Upper Killay Community Council serves the village of Upper Killay, the gateway to the beautiful Gower Peninsular. The Council comprises ten members (a mix of elected and co-opted councillors) and a clerk. The council normally meets on the first Monday of each month (except August, when we take a break for one month) in the village hall at 7.30 pm.

This page provides a brief history of the village and its amenities, provides copies of planning applications, dates and agendas for future meetings and serves as an introduction to subsequent pages where visitors to this site can find contact details for the community councillors and minutes of council meetings.

The Village

Upper Killay originally grew up as a small collection of cottages housing workers on the three local farms, since when it has gone through three major periods of growth.

In the early 20th century, when coal mining flourished in the area the cottages were replaced by a larger number of traditional stone houses and the village grew to around 100 houses in a ribbon along the main road from Swansea.. Thus it remained until the 1940s when Fairwood Common airfield was built near the village to provide a base for fighters to protect the docks and industrial facilities of South Wales. The influx of people associated with this meant major social change and after the war another 250 houses, half of them social housing were added to the village. In the years when the post-war ‘baby boom’ generation grew to maturity the village grew to its present size of around 550 houses.

The village stands on the edge of its next expansion as the extensive gardens of the traditional houses are gradually taken for infill development. The challenges that this provides to local councils is one that is being faced in many such urban fringe communities.

Facilities

The community council owns an area of around ten acres of land (donated by a former resident in the early 1970s) on the western edge of the village, and within the Gower Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Within that area it has provided a village Hall, playing fields with two football and one cricket pitches, a children’s play area and a car park. In the late 1980s a community conservation project was established to create a wildlife habitat encompassing the remainder of the land and including the site of the former village pond. This project proved enormously successful and won a number of major national and international awards.

The village hall is a much valued facility for the village and hosts a number of village and other organisations.

Our next meeting and agenda are displayed below:

Latest Planning Applications

A list of planning applications in reverse chronological order is shown below. All plans are available in the village, for inspection by residents. Anyone wishing to view a planning application should contact the clerk to arrange a suitable time.