Shock plans submitted to convert youth centre into housing

Welshpool town councillors have been stunned by the latest bid to convert the town’s youth centre into bungalows.

At last night’s Planning meeting, a proposal to convert the building on Howell Drive into two three-bedroom bungalows were submitted, but there was a mystery over who had submitted the plans and also who actually owns the building.

Cllr Nick Howells, the Town Mayor, said he was “100% against” the plans and Cllr Billy Spencer said: “I don’t think anybody in Welshpool could even imagine that building being housing, so I am against it.”

Committee Chair, Cllr David France, confirmed that the plans include getting rid of the youth centre and the nursery currently operating from the building. He described it as “a very strange application indeed”.

Cllr Phil Pritchard said he thought “we (town council) were looking into buying the building” and then explained his personal historical interest in the building.

“I can remember 65-70 years ago when my mother was chair of the finance committee that actually raised the money to build the facility, as Welshpool desperately wanted a swimming pool,” he said, adding that an iron monger in the town donated the land on one condition “that the covenant states it will always be used for recreational purposes for the people of Welshpool”.

Cllr Pritchard added that he was one of the first children to use the swimming pool when it opened.

Cllr Geoff Lanagan said it looked to be “a planning application for a property that they (applicant) don’t own”, to which Cllr France added: “I believe the architects have applied on behalf of a resident that already lives in the town.”

The proposal to refuse the application was unanimously backed, based on the Town Council’s wish to keep public facilities.