Energy
122 metre mast approved west of Llansawel for Glyn Cothi wind farm
The mast is temporary. The wind farm it is measuring for is not. Objectors turned up. The vote was unanimous.
Carmarthenshire planning committee has approved a 122 metre lattice meteorological mast on land west of Llansawel, by Brechfa Forest. It will gather wind data for Glyn Cothi, a proposed wind farm from Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru, the developer owned by the Welsh Government. Consent requires the mast to come down and the ground to be restored within five years of it going up, or sooner if the monitoring stops. Bird diverters must go on the guy wires.
Planning officer John Thomas told members the mast would be “quite inconspicuous in the landscape.” There were objections. Councillors passed it without a split vote. Feasibility work for Glyn Cothi has talked of up to 27 turbines, mostly inside the forest. A planning application is expected next year at Planning and Environment Decisions Wales, not at county hall. That is the real fight. This mast is the measuring stick that comes first.
Brechfa already has turbines. RWE’s Brechfa Forest West, 28 machines, 57.4 megawatts, has been generating since 2018 and is sold as power for about 38,800 homes. Walkers already use the Wind and Water Trail past them. Glyn Cothi would be a second, larger, state owned scheme in the same woods.
The wires that would take the power away
A new forest scheme only works if the grid can take the current. That is why Green GEN Cymru, sister to Bute Energy, is drawing 132 kilovolt lines across the same county. Towy Teifi would run from Lan Fawr Energy Park, east of Llanddewi Brefi, to a new National Grid substation at Llandyfaelog, south of Carmarthen, about 52 kilometres. Sections cut Lampeter, Llanllwni, Alltwalis, Rhydargaeau. Steel lattice pylons are quoted around 27 to 29.5 metres. After the 2025 consultation the company added more undergrounding near Merlin’s Hill and Llandyfaelog, a wood pole stretch at the energy park, and a shift away from Llanfair Clydogau, Cellan and Lampeter.
Towy Usk is the longer cousin, about 60 miles from Nant Mithil in Radnor Forest down the Irfon and Tywi to the same Llandyfaelog substation, hundreds of pylons, with an underground bite near Llanarthne. Campaign groups count objectors in the hundreds. In July a High Court judge, Mr Justice Kimblin, found Green GEN had in some cases served land access notices without proper regard to notice and reasonable hours. Landowner lawyers called it vindication. The company still wants the lines. Another Towy Usk consultation is spoken of for late 2026.
These are Developments of National Significance. PEDW examines them. A Welsh minister decides. The county writes a local impact report. It does not get the last word.
What Llansawel is looking at
For five years the sky west of the village gets a 122 metre stick and guy wires. If Glyn Cothi then goes in, the forest gets another generation of turbines on top of RWE’s. If Towy Teifi is consented, the valley south of Alltwalis gets a steel spine to Llandyfaelog. None of that is approved yet except the mast. Treating the mast as the whole story is how developers like it. Treating every pylon drawing as already built is how campaigns like it. The live consent is the mast. The live applications will be Glyn Cothi and the two Green GEN lines.
The Chronicle will follow the PEDW filing for Glyn Cothi, and the next Towy Teifi and Towy Usk consultation rounds when the maps are published.