Crickhowell has been recognised as one of the best places to live in Wales in the latest Sunday Times Best Places to Live guide.
The town was praised for its strong sense of community, independent businesses, and outstanding access to the outdoors. The guide highlighted Crickhowell’s appeal for walkers and families, as well as the many local groups, clubs and volunteers who help make the town such a vibrant and welcoming place.
Mayor of Crickhowell, Cllr Paul Evans, also recognised the importance of local volunteers, community organisations and businesses in helping the town continue to thrive.
This is a fantastic recognition for the whole community and reflects the energy, care and commitment that so many people contribute to life in Crickhowell.
The full guide can be found at: www.thetimes.com/best-places-to-live
Source: Brecon & Radnor Express – Crickhowell named one of Wales’ best places to live
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Crickhowell Town Council has recently scooped a prestigious plan-making award at the Royal Town Planners Institute Cymru Awards for Planning Excellence 2025 which showcases and celebrates the best plans, projects and people.
Piloting a place plan approach in Crickhowell within Bannau Brycheiniog National Park took place for 18 months during 2023 and 2024 and focussed on collaborating with residents, businesses, and community organisations, as well as other neighbouring towns and villages, to identify areas of concern, need, and achievement. By utilising local people’s knowledge and understanding of place and environment the aim was to to make the strongest possible Place Plan.
RTPI Cymru judges commented on the award said “The entry presents a thoughtful and inclusive planning approach, clearly outlining project aims, stakeholder engagement, and the planners’ pivotal role. It excels in community involvement, using diverse methods to achieve impressive engagement levels. The plan addresses climate and nature emergencies with well-developed policies and demonstrates a strong commitment to inclusivity.”
Crickhowell Town Council commented on winning the award:
“A huge amount of work, thought and time was spent in creating the Crickhowell Place Plan, so to receive formal recognition of all that work at a national level very much means the world to us. This award is for all the amazing people of Crickhowell who came out last year to share all their ideas with us in such a positive way. We are hopeful that this recognition will give us a platform to work with both private and public sectors to help deliver on our community’s aspirations.”
One of the key partners in the place planning process was Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority. Reflecting on the award, they said,
“A great example of place planning in action, with professional consultants helping the local community to articulate their views to produce a plan which has been co-designed by everyone and which will form the basis of what happens in the town in the years to come. As well as producing a plan for their community the work done will help us to work with other communities who wish to develop their own plans. We congratulate everyone who has contributed and are pleased that their hard work has been recognised.
The plan was supported by Abergavenny based Chris Jones Regeneration and Newport based Roberts Limbrick architects and urban designers.
Roberts Limbrick, commenting on the award, said, “We are thrilled to have contributed to the development of the now award-winning Crickhowell Place Plan, continuing our collaboration with CJR. The CTC and BBNP client group made the whole process really enjoyable, sharing their knowledge of the place with an admirable and unmatched level of commitment and enthusiasm. Well done all involved!”
Final words from Chris Jones Regeneration on the award news, stated
"The Place Plan has been about true collaboration: Collaboration across disciplines, collaboration between Crickhowell and its rural communities, and Collaboration across the public sector. It is wonderful to hear that the Plan has given the Town Council confidence and it is guiding small ideas to tackling bigger challenges.
It is a very proud moment for me as a planner"
To find out more on Crickhowell Place Plan, visit https://www.crickhowellplaceplan.org/
What is happening?
Powys County Council has announced a review of post-16 education in the county in order to address a number of concerns with the current offer. The official explanatory documents can be found here.
The documents outline three options for consideration, all of which risk the future of the sixth form at Crickhowell High School. One proposal (Option 3) involves closing all Sixth Forms within school settings in Powys and establishing new Further Education colleges in Brecon and Newtown.
You can see further information about the likely effect a closure of Crickhowell High School Sixth Form would have in thisinformation sheet.
Crickhowell Town Council is leading a campaign with the support of our neighbouring Community Councils to get Powys County Council to withdraw any proposal which includes the option to close the Sixth Form at Crickhowell High School and instead focus on how they can better utilise the excellence in our provision to achieve successful outcomes for all post-16s in Powys.
How can I support the campaign?
There is some suggested text in the two documents below, focusing on different angles depending on whether you wish to write regarding the importance of the sixth form for education purposes or its place in the community. But letters written from the heart with a personal touch will make the most impact – so use the suggestions if you want and shape them to your own feelings.
Once you have written your email or letter, you can find a list of who you should send it to here: ‘Who should I write to?’. As a minimum you should send your correspondence to your County Councillor, our MP, an MS whom you most want to influence and the three senior PCC Cabinet members. Separate emails would have more impact, but if you are short of time copying the whole list of email addresses in will help the decision-makers understand the strength of feeling about closing Crickhowell High School Sixth Form . But for the key people listed above, paper letters sent by snail mail may make more impact.
