Flagship eco-village backed by King Charles’s charity now resembles ‘apocalyptic movie’ after being deserted for greater than a decade

A flagship eco-village backed by King Charles‘s charity now resembles an ‘apocalyptic film’ after being abandoned for more than a decade. 

Almost 300 houses were built on a former oil refinery site in Llandarcy, near Neath, South Wales under plans to turn industrial land into a thriving new village.

The King visited the site in 2013 – when he was the Prince of Wales – after the first phase was completed but construction was abandoned soon after.

The houses have never been lived in and the area has been compared to a ‘zombie’ village in a Hollywood movie.

Filmmaker Jay Curtis was exploring the surrounding area, which is inhabited, when he stumbled upon the Coed Darcy development.

‘It’s like a village that time forgot,’ he said. ‘It just looked completely abandoned.

‘The only thing I can compare it to is an apocalyptic film – like something you’d stumble across in a Hollywood movie.

‘At one stage I thought maybe it was a film set because Wales has a lot of filming going on at the moment.

‘It was only until I got a bit closer with the drone that I realised it was a fully-fledged hamlet of houses with garages with electricity and lighting.’

Much-touted plans for Coed Darcy included 4,000 homes, four schools, a surgery, community hall, library and 500,000sqft of ’employment space’. 

The development received financial backing from what was the then-Prince’s Foundation for Building Community as well as BP, Neath Port Talbot Council and the Welsh Government.

Plans were in place to transform the vacant land into an estate after the model of King Charles’ admired urban development Poundbury in Dorset – and, after five years of environmental clean-up work, construction began on the village.

Charles even visited the site himself in 2013, saying he was interested in ‘trying to break the commercial mould with the kind of challenges the world is now facing’.

It was due to be transformed into a new community of 10,000 people, but only 294 Persimmon homes were built in the village after remedial work began back in 2009. 

Despite being touted as a ’15-minute neighbourhood’ and an ‘eco-village’, locals last year said it now feels more like a ‘war zone’ following a slowdown in improvement works.

There is still a shortage of schools, shops, library and doctors’ surgery, with residents having to travel 20 minutes to the closest such facilities elsewhere.

The estate was once home to the BP-owned Llandarcy Oil Refinery, the UK’s first crude oil refinery.

The first families living there moved in to the site built by developer St Modwen in 2008 – but have been kept waiting for plenty more facilities ever since. 

Local authority Neath Port Talbot Council previously told of ongoing discussions with developers St Modwen and then their parent company Blackstone Group, who ‘moved’ responsibility of the site to a new subsidiary firm called Revantage. 

The developers issued an apology for ‘the operational issues affecting residents’, while submitting a planning application for more development. 

Mr Curtis said he had been unable to determine why the project was abandoned, with locals offering various theories over oil contamination or unstable ground.

He said: ‘There’s no real clear answer, that’s what baffles most people. To have that level of hype, a royal visit, and such ambition – and then to see it all just left – it amazes people.

‘These are big, expensive homes. There are a lot of them. And no-one ever moved in.’

Speaking last year, James Dewitt, 40, a telecommunications consultant who had lived at Coed Darcy for 10 years, was among the locals sharing their despair at a lack of progress.

He said: ‘We like our houses, the community and living here but we are frustrated at the lack of promised facilities and are unable to get a clear answer from either St Modwen or the council about what is causing the delay.

‘We do have a residents group I sit on and we occasionally meet with St Modwen and they have told us they will try to get us some clarity on the status of the development next time we meet.

‘I have also written to the NPT planning department several times and, while they respond, we never get an update of any substance.

‘We are in the same position as two years ago. This is still a lovely place to live in many ways but we still have no school, no shops, no doctors – the only change is that more time has passed.’

Another resident, who moved in nine years ago, said: ‘I’m at the point of putting my house on the market.

‘There’s no community spirit anymore – people are arguing over parking and bins, and there are days when I don’t want to leave the house.

‘I’ve been living here for nine to 10 years, and what appealed to me was that it would be a sustainable place to live. It showed this vibrant estate in these images – and what we’ve got looks like a war zone.

‘I returned to South Wales nine years ago, and there has been a lot of trouble. The community is completely soulless and does not attract the right people – it looks scruffy, it’s just laughable.’