ABERGAVENNY needs a facelift and a spring clean but fundamentally is doing well with business buoyant a new report into the health of the town suggests. Towns Alive was commissioned by the town's Civic Society, Abergavenny Business Club, MCC?and Abergavenny Town Council to undertake a baseline survey to assess the state of the high street and despite the words of the naysayers, who suggest the town is 'going to rack and ruin' the report's findings have been optimistic suggesting that the town's problems are largely aesthetic. The report, looked at the position of the town in in relation to footfall, car parking, business confidence, the people who use town and their purpose for coming as well as other issues. Presenting the findings of a report to a public meeting hosted by Abergavenny Civic Society, on Tuesday, senior consultant at Towns Alive, Mike King, said, "It is important to have a benchmark to see how the town can improve, but most importantly to dispel the hearsay. I have worked in many towns where too often a small number of voices are the ones doing the shouting on the wrong issues, creating a widespread belief that the town is worse off than it actually is." The report highlights that there are less shops vacant in Abergavenny than many other towns in the UK, with higher than average footfall on both market and non-market days. It also highlights that spending in the town is above the national average, with over 40 per cent of people spending between £10.01 and £20 per trip. On top of this, the report showed that business confidence is up, with a higher than average number of businesses increasing their turnover on last year. The report also included offerings from high street users who suggested how the town could be improved with most calling for improved cleaning, improvements to the streetscape and for high street properties to be better maintained. As expected the report did show that the town has a substantially higher proportion of restaurants and cafes than the national average, but also showed that town centre users were not put off by this, with coffee shops and restaurants the second most used commodity in the town - with shops taking first place. While a number of those at the meeting said they felt there were too many cafes and charity shops in the town, Councillor Maureen Powell argued that charity shops were better than empty shops, especially as Abergavenny has only six per cent vacancy rate in the town - two per cent lower than the national average. Parking was another contentious issue raised with many respondents saying that it was too expensive. However, in spite of these concerns, parking charges are not deemed to be high for a market town, and the number of available spaces in the town on a market day fits almost perfectly with the national guidelines from the Car Parking Authority. The positive report was welcomed by Sue Konieczny of the Civic Society who said it was 'wonderful to see some good news for the town'. " I am happy that this study had shown that the town is doing much better than many people thought, and we can use that to get out of the mind-set that we are stuck in a rut, and go further to make the town even better with the suggestions from the people who use it." Despite the good news, the report highlights some areas that require work in the town, and Mr King is urging town groups to get active and make the changes that are needed. He said, "This benchmarking is just the start, and now these issues that have been raised need to be tackled. Everyone in the town can take an active part in this, as many of these are not giant structural issues.

"In one area we held an annual deep clean of the town, in another we helped the people of the town campaign about a derelict building," said Mr King "Towns have create heat maps to bring in tourism in places they are not reaching, some have created heritage centres to boost culture as opposed to retail in the town, and some have campaigned for free parking after 3pm. "By learning the key issues and problems within a town, you can now tackle them head on, knowing where needs work. Towns should always be looking to improve, and this benchmarking should help start that improvement." To see the full report, visit the Abergavenny Town Council website at abergavennytowncouncil.gov.uk, and if you have any questions about the report, contact Mike King at [email protected]">[email protected].