THE PRESIDENT of Abergavenny's Chamber of Trade has criticised the comments made by Monmouthshire County Council's deputy leader branding them "distorted and inaccurate."

We reported last week how councillor Bob Greenland, also cabinet member for regeneration, told members of the full council that it was time for Abergavenny to be regenerated.

During the meeting at County Hall councillor Greenland said he was not opposed to finding a better, cheaper plan but wanted to move forward, "for the town."

After the meeting Susi Cernoch, president of the Abergavenny Chamber of Trade said it was "essential" that they responded to councillor Greenland's comments.

She said, "Contrary to councillor Greenland's assertions, the Chamber is very excited about, and supportive of, the principal of redevelopment but members are concerned that the options on offer are not the best that could have been found for this lovely town. We have already made a written statement to the Leader of the County Council giving a detailed explanation of our policies and describing how we are not against the principle of the Cattle Market regeneration or even against an Asda food store, but with proper controls.  However, we have been consistently against a one-stop retail park development that is likely to drain our high street of footfall and destroy its vibrancy.

"The Chamber is made up of shopkeepers, business owners and professionals, many of whom would not be directly affected by Asda's arrival in town but all of whom, like every local resident, will be affected by the inevitable traffic congestion that a development of this size and type will bring.  This will surely render Abergavenny a less appealing destination to all our visitors."

Ms Cernoch said the chamber were particularly concerned about certain details of the content of this scheme, "especially the emerging prospect of an ugly retail park and the presence of a coffee shop within the food store and the lack of community content.

"Genuine regeneration would aim to encourage people into our town to park and wander, to browse and explore. A superstore with a café will only encourage most shoppers to drive into town, park, shop under one roof and drive home again leaving nothing but gridlock behind them.  Abergavenny already has 15 fine establishments where a coffee break can be taken - we would like our visitors to walk into the high street and make use of them. Two years ago councillor Greenland said in public that he fully understood our concerns on this particular matter.  He  subsequently agreed that there would be no cafe in the scheme, but one later mysteriously appeared in the contract, to the detriment of the scheme and the town. This is the same contract, incidentally, from which the promised housing element disappeared. It should be acknowledged that plenty of successful food stores have no integral coffee shop including, curiously, Asda's own store in Pembroke Dock, and also Monmouth's branch of Waitrose, which is always being held up as a regeneration success story by MCC. We are concerned that MCC's planned scheme appears to be a stand-alone commercially-based development that draws footfall towards itself and away from the High Street, instead of vice versa.  In the gritty real world of commerce, a supermarket does not present itself as a saviour to a declining small town; its sole function is to make vast profits for its operator. We dread the inevitable outcome of building a self-contained inward-looking retail park that will drain shoppers from our beloved traditional shops and leave a ghost town effect in the main street."

Ms Cernoch said the when pedestrians were questioned in the streets two years ago, 48 percent of the petition signatories had come from outside the area and the reason for their visit was "to enjoy the unique and historic nature of Abergavenny."

"Even the project architect admitted at the Forum meeting that it had been 'a great challenge to find a way to make a standardised retail shed fit into a town like Abergavenny'.  Small wonder – it doesn't fit at all! The town's traders were not represented on the MCC design panel, nor were the other town groups if they had been, the current problems would have been highlighted six months ago and the scheme would be probably further towards completion. With genuine consideration, and if councillor Greenland had listened to the views of the town from the outset, we imagine this design could have been worked into something acceptable to all town groups and residents, an exciting scheme within the budget that could have been open for business by now. Valuable time has been lost in the process by MCC, time that they have consistently tried to blame on the town groups who have been working to ensure a sensible brief and improve the quality of this project overall. "Now MCC want to rush forward with an inappropriate scheme to make up for the time they have wasted, a scheme which may well fall foul of WAG and be further delayed anyway. Surely this is the time to pause, reflect and review the brief after genuine consultation, in order to secure a successful and acceptable scheme."

Following the Forum meeting Ms Cernoch said nothing mentioned convinces the chamber that the meeting was a genuine attempt to solve their concerns and differences. 

"To date, mere lip service has been paid to the consultation process by MCC. Despite a promise made in this publication to the chamber and in the council chamber, that MCC had always intended to show all four architectural designs for the scheme to the people of Abergavenny, only two were ever shown. Significantly, in the two years since the last failed application, neither the developer nor MCC has undertaken the required through-traffic assessment which, the Welsh Assembly Government has made clear, could affect the scale and nature of this development. Clearly the scale of development should be limited by the number of extra car journeys that our local roads can successfully accept without gridlock. Failure to take this into account at this stage is to risk delay and wasting of MCC's time and resources.

"As for the disappearance of our sorely missed cinema from the scheme, we believe that using intelligence and where there is the will to do so, a cinema could be included in the development, if it was planned as part of a wider Arts Centre, for which grants are available."

Ms Cernoch wanted to stress that the Chamber of Trade will "unequivocally" support a quality mixed development.

Those who attended the Forum public consultation voted unanimously to reject the scheme as it stands and for MCC to examine the revisions presented by the Abergavenny Development Forum. "Of those present at that meeting, less than ten per cent were representatives of the Chamber of Trade or Friends of the Earth.  Cllr Greenland's attempts to dismiss those motions must be seen in this context," she added.