Overview
Following the adoption of its Place Plan in June 2024 Crickhowell Town Council (CTC) has a wealth of evidence about what people want for their town, gathered during the extensive consultation process. There was emphasis on the environment in terms of creating green spaces, improving existing spaces and increasing biodiversity. There was also a desire to better connect different areas of town.
CTC applied to the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park’s Nature Recovery Fund for a grant to carry out planting on various sites around Crickhowell and worked with their grant officers and ecologist team to plan what would provide the greatest opportunity for increased biodiversity and enhancing green spaces.
The Nature Recovery Project has involved a lot of planning and hard work by town councillors and a wide range of local groups and volunteers. We have posted photos and progress reports on our Facebook page since the beginning and hope that the small enhancements will be enjoyed by residents and visitors now and in future years.
Councillors also maintain the troughs around the Lucas Memorial and in various places around town – we are always grateful for help with planting and watering!
Castle Park
Castle Park is an icon of the town, owned and maintained by CTC who work in partnership with Cadw to maintain the castle. Volunteers had already planted a beautiful rose garden along the Castle Road wall, and they continue to maintain this. A former wildflower area next to Gabbs wall on the north side had declined so we wanted to rejuvenate this.
We sought consent from Cadw to plant six apple trees in the corner beyond the zip wire, which involved digging test beds to check there were no archaeological features. Advice on suitable species of tree was given by a local apple grower, which has been invaluable. We have included three Welsh heritage breeds, sourced from Ian Sturrock & Sons - Welsh fruit trees and others from Walcot Organic Nursery.
In order to build interest and volunteer capacity we sourced an apple tree course and several councillors and volunteers from the Garden Society travelled to Somerset to spend a fascinating day with Les Davies Orchard Courses - Westcountryman who had a wealth of practical advice, apple lore and anecdotes. Our volunteers then helped to plant the six trees, using the knowledge we had gained.
The trees will take 2-3 years to mature and we need to avoid picking apples until this happens. Notices will give advice on this.
The wildflower beds were then cleared and the nettles removed by our park contractors, RCS Wales Ltd . With advice from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park ecologists about the best pollinators and those flowers best for the site we bought a wide range of wildflower plugs, plants and seed from Celtic Wildflowers . The National Park also donated some of their own locally harvested seed which we used in Castle Park and the Garn and also donated some to Llangattock Town Council for their planting. We had a big planting day with help from volunteers from the Garden Society, the town council and most importantly a group of very helpful and enthusiastic children from Crickhowell Primary School, who came with their teacher – they are keen to help to maintain the site in future.
We hope to work more with local young people working towards their DOE awards as they have been instrumental in maintaining the benches in the park and on Beaufort Street, and also planted bulbs in the planters when they were temporarily in the car park.
We hope you have enjoyed the beauty and variety of the wildflower bed over the early summer, but it is certainly feeling the effects of the current drought. We will be mowing the beds in the early autumn in line with ecological advice and to ensure strong future growth.
We have also made good use of some of the planters that Powys County Council put on the High Street during Covid and moved them to line the fence overlooking the cricket pitch. Our volunteers have planted a range of low maintenance, good pollinator plants to encourage bees and provide a fragrant and visual display for us all.
Working with the Dragon Hotel, CTC has funded the creation of a permissive path from Castle Park, through the car park and out onto the High Street, opening up the town to residents and visitors. The usage has been very high to date. Our thanks to Huw Watkins Plant Hire & Groundworks for carrying out this work.
The Garn
CTC own this little piece of land on the banks of the River Usk below the Bridge End pub car park – accessed by the path to the right of the chapel. We have planted three more apple trees here, and created a wildflower bed along the wall to increase public enjoyment as well as biodiversity. The trees are hardy and flood resistant (hopefully!). The flowers have suffered from the drought this summer but will come back next year, and we have more seed to put down in the spring.
Library Garden
We have all enjoyed the lovely garden to the right of the library in Silver Lane, which was created and maintained by local volunteers. We worked with the Morgan family who own the car park on the other side of the library to clear weeds and plant some fragrant, pollinator plants. We welcomed help from Crickhowell High School teacher Mark Jones and the Eco-committee in clearing the beds, and from a range of other volunteers for planting. We also had invaluable advice from local gardening experts!
The drought has affected some of these plants but we have some money remaining in the budget to replace these.
Interpretation
The grant has funded the following interpretation for the project, which set out the details of the project:
Some benefits of the project
These include:
We have posted regularly on Facebook: Crickhowell Town Council, Crickhowell Noticeboard, Crickhowell Clean and Green –– see links below:
If you would like to know more about the project or volunteer to help with the continuing care of these green areas, or get involved in the Friends of Crickhowell Jubilee Park please get in touch: contact@crickhowelltowncouncil.gov.uk
