Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council is inviting the public to have their say on improvements to Pontypridd Bus Station — but for residents across the rest of this sprawling county borough, the announcement may prompt a weary sense of déjà vu.
The consultation, which opens June 23, is the latest in a seemingly endless conveyor belt of surveys, studies and spending announcements centred almost exclusively on Pontypridd. Welsh Government funding has been secured for investigation and design work — though crucially, actually delivering any improvements will require yet another grant bid, meaning there is no guarantee the work will ever materialise. Cynics might wonder whether the real purpose of the consultation is not to improve the bus station at all, but to gather ammunition for that future funding application.
The Demolition Connection
The timing of the bus station consultation is unlikely to be coincidental. The facility sits directly opposite the former Pontypridd Police Station, which the Council is preparing to demolish — along with the adjacent Berw Road Car Park, a well-used facility that will be lost to the town with no confirmed replacement. The police, meanwhile, are not getting a new building at all; they are simply relocating to a vacated council office in Abercynon.
So the picture emerging in Pontypridd town centre is one of a council demolishing a car park, losing a police presence, and now urgently consulting on a bus station — all in the same small geographic area, in quick succession. Joining the dots is not difficult.
A Council That Covers Five Valleys — But Invests in One
This newspaper asked the question back in November 2023: has RCT forgotten that it extends further than Pontypridd? The answer, based on the evidence since, appears to be yes.
Rhondda Cynon Taf is one of the largest county boroughs in Wales. Its principal towns include Aberdare, Mountain Ash, Porth, Tonypandy, Tonyrefail, Treorchy, Ferndale, Maerdy, Hirwaun, Llanharan and Llantrisant — communities spread across five valleys, each with their own infrastructure challenges, their own struggling high streets, and their own residents paying their council tax in full.
Yet the regeneration money flows overwhelmingly in one direction. Since 2017, Pontypridd has received investment in Llys Cadwyn, Cwrt yr Orsaf, the YMCA, the Muni Arts Centre, Ynysangharad Park, a new riverside plaza on the former M&S and Dorothy Perkins site, a Southern Gateway public realm scheme on the former bingo hall site — at a demolition cost alone of £1.283 million to taxpayers — new bus bays on Sardis Road, and now a bus station consultation backed by Welsh Government transport funding.
The Pontypridd Placemaking Plan, approved by the Council, openly commits to continuing this investment pipeline into the future.
Meanwhile, Aberdare Waits
For residents of Aberdare and the Cynon Valley, the contrast is stark. The long-promised Aberdare Bypass — critical infrastructure that would relieve chronic congestion and open up economic development opportunities for the whole of the upper Cynon Valley — still has no confirmed completion date. The Northern Gateway regeneration project for Aberdare, which has been discussed for years, similarly languishes without a delivery timeline.
No consultations. No cameras being installed. No site notices. No contractor newsletters. Just waiting.
It is worth remembering that Aberdare is the largest town in the Cynon Valley, and the Cynon Valley is one of the most deprived areas in Wales. The communities that arguably need investment the most are the ones seeing the least of it — while a town that already has a modern library, a riverside leisure complex and a recently-built civic quarter receives yet another round of surveys and studies.
The Bigger Question
The Council will argue, as it always does, that funding streams are complex, that Welsh Government grants are ring-fenced, and that Pontypridd’s regeneration benefits the whole region. These arguments have worn thin.
What residents across RCT’s other valleys are entitled to ask is simple: when is it our turn? And who, exactly, is making these decisions about where the money goes?
Until the Council can answer those questions transparently — and until Aberdare’s bypass and Northern Gateway have confirmed delivery dates — the announcement of yet another Pontypridd consultation will continue to land like a slap in the face to communities that have been waiting decades for meaningful investment of their own.
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