EditorTOWNHILL: Social housing developer plans 27 affordable homes on derelict nursery site
A derelict plot in Townhill — one of Wales’s oldest council-built communities — could be about to get a new lease of life, with plans lodged for 27 affordable apartments on land that has sat empty since the demolition of a nursery school more than a decade ago.
The proposal, submitted by Swansea planning agents Asbri Planning, would see the former Bryn Nursery School site at the junction of Townhill Road and Tower Gardens transformed into a 100% affordable housing development — every home ring-fenced for people who cannot afford to buy or rent on the open market.
Artist’s impression of the proposed apartments(Image: Castell Group / Think Urban architects / Asbri Planning)
Behind the scheme is Castell Group, a Swansea Vale-based developer that specialises in affordable and social housing across south Wales, working with registered social landlords including Caredig and Hafod.
The site has a long and frustrated planning history. Bryn Nursery School closed in 2005 and was demolished around 2011, leaving a vacant brownfield plot on one of Townhill’s main roads. Earlier proposals for a 58-bed care home were approved but never built. In 2021, budget supermarket chain Heron Foods — owned by B&M — twice applied to build a small express-format store on the site, only for both applications to be refused by Swansea Council on retail and highway grounds. The land has remained empty ever since.
The development would sit in a neighbourhood with a particular place in Welsh housing history. Townhill — built on the hillside above the city from the 1920s onwards — was one of the first purpose-built council communities in Wales, planned to provide decent homes for Swansea’s working-class population at a time when much of the city’s housing was overcrowded and inadequate. A century on, the demand for affordable homes here hasn’t gone away.
The proposed development would comprise 17 one-bedroom and 10 two-bedroom apartments across several two and three storey brick-built blocks with pitched roofs, in keeping with the surrounding streets. The site — currently overgrown scrubland that has regenerated since the old nursery came down — is just 150 metres from Townhill’s local centre, within walking distance of shops, a pharmacy, a library and a primary school, and close to bus services into Swansea city centre and Morriston Hospital.
Tower Gardens with the development site on the right (Image: Google Maps)The scheme has already been through informal discussions with Swansea Council, which confirmed that the principle of residential development here was acceptable. The original proposal was for 33 units, but this was reduced to 27 following council feedback about the site’s proximity to Tower Court — a supported independent living scheme for older residents next door. A flat roof design was also rejected by planners who noted that the surrounding area is entirely pitched-roof in character.
The plans include 22 parking spaces, secure cycle storage, extensive landscaping and tree planting, sustainable urban drainage, solar panels and electric vehicle charging points.
The public consultation runs until 24 April 2026.
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Heron Foods submitted plans for an express-format B&M store on the former Bryn Nursery School site in 2021 — both applications were refused.
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