TORFAEN council’s planning department will urge councillors to vote in favour of plans to build 124 homes on the former Trevethin Comprehensive School site.

Barratts Homes want to develop the council owned site, building a mixture of detached, terraced and semi-detached houses, as well as flats.

Most of the homes would be two stories high but on the north side of the site the plans do include a three storey block of apartments.

At a meeting of full council at the Civic Centre in Pontypool tomorrow officers will recommend to council that they grant planning permission, subject to a raft of conditions and an agreement on a potentially hugely lucrative section 106 settlement, money developers set aside for community assets such as playgrounds and schools as part of a planning agreement.

Conditions recommended include things like providing car parking spaces at old Penygarn to try and accommodate extra cars in the area, that if permission is granted the development must be started within five years and that plans are set out to protect some of the nearby green space.

Other conditions include building a bat house to cater for the local population who are currently living in the chapel on the site which will be demolished as part of the plans.

As part of any planning consent Torfaen could benefit to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds in section 106 agreement payments.

In a report to full council, Torfaen propose a section 106 agreement which would see Barratts pay £220,000 for the improvement of recreation facilities in Penygarn and St Cadocs, Trevethin and Pontypool wards, £91,470 for play areas and £25,000 for maintain the replacement bat house.

The council would also propose securing £200,000 towards improving the road network in the area, something which residents, Torfaen’s MP Paul Murphy and Gwent Police have raised as a significant concern.

This sum however would be negotiable.

The meeting is the latest step in the long-running history of the site since the school was closed and demolished in 2007.