The Mayor, Cllr Tudor Thomas , Chair of the Environment Committee, Cllr Tony Konieczny and Chair of Policy and Resources, Cllr Martyn Groucutt officially launched the Town Team last week.

The Town Team consists of Ivan Bassett (team leader), Mark Macleod, and Dennis Lane.

The scheme was launched at the beginning of October 2021 to improve the environment of the town as part of the Town Council’s Development Plan.

Since then they have been working on keeping the town centre clean, looking after the emptying of rubbish bins, litter picking, clearing up graffiti, assisting with the maintenance of the planters and beds around the town’s car parks and responding to issues such as overgrown hedges around dog bins being cut back, cutting back trees that obscure street lights, and clearing walk-throughs and alleyways to ensure they are clean and safe to use.

They have also assisted with the repairs of vandalised areas in the parks and report issues they see on their rounds if they are not able to do anything themselves. They have already started a programme of deep cleaning of paved areas and will be starting on street furniture maintenance shortly.

They are equipped with a range of hand and power tools to tackle a wide variety of tasks and repairs and have their own truck to allow them to get to jobs and emergencies quickly and transport any rubbish or cuttings to the tip at Llanfoist .

The Team interact and engage for example with the homeless people they see around town.

They are learning more about the maintenance of the beds at Tudor and Castle Street so they can look after these newly planted areas, in collaboration with other partners the Town Council have engaged with.

Mayor Tudor Thomas said that he was proud to officially launch the Town Team which has been working very effectively across the town on day-to-day activities as well as being able to react quickly to emergencies, for example, broken glass on pavements and in parks, which pose a serious threat to people and animals alike. He expressed his thanks to MCC which is a partner of this exciting initiative .

Any issues that need addressing should be reported directly to Abergavenny Town Clerk, Sandra Rosser at the Town Hall.