Rubbish left at £10m Bridgend business park after encampment moves on

Brocastle Business Park, a £10m Welsh government-backed site near Bridgend that has stood empty since 2021, has been left strewn with rubbish after an unauthorised encampment moved on. The Welsh government says the occupants have vacated and work is under way to secure the land and clear the waste.

The 110-acre site includes rubble, garden waste, black bags and a caravan. A dog walker told the BBC they believed there was more than 100 tonnes of rubbish, but that figure was not independently measured in the report.

Local businesses told the BBC the site had hosted three unauthorised encampments in the past year, each larger than the last. Rob Evans, who runs a nearby plant business, said rubbish had also appeared in surrounding lanes and that he feared others might add to it.

The park was developed with £10m in Welsh government funding, with the aim of creating thousands of jobs. A further £2m was allocated to an active travel route linking it to Waterton. But none of the nine plots appears to have been occupied, and marketing agents still list them as available.

The government described the occupation as unauthorised and said fly-tipping was a crime. Bridgend council did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment. The agents marketing the site were also approached.