Porthcawl street to be adopted by council in new pilot

An unadopted street in Porthcawl will become maintainable by Bridgend County Borough Council after securing Welsh Government funding.

Ynyslas was previously one of thousands of streets across England and Wales not adopted by any authority and, as such, responsibility for its upkeep rested entirely with residents and property owners.

But, in a new Welsh Government pilot, the street is to be adopted by the council and funding has been awarded to bring the carriageway and footways up to standard and allow future maintenance.

The £230,000 scheme will also help to better understand the cost implications of tackling the historical backlog of such streets throughout Wales.

Ynyslas was chosen from a number of unadopted streets identified by a 2010 report commissioned by Bridgend County Borough Council.

It was chosen because it was considered to be one street that would provide benefit to the highest number of residents for a scheme as well as the poor condition of the footways and with the concrete road breaking up in various places.

Work at Ynyslas will include reconstructing footways and carriageways, survey and repairing highway drainage, and undertaking other associated works to ensure the highway is suitable for adoption.

It is hoped that work will commence during the summer or autumn this year with an aim to complete the process by March 2022.

The funding is being made available as a pilot scheme by Welsh Government as part of its ongoing consideration of addressing the issues surrounding unadopted streets throughout Wales.

I am very pleased that we have been able to secure this funding from the Welsh Government which enables us to take on responsibility for one of the many unadopted streets across the county borough.

While there will be some inconvenience to the residents at Ynyslas while we work on the improvements, we will make every effort to keep disruption to a minimum.

By bringing the street up to a standard where it can be adopted by the council, the area will prosper in the long term from regular maintenance and the benefits of being part of the main road network.

Councillor Stuart Baldwin, Cabinet Member for Communities