D-day for cattle market plans (From Free Press Series)

D-day for cattle market plans

Monmouthshire County Council will make a final decision next week on which developer will transform the Abergavenny cattle market site.

A final report will be considered by the council's cabinet at their meeting on Wednesday - and they will choose one of the two developers on the shortlist.

From more than 20 applications, a shortlist of six was initially drawn up, and this was then whittled down to two, who have put forward their final plans for redevelopment of the site.

The officers' report on their offers will be considered by the cabinet behind closed doors - because of the commercial sensitivity.

But it is believed that the cabinet's earlier request that the possibility of building a cinema on the site should be considered, will be included in this report.

Plans for a 25,000 sq ft foodstore, 31 flats and a new library were approved by the county planning committee earlier this year, as well as the conversion of the slaughterhouse building into a cafe and offices.

There has been a great deal of speculation in the town that one of those on the shortlist will be Tesco, for the supermarket giant holds an option on the auctioneers' lease on the cattle market site, which still has several years to run.

This was negotiated by the Carter Commercial Development company five years ago when they submitted plans for a new foodstore on the site, and a replacement cattle market at Little Castle Farm, Raglan.

But the company went into liquidation and it is believed this agreement was one of the assets bought by Tesco, who have expressed an interest in building a new foodstore in Abergavenny for many years.

They challenged the appeal by Safeway to build their foodstore at Llanfoist, which was later allowed by Welsh Office planning inspector William Barnes.

When the Safeway company sold out to Morrisons, the new owners sold their Llanfoist store to Waitrose who started trading last Thursday, drawing a record number of customers.