A Guide to the Welsh Town of Cwmbran

Cwmbran is a town situated in South East Wales covering an overall area of just over 3000 acres of the Wales Eastern Valley. It lies directly between the towns of Ponypool in the North and Newport in the South. Cwmbran was designated a New Town under the New Towns Act 1946 and it is the first and only New Town of any size to have been designated in Wales. Cwmbran’s original population was 12,000, most who lived in and around Pontnewydd and Cwmbran. It was, in fact, the first New Town to be planned from the start for a specific target population, an original maximum of 35,000. Over the course of time the population of Cwmbran has grown to just under 50000.

Cwmbran is probably best known now for its international sports stadium where international athletics events were held in the 1970s and 1980s. The stadium is also the home of the town's football team, Cwmbran Town. Cwmbran Stadium also boasts one of the best indoor bowling rinks in Wales.

Economically, Cwmbran is very successful as it attracts inward investment due to its location close to the M4 Motorway. In fact, Cwmbran has flourished over a period when the other urban areas of Torfaen were declining alongside their traditional coal and iron industries. If a measure of a town's success is the size of its shopping centre then Cwmbran is clearly doing well. Advertised as the largest under-cover shopping centre in Wales Cwmbran's Shopping Centre consists entirely of its town centre. This is like the model used in Milton Keynes, and works very successfully.