care homes in Wales in 2019 – was closed in 2020 after its operator and leaseholder Hafod said the building was no longer suitable.

At the time, Hafod said an independent review found “even substantial investment in the building would not address significant shortcomings”.
Since then, the property has been boarded up and subject to vandalism, according to a council report.

At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Cllr David Daniels, executive member for adult services and housing, said the closure of the home was not something the council had wanted to see.

But he said the plans for a 100 per cent affordable housing scheme offered “the best possible scenario that we could ask for”.

“In the context of a really acute housing crisis we are in at the moment – with more people on the housing waiting list than I have ever seen – this is very much welcome,” he said.

Council leader, Cllr Anthony Hunt, also spoke in support of the scheme, which he said would offer homes for “a genuinely affordable” social housing market rent.

A mix of flats, bungalows and houses of different sizes will be included in the development, which is subject to planning permission and approval of grant funding.

The price of £50,000, which is below the valuation of the site for a private development, has been agreed due to the scheme proposing 100 per cent affordable housing.