Council look to demolish Erlas House in 2020 – cleared site could be used for future new build housing

Erlas House, formerly known as Bryn Estyn, could be demolished if council plans reach fruition.

Executive board members will next week consider a report that will start a process which could look for the building to be knocked down, with the final decision delegated to a council officer alongside a couple of lead councillors.

As we wrote in 2015 soft market testing took place over a possible sale of the building as-is. However a move to knock the building down could generate cash savings for the council, along with freeing up a potentially valuable building site.

This year the projected expenditure to keep the site mothballed is detailed as £36,000 broken down to £29,000 in Business Rates, £2,200 in Security Costs & £4,800 on utilities and premises costs, which are currently paid out of the squeezed Education budget.

The report notes that land to the north and south of the site has been allocated as a key strategic site in the recently lodged Local Development Plan, in an area that is earmarked to deliver 1680 new homes: “The land at Erlas is included within KKS2 and has the potential to be included as part of any potential urban extension and as such the site is centrally located within the wider allocation.”

Wrexham Council have said: “We started looking at the possible future of the site in 2011, when we carried out an office accommodation strategy to look at how we use all of our office buildings and whether or not they could be improved – or sold or demolished.

“Plans for Erlas were examined as part of that review, and back in 2015, we commissioned an ecological survey for the site to prepare it either for sale or demolition.”

The building was infamous as its use as Bryn Estyn home, with decades of abuse being carried out at the centre with many being investigated in recent years – along with the rediscovery of a previous thought ‘pulped’ report.

Wrexham Council have said: “We’ve also worked closely with Operation Pallial to make sure residents of the former Bryn Estyn are kept up to date with plans for Erlas.”

Wrexham Council added: “Our Adult Social Care department will also work alongside the Erlas Victorian Walled Garden group, who currently lease part of the site to provide training opportunities to adults with learning disabilities, to see what their plans are for the future as part of our adult social care work opportunities review.

“We’ve also liaised with First Choice Housing, and the Armed Forces Rehabilitation Centre, both of whom use or operate out of the site to make sure they know what our plans are”.

The documents published yesterday include a letter from Cadw that notes: “Erlas House has been considered and rejected for listing three times previously; first in 1995 as part of a community resurvey of Holt, again in 2013 in response to a query from your authority and then once more in 2015 in reply to a query from a member of the public”, along with a brief historical overview: “Erlas House, formerly known as Bryn Estyn, is a house built either in 1903 or 1905, half-timbered in the domestic Revival style.

“It replaced an earlier house of the late 18th century and was extended and altered through local authority use in the late 20th century.”

If demolition is chosen by Wrexham Council, the letter does note they should probably look at nearby trees and save them from a chainsaw: “There are some fine trees in the grounds which could, if not already, be assessed by the local planning authority for protection by tree preservation order”. A Tree Preservation Order was served on the site in 2017 however the report does not detail if the same trees are covered by it.

The area set for demolition is in red on the plan below:

The documents also include a chart that indicates the building could be knocked down to the latter part of 2020.

The proposals will be discussed by the Executive Board from 10am on Tuesday at the Guildhall – the debate will be streamed live on the webcasting system, or viewable at your leisure.