Merthyr Tydfil is new hot spot for house prices

Seven decades after an official report recommended abandoning Merthyr Tydfil, the former Welsh mining town finds itself at the heart of a housing boom. Prices have surged by 53 per cent over the past year, the largest increase for any town in England and Wales.

Seven decades after an official report recommended abandoning Merthyr Tydfil, the former Welsh mining town finds itself at the heart of a housing boom. Prices have surged by 53 per cent over the past year, the largest increase for any town in England and Wales.

It was joined in the list of the 10 largest house price increases by neighbouring Neath (43 per cent) and Port Talbot (42 per cent), and together they have helped push Wales to the top of the regional league table with a 37.5 per cent rise.

Martin Ellis, the Halifax's chief economist, said the increases were driven by the "spillover" effect that had been seen across the UK as soaring urban prices pushed workers into the countryside.

"There has been a boom in Cardiff and there's an inevitable spillover as people have to look further afield," he said.

The average price of a house in Merthyr was £62,000 in September 2003 and has since risen by more than £32,000 to £94,822, but that still only represents 58 per cent of the UK average. Houses in Neath now change hands for an average of £110,990 with those in Port Talbot fetching £88,791. Both towns are within commuting distance of Swansea.

Beverly Owen, senior regeneration manager at Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, said the town was in the "renaissance" part of Wales. She said commuters to Cardiff, Swansea and Newport had been attracted there after recent road improvements improved journey times, but added that people also found Merthyr a good place to live and work.

"We also have large numbers of inward investment opportunities, including the development of a massive retail park that has a number of national retail brands coming in."

The Welsh Assembly is relocating its social justice ministry to the town with the addition of 400 jobs, she said.

Merthyr's revival is the latest in the town's roller-coaster history. From the industrial revolution until the Depression of the 1930s it boomed on the back of coal mining and iron smelting. But by 1935 the number of unemployed outnumbered those in work and a Royal Commission recommended tough measures, including moving the population to the south Wales coast or the Usk Valley.

After the Second World War it shared in the consumer goods boom as Thorn Electronics, Triang toys and Hoover moved to the town, but it suffered badly during the recessions of the 1980s.