A PRESSURE group has been forced to apologise after making misleading statements about a county councillor in its newsletter.

Members of Keep Abergavenny Livestock Market accused Councillor Bob Greenland of reneging on a promise to Abergavenny Civic Society in the organisation's information publication in May.

In a letter to KALM?member Jenny Long, Councillor Greenland said, "I have no wish to take this issue to the courts, but having taken advice I do require KALM to undertake remedial actions to draw a line under this incident."

He added, "I accept that KALM are fundamentally opposed to the council's plans for the cattle market site. I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of your views and I accept that those views are held through a strong belief in what you believe to be the best interests of the town and county.

"Hopefully you would accept that I too hold strong views, views which are equally passionately held and are almost diametrically opposed to yours. "

In their apology the KALM pressure group said it now unreservedly accepted that Councillor Greenland had never promised to 'discuss' anything with Abergavenny Civic Society but did had only promised to 'consider' any document that it produced.

"We apologise to Councillor Greenland for this error and any distress and embarrassment which our earlier Journal report occasioned him.

"KALM is anxious to rectify the error and part of that involves posting this corrective statement and apologise on our website as well as posting a corrected version of the article in which the error occurred. The Journal now on the website is the corrected one."

To prevent court action Councillor Greenwood asked for the immediate withdrawal and collection of the Journal - KALM's newsletter - which had been widely distributed in the town; He also suggested that an open letter of apology should be published in the Abergavenny Chronicle and on the KALM website and an explanatory sent to anyone who had been sent the Journal by post.

Speaking to the Chronicle Councillor Greenland said he had 'passionately held views' over the future of Abergavenny livestock market and said that neither renovating nor replacing the market on its current site in Abergavenny would work.

"I gave assurances that I would consider the views that the Abergavenny Civic Society had put forward and judge them on their merits. Once I, and others had considered its proposal as outlined in the document 'A Case for Retention' it was felt that the plan had very little merit and could not be modified to make it work. "

Councillor Greenland that among the failings of the proposed scheme was the queuing arrangements for trucks and trailers which would be waiting in the exit path of others unloading animals into the market.

"Once unloaded the lorries would be unable to move off because of the trucks queuing to unload. The resultant traffic jams within the site would be chaotic. Having unloaded, vehicles would have to return to the same queue to get to the parking area adding further to the jam."

Councillor Greenland also raised the issue of the 'historic sheep pens' which he said did not meet modern standards.

"To replace the sheep pens would require the closure of the market for a considerable period of time. Such a closure would see farmers drift elsewhere with little chance of many of them returning. The council has assured the farming community it would not leave them without a market. The costs of re-building the sheep pen area would add a vast sum to the estimated £2 million cost."

Councillor Greenland said that the financial case behind the proposal was also fundamentally flawed.

He said, "It suggests that a capital cost of £2 million to modernise the market could be afforded out of the income to be generated from the site.

"But this is based on income from car parking on the site on non market days. Abergavenny is not short of parking spaces so the income would be displaced from other car parks.

"Additionally a 900 percent increase in rent for the auctioneers is completely unrealistic. Leaving aside the fact that they had a secure lease for many years to come granted by a predecessor of Monmouthshire County Council. They would be forced to increase the payments charged to farmers, leading to the rapid demise of the market as farmers went elsewhere."

Councillor Greenland added that the alternative proposal simply confirmed what Monmouthshire County Council already knew.

"The existing site is too small for a modern market and it cannot be self funding as the proposal suggests. Neither can it be built for £2 million or anything like it. KALM and the Civic Society have scoured the UK for examples of where modern town centre livestock markets exist on a four acre site and there are none. "

KALM have brought forward as examples Skipton, a new market on a large edge of town site which was built out of the proceeds from the sale of the former market site to Morrisons ironically, and Melton Mowbray an old in town site occupying 16 acres. Surely these prove my point," said Councillor Greenland.