“Unprecedented severe weather” has delayed a Bouygues health innovation campus by three months.
The facility was due to be completed by this summer as the first phase of Carmarthenshire County Council’s Pentre Awel, a £200m health and wellbeing village in Llanelli, South Wales.
However, site progress has stalled by three months due to “unprecedented severe weather”, county councillor Hazel Evans said in a statement to Construction News.
She added: “This length of delay is minimal for a construction project of this size and scale and we are on track for the handover of the site from Bouygues UK to the county council at the beginning of next year.”
The council is partnering with Hywel Dda University Health Board to regenerate 83 acres of former industrial land. The scheme is split into four zones that will be built in phases.
Bouygues started building the first zone in March 2023, after it was plucked from the South West Wales Regional Contractors Framework.
Zone one, worth £96m, brings together a £27m leisure centre with spaces to support healthcare innovation.
The leisure centre features a 25 metre swimming pool, learner pool, hydrotherapy suite, gym, dance and spin studios, sports hall and play area.
The first zone also includes incubation spaces for healthcare technology businesses, a clinical delivery and research centre, and a Swansea University training centre offering health and care courses. It will contain a cafe, meeting areas and landscaped outdoor public space.
Later phases will offer a wellness hotel, housing, a nursing home, assisted living accommodation and an extra-care facility. The site formerly hosted two tinplate mills.
Bouygues contracted south Wales firms Dyfed Steels and Shufflebottom for the foundation reinforcement bar and structural steel respectively.
The project is one of nine major programmes in the Swansea Bay City Deal, a public-private investment of up to £1.3bn for projects in Swansea and the surrounding region. The scheme received £40m from the deal.
Bouygues has been contacted for comment.
