A planning application has been submitted for a new civic amenity and recycling centre to serve south east Pembrokeshire.

Pembrokeshire County Council’s cabinet agreed in January to acquire a piece of land off Devonshire Drive, near Crane Cross, Saundersfoot, for the site, subject to planning permission

It follows the rejection of plans for its preferred site a short distance away, alongside the A478 road and next door to Brooklands Nursing Home. These were turned down last June by the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority, following a year-long campaign by the home and its supporters against the use of the site.

The new application will be determined by Pembrokeshire County Council’s planning committee, on a date yet to be decided.

The plan is for the construction of the site to incorporate an internal access road, site access, erection of a compactor shed, canopy shed and welfare office, provision of containers, skips and igloos, staff and visitor parking, quarantine area, lighting and site signage, fencing and landscaping works, along with minor highway widening, hedgerow translocation, draginage works incorporating a retention basin and two new access to neighbouring fields.

The application will be determined by Pembrokeshire County Council’s planning committee on a date to be fixed.

The layout of the development - to be known as the Crane Cross Civic Amenity and Recycling Centre - would be based on the award-winning civic amenity site at Waterloo, Pembroke Dock, with the design sympathetic to the agricultural environment of the area.

Buildings would be covered in dark green corrugated cladding, with external lighting being sensitively sited and designed, and the development screened with tree planting and vegetation.

The authority’s highways department has no objected to the development, but has comented that development should not start until road improvements have been carried out.

These will include widening and improving the capacity of Devonshire Dsrive from its junction with the A478 up to the site access, and traffic calming and signing to improve drivers’ awareness of the Devonshire Drive junction when approaching from the south.

The project is part of the South West Wales Meterials Efficiency Project, which is part-funded through the Convergence element of the European Regional Development Fund, through the Welsh Government. The acquisition of the land will be supported by the Convergence programme.