DESPITE concerns, Henry Boot Ltd has been granted an extension to submit a planning application for the regeneration of Abergavenny's Cattle Market site.

Monmouthshire County Council's cabinet granted until July 2010 for Henry Boot Ltd to submit a planning application.

Plans for a retail park, library and Asda store on the cattle market site should have been submitted by April 3. However, due to extensive public consultation, spurred by local campaign groups, there was a delay.

Councillor Bob Greenland said, "Henry Boot's timescales have been delayed by our insistence on an open competition process, proper consultation with interested parties which has led to further consideration of amendments to the plan. Whilst this delay is regrettable it has led to the best development plan that can be achieved, is affordable and therefore deliverable."

He said the site redevelopment will provide the funds to build a 21st century facility in the centre of the county to replace the cattle market and pulling out of the four year old deal with Henry Boot could render the regeneration "unaffordable."

Councillor Greenland said if another retailer secured an out-of-town site, it could "sound the death knell for Abergavenny."

Councillor Phylip Hobson said he had questioned the cabinet's confidence in the developer, "If they simply can't submit a planning application, there's something wrong."

There was some late correspondence from SAUCE which cabinet considered after breaking for ten minutes.

Councillors Brian Hood and Liz Hacket Pain both agreed with Councillor Greenland.

Councillor Giles Howard said, "Lots of people who signed the petitions are under the impression that the indoor market was also under threat. Yes there are many signatures but we need to consider how many of them are local."

Councillor Douglas Edwards however questioned the issue. "How much more time and money are we going to waste? They have already had one extension and now they want more time. How inefficient can this get? People in Abergavenny want the cattle market to remain. £11.5m was the deal five years ago."

Councillor Greenland responded saying, "£11.5M is exactly the same deal now. I can only think what Councillor Edwards proposes is that he supports the KALM campaign and wishes the cattle market to remain on site. I have seen his car with a KALM sticker on it."

Councillor Edwards denied the allegation immediately, shouting, "You are lying, I have not got a car with that on it."

Councillor Greenland told the meeting, "In the past council has voted overwhelmingly in favour of regeneration of Abergavenny through the redevelopment of the site for a number of reasons"

"Shoppers in the town have declined over eight years. Footfall has dropped from 1,500 per hour to under 1,000, whilst over the same period those doing their main shopping trip out of the county has increased from 14 per cent to 40 per cent. These statistics are clearly linked. Redevelopment of the only available site in the town for a major food retailer and large non retail units which cannot be provided elsewhere in the town to reverse the shopping trends.

"The current cattle market is clearly not up to standard and will cost £1 to £2million to improve. Even then the current volumes of throughput cannot be adequately contained with acceptable unloading times for animals.

"Henry Boot offered the best deal for the county in 2005 and continue to do so today. If we pulled out of the deal with Henry Boot that would cause even more delay whilst we went through the process of finding a new developer or decided not to proceed.

"If we looked for another developer, we would not get such a good deal, which would mean the scheme would be unaffordable and would not happen or we would bring in one of the major store operators who would want the site for themselves with a far larger store than we are proposing with far more opportunities for non food and franchises than we have negotiated with Henry Boot.

"An inevitable consequence of delay or pulling out will be to increase the chances of a large operator securing an out of town site for a much larger store than we plan, which would sell far more non food than we have restricted them to.

"That in turn would lead to further non food large retail development in time, which will inflict lasting damage to the town. I cannot underestimate the danger here."

Cabinet members approved recommendations to extend deadline for obtaining planning permission to July 25, 2010.

An additional recommendation giving an overall deadline of July 25, 2013, prompted by concerns from campaign group SAUCE, was also approved.