The Daily Mail has compared Swansea Bay with the Cotswolds because of its celebrity count and extols its virtues as a great place to live in an article for the paper's property section.
Afan Fforest, family cycling
It says...Port Talbot is a steel town where Frost/Nixon star Michael Sheen lived as a boy.
Rob Brydon was brought up in the suburb of Baglan and the Hollywood stars Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton are both from nearby.
Anyone looking for a smart home in the town should inspect Water Street in Margam, a development of new houses, close to a reservoir and a golf course. More athletic types will prefer to look further up the Afan Valley from junction 40 on the M4 to the Afan Argoed area.
‘The country park is now a mecca for off-road cyclists who race around the forest trails,’ says John Morgan, a senior partner with Estate Agent Watts and Morgan. ‘A growing number of enthusiasts are buying holiday cottages for as little as £80,000.’
Head north from Port Talbot and you will come to Neath, home of opera singer Katherine Jenkins.
Nobody has done more to talk up Neath than Jenkins. She speaks fondly of walking in Gnoll Country Park and visiting the Cross Keys pub.
House prices have dropped at least 25 per cent — a three-bedroom semi in the pleasant suburb Cimla costs about £180,000.
Oystermouth Castle, Mumbles
West of Neath is Swansea, home town of Gavin & Stacey stars Melanie Walters and Joanna Page. The postcode SA3, covering the Mumbles, is where singer Bonnie Tyler has a villa.
Go further into the Gower Peninsula, and at Southgate Social Club in Pennard you will see pictures of Welsh beauty Catherine Zeta-Jones and husband Michael Douglas pulling pints during their last visit. What draws people to this narrow strip of South Wales?
‘It’s the region’s diversity,’ says Andy Jarrett, landlord of the Jolly Sailor pub in nearby Porthcawl, ‘Swansea and Cardiff are easily accessible. I can be in the Brecon Beacons or on the beaches of Pembrokeshire in little more than an hour. And the welcome is wonderful.’
Read the full article here.
Friday, 27 January, 2012.
