FOLLOWING last week’s news that Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) had approved plans to build a community hub for the Magor and Undy areas, the chair of the community group at the forefront of the campaign has spoken of his delight at “a great step forward”.

Paul Turner is part of the Magor and Undy Community Hub (MUCH) group, set up 18 months ago to try and “move things along” with the long-standing plans to bring community facilities to the Three Fields site between the two villages.

“We’re absolutely delighted”, Mr Turner said.

“It’s great to see that at the planning committee meeting, there was across the chamber support.

“We’ve been trying to get something on the site for more than 20 years”, he said about the efforts of MUCH and other residents’ groups.

Another group, MUSLA, also tried in the past to obtain funding for the site, but failed to win a lottery grant.

“This time we’ve been working closely with the county council”, Mr Turner said.

“We’ve done well because there are a number of developments going on now in Magor and Undy, like at the Rockfield Farm site.

“The developer there will give money to the county council to help build the community hub.”

A spokesman for MCC confirmed a condition of the planning consent granted on the Rockfield Farm last week would be a developer contribution of £800,000 towards the construction of the community hub.

“We were always quite confident [the hub] would get the green light”, Mr Turner said.

“We’ve been doing a lot during this period, and we’ve been visiting other centres to get ideas.

“The county council gave the project £73,000 to find ideas and designs for the site.”

The source of this funding was a Section 106 contribution from the Kingfisher Rise development, the MCC spokesman said.

Mr Turner and his MUCH colleagues are now getting ready for a busy year as they begin to bring their plans to life.

“This is a great step forward, and over the next 18 months the group will start planning for the centre’s opening, looking at policy and admin, as well as sourcing for equipment.”

“The local councillors, Frances Taylor and Lisa Dymock, have been heavily involved, as has Ben Thorpe from the county council, who has done a tremendous job getting the architects together, putting the plans together, and working with the planning committee.”

Mr Turner hopes the hub will, by 2021, adopt the proposed walkway train station being campaigned for by Magor Action Group On Rail, although he said the two projects are not dependent on one another.