I WAS in the audience at the public meeting to discuss the

two selected designs for Abergavenny livestock market

and was amazed at the number of good reasons for

rejecting these schemes. Local retired architect David

Haswell outlined the points about the two selected

schemes and the two which failed as 'economically not

viable.' Even to my untrained eye it seemed that the

'failed' schemes has more going for them from the

town's point of view. Retired civil engineer John Grant

explained the unresolved traffic issues and how the whole

town could be brought to gridlock. It appears the Welsh

Assembly Government shares this view and never gave the

previous failed scheme the ok.

Then we hear from a number of local organisations. The

chairman of the Chamber of Trade explained the concerns

of local shops about being put out of business by the too

large superstore and retail park. We heard from the civic

society about how appalled they were at the uninspiring

and unsympathetic style of the architecture and how they

thought MCC lack imagination and vision. Another local

architect from the Abergavenny development forum said

that the architecture lacked maturity and was what he'd

expect of an architecture student. He explained the many

deficiencies in the various designs and showed that, when

scored against the community forum's own document on

what the community wanted, the two 'failed' designs

scored much higher. We heard from Friends of the Earth

how the schemes lacked any evidence of sustainability,

why the superstore would close local shops and why the

developer's retail assessment report couldn't be believed.

We heard a town councillor for a ward in the Communities

First area give her view that many of her constituents were

annoyed at being portrayed by some as only interested in

cheap food and that the proposed Aldi store would be

beneficial to the town, unlike the proposed Asda. A

speaker for CAIR explained how the designs failed to

address the needs of disabled people.

But what struck home and shocked me the most was

when I learned the MCC's Head of Planning, Mr George

Ashworth, had told the Chamber of Trade that the

previous Henry Boot scheme would mean the loss of up to

a third of our local shops. But the new supermarket is

identical to the old except in appearance and so it will do

the same damage.

How can our Head of Planing be promoting these

schemes as 're-generation' while at the same time saying

it's going to seriously damage the town centre? I'm shock

and utterly mystified.

It was a very informative and revealing meeting and I just

wish that those in the council who are pushing for these

dreadful schemes had been there.

Editor's Note: In an effort to clarify the comment

attributed to Mr George Ashworth, the MCC Head of

Planning, told the Chronicle that an impact study survey,

predicted there would be loss of trade to Tesco and

Iceland of 33 percent with a loss of trade to the town of

eight percent.

"Compared to the national average Abergavenny is over-

trading so despite the loss it will still trade within the

national average," said Mr Ashworth.