Residents allege Bowling Alley is ‘belching out pollution’ over Millennium Coastal Park

A new development boasting a bowling alley and cafe has been identified as the centre of the source of pollution spewing out over Carmarthenshire County Council’s jewel in the crown Millennium Coastal Park.

Residents have long complained about the smoke rising from a chimney stack at Pinnopolis, a bowling alley and cafe on the edge of the Millenium Coastal Park. The facility is also opposite the Coleg Sir Gar campus, which is used for multi-sport activities and close to Stradey School, where children play in the school field.

Now local campaigner Ray Jones said he has had enough of the stink and wants something urgently done. Ray said: “I was down there recently and an elderly man told me he had to leave as he was having difficulty breathing. The irony was that he had gone to the coastal park for some fresh air. What he got was his lungs being filled with pollution from the chimney stack. He told me he suffered from emphysema and that he could not breathe because of the smoke.”

Other residents have been taking photographs of the pollution, which Ray says he has forwarded to the council’s environmental health department. Ray said: “They asked me to monitor when the place was polluting. Surely that is their job. They could go and put a camera there.”

Ray has sent a log of the times when the stack was belching out smoke and he was promised that a team would look into the issue. Ray says that to date nothing has been done despite his claims, the pollution being over the allowed limits as defined by the World Health Organisation according to Ray.

Mr Jones made a report to the Council in January. He informed them that there was a  stack that was pumping out rancid smoke which was giving people sore and burning eyes. He said: “I also spoke to both my County Councillors – Martyn Palfreman and Ed Skinner and they said that they had visited Pinolpolis and been given an assurance by the manageress that the appropriate people would rectify the issue.”

The former football coach is well known locally for his campaigning against road pollution and one would imagine that he would find a natural ally in Llanelli’s MS and Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters. On the contrary, says Ray. He said: “Lee Waters has no interest in preventing pollution in our area and refuses to accept the evidence I have sent him. It is the same with the pollution of the Burry Estuary. No one is doing anything about it. These organisations are just talking shops where people get well paid and give their mates in research jobs a load of money to come up with a load of rubbish. If Mr Waters is so convinced that the area is not polluted let’s see if he is happy to stand around there with his children and do some physical exercise and get examined to see what enters their lungs.”

We have seen an email from the council which states:

Thank you for your correspondence dated 7th January 2024. I can confirm a further site visit was undertaken, information received that the biomass boiler at Pinopolis will be de commissioned in the coming weeks so hopefully there will be no more concerns regarding smoke nuisance. In the meantime we will continue to monitor the situation.”

We contacted Carmarthenshire County Council for a comment.