Initiated by Caerffili County Borough Council—with support from Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns programme and Cadw—Caerffili Town 2035 aims to create a new lease of life for the town to make it more accessible, connected and sustainable, while celebrating its exceptional heritage.
Caerffili context
Caerffili’s focal point is its Grade I listed medieval castle. The town centre has grown around this sleeping giant, which attracts around 125,000 annual visitors and is currently undertaking extensive renovations and upgrades to make it a world-class visitor attraction.
Recognising opportunities to build on Caerffili’s reputation as an established tourism destination, while improving the quality of life for residents, the Council created a placemaking plan in 2019 to help unlock the town’s full potential.
This set out aspirations for the next 15 years, by identifying a series of short-, medium-, and long-term projects to guide growth and make Caerffili an attractive place to live, work, and invest.
images courtesy of Alex Lloyd Jenkins
Driving the delivery of the vision
With progress on the placemaking plan stalling due to the pandemic, and requiring additional expertise to lead it forward, we were appointed as client advisors to interrogate the original vision, bring it up to date post-pandemic, and then drive its delivery.
Acting as planners, masterplanners, urban designers, architects, landscape architects, and briefing consultants, we’re now working at both at a strategic town-wide level—and in detail at site-specific level—to identify, prioritise, and oversee the delivery of key projects that will transform the town into a diverse and thriving place that people return to time and time again.
Key projects include:
- ‘Ffos Caerffili’ (a new market) – 28 new small-scale commercial units and external events venue in the heart of the which opened in April 2024
- Public realm upgrades across the town centre, starting with the refurbishment of Windsor and Stockland Squares
- 70+ new homes and business units in the heart of the town centre
- A new Leisure and Wellbeing Hub boosted by £20m of LUF funding
- Cultural Centre working with Cynefin Caerffili CIC
- A new hotel and leisure quarter in a prime location facing the castle
- Redevelopment of the transport interchange with Transport for Wales
- Ffos Caerffli
- Caerffili Interchange
- Hotel and Leisure Quarter
- Leisure and Wellbeing Hub
- Pentrebane Street
- Caerffili Castle Upgrades
- Cultural Centre
- Windsor and Stockland Squares
- Active Travel Upgrades (Phase 1)
- Former Tourist Information Centre
- 8, The Twyn
- Ness Tar
- Castle Coach Lay-By
- Austin Grange
- Former Police Station Site
- Former Magistrates Court Site
images courtesy of Alex Lloyd Jenkins
