A FORMER office building by a retail park in Llanelli which could have become a Lidl store and coffee shop is being offered as a potential venue for a drug rehabilitation service.
Carmarthenshire Council’s vacant Ty’r Nant office is around 50 metres from fast food retailer KFC and adjacent to B&Q’s car park.
Cabinet members have agreed to offer it to a multi-agency group called Dyfed Area Planning Board, which commissions substance misuse services in the region.
Through this arrangement another group, called Dyfed Drug and Alcohol Services (DDAS), provides support for over-18s from the first floor of Boots on Vaughan Street, Llanelli.
A cabinet report said the council didn’t consider the Vaughan Street location ideal due to its wider aspirations to regenerate the town centre. The plan had been for DDAS to move to a building off Traeth Ffordd, North Dock, where it would be incorporated into a new health and well-being centre.
But the health and well-being centre plans sparked many objections due to the DDAS element, and the scheme was turned down by the council’s planning committee in 2023 against planning officers’ advice.
This in turn led to an appeal by Hywel Dda University Health Board on behalf of the area planning board.
The appeal didn’t go ahead because the Traeth Ffordd building has been sold to a different organisation, leaving the area planning board seeking a new alternative. Ty’r Nant will now be an option for a relocated DDAS.
A report before the council’s cabinet said: “The APB (area planning board) have been advised of the possible availability of this building subject to cabinet approval and they are undertaking a feasibility study as to its suitability for their proposal.”
The area planning board had earlier considered Ty’r Nant as potentially suitable for a health and well-being centre, although sites in the Trostre area had previously been discounted because Trostre was considered too far from the town centre.
It could all have been different for the Ty’r Nant site. A new Lidl store and Tim Horton’s coffee shop had previously been proposed there but the plans were refused by the council and again by a Welsh Government-appointed planning inspector following an appeal. The inspector said the retail proposals would contravene efforts to regenerate Llanelli town centre by diverting trade away from it, adding that there were already a mix of food outlets in the immediate area.
