IT’s been nearly a year since Frogmore Street burned through the night and the inferno claimed one of Abergavenny's oldest and finest buildings.

The smoke has long since cleared, the rubble removed, and in the place of the bricks and mortar that played such an integral part in the town’s identity, there now lies an empty space, boarded up and desolate.

It is not quite a wasteland, not quite a car park, and not quite a building site. It is simply an empty space with industrial fences on one side, and a fire-ravaged wall and a pile of discarded bricks on the other.

Where once there was a building of elegant architecture, there is now simply a grey wall that appears to be hiding not so much a work in progress but something shameful.

Nature abhors a vacuum, but are municipal authorities all that bothered?

The space which Richards once occupied is a prime slice of real estate in a flourishing town.

Yet to date, there seems to have been a distinct lack of ambition and vision to do anything worthwhile with it.

Other than to leave it to rot, ruin, and the slow march of time.

Will future generations simply refer to it as the empty space in Frogmore Street? As opposed to the site where Richards once stood before the terrible fire of November 2024?

With the welcome news this week that the empty space’s immediate neighbour, Casa Bianca, was named the best Italian restaurant in Wales, you’d think that someone, somewhere, would want to capitalise on the ongoing redevelopment of this little corner of Abergavenny.

The town’s growing reputation as a foodie destination and tourism attraction is hardly helped by an ugly and empty space slap bang in the middle of a busy street.

There’s no shortage of ideas on the grapevine of what could go there.

Maybe a communal park and seating area, some much-needed flats, or a popular shop such as Marks and Spencer?

Monmouthshire County Council has been asked to comment on the future of this empty space, but their silence to date has been deafening.