I live in Abergavenny’s Grofield Ward. It’s a great neighbourhood of friendly, caring people. Tightly packed rows of small, terraced houses with little or no front gardens. It dates back to the very dawn of the 19th century, as street names like Regent Steet and Princes Street attest.

Parking here has been a problem for many years. Shoppers like to park here, rather than pay to use the town’s carparks. So do many who work in town, in the shops, bars, small businesses and offices. The problem has grown more acute in recent times, since the pedestrianisation of the main shopping street, and as parking charges climb higher.

A friend and I did a door-to-door survey on parking problems in the ward a few years ago, and we got a strong response from nearly everyone. That was particularly true in Victoria Street, where – unusually - there’s just about enough space to allow parking on both sides. At the top of that street was then located the town’s library.

What was particularly striking was how much local people felt that their problems were ignored by county hall. The two of us were often told that, while residents praised our efforts, and wished us well, they didn’t expect the county council to listen. The council or its officials had already brushed aside repeated requests to introduce residents’ parking - as has been done so successfully in valleys towns where similar terraces of workmen’s homes survive and thrive. Our survey suggested that, contrary to what had been alleged, there was enough parking in the ward as a whole to make residents’ parking practical. Unfortunately, covid then struck, and we were unable to carry things forward as we’d hoped.

A few years later, the library was relocated upstairs within the town hall on that largely pedestrianised main street. There was little or no consultation.

And, until the council held a review meeting last week, the plan was to grant a 30 year lease, at well below market rates, to the body promoting its use for the new and unrelated purpose of providing the county with a mosque. There were no plans for local consultation in Abergavenny generally or here in Grofield, where its impact would be felt most.

The old library is located on the very doorstep of the 18th Century Trinity Church with its associated almshouses – tiny homes that still provide sheltered and quiet accommodation to a dozen or so needy people, mainly elderly: within touching distance from her window, as one resident told us. The Carnegie library with is statuary and carved heads of benefactors, Scots-American industrialist, Andrew Carnegie, and William Neville, Marquis of Abergavenny, at its front door, is quite a rare survival.

It was a great relief to many of us that the relevant county council committee met last week to consider whether a further examination of the case was needed. We were told that the letting rate proposed was deliberately set very low, on the understanding that the mosque would take on the responsibility for maintaining the 120 year old fabric of the old Carnegie Library. But was this really the best choice for its future?

There is another development that now needs to be studied carefully. As our county councillors made that decision, the Westminster Government received the report it commissioned from Baroness Casey on child sexual exploitation and grooming gangs, and on the action to be taken “to tackle this vile crime – to put perpetrators behind bars, and to provide the innocent victims of those crimes with support and justice.”

The perpetrators included taxi drivers and market traders of Pakistani heritage, and it has taken 20 years to bring them to justice. They were convicted of treating teenage girls as sex slaves – repeatedly raping them in filthy flats, alleyways and warehouses. This description is from the Government’s own press release.

As the Home Secretary said, “the sexual exploitation of children by grooming gangs is one of the most horrific crimes.”

There must surely now be concerns about how far the thousands of undocumented and illegal immigrants who are invading Britain nearly every week, could bring these horrendous practices to our community. Many are from countries where the Islamic faith predominates – as it does in Pakistan. However well-intentioned the promoters of this Monmouthshire mosque scheme may be, and I believe they are, these are very unruly times. No-one can guarantee that only the well-intentioned young men from the rubber dinghies will make their way to the proposed mosque and its environs. Surely the county council would be well-advised to make any lease for the purposes of establishing a mosque both short-term and subject to careful and hands-on supervision? We want no rape gangs threatening women and girls here.

And it should not be imposed on Grofield. At the council meeting, we heard the principle of consultation dismissed by one of the leaders involved, on the basis that the public would never agree to any course of action, and with a pejorative reference to the SS ‘Boaty McBoatface’ thrown in as an example of what it leads to.

Kind, considerate and mutually supportive though the people here are, many - in our community of tenants and home owners and their families - feel taken for granted. To impose, and without proper consultation, a mosque and its adherents here, with all the added pressure on scarce resources, including precious parking spaces, would be devastating. Bewilderment may become resentment - and even anger - against both the council and, sadly, the mosque.

Robbie Gilbert, Abergavenny