A DATE has been set for the closure of Chepstow's popular Drill Hall, causing outrage among some of the town's councillors.

Monmouthshire County Council said back in February that the Drill Hall would have to close, as part of a package of cuts to services and redundancies to keep the 2006-07 council tax rise down to 3.4 percent. They now say the Drill Hall - in recent years used mainly as an education centre - will close on June 30.

Chepstow mayor and town councillor Armand Watts said: "It is devastating news because people have used the hall for many years and there are generations of people in Chepstow who would have met each other at the hall and gone on to live happy lives together."

In announcing a closure date, Cllr Watts believes that the county council is simply trying to force the town in taking over control of the building.

He said: "What the county council is trying to do is hand their financial burdens from their mismanagement over to us. They have set up a 'who blinks first' situation and we are simply not going to be blackmailed into taking control of the Drill Hall. Our finances here at the town council are even more finite than that of the county council, so it would be extremely difficult for us to take charge of the hall ourselves.

Deputy mayor Cllr Ned Heywood said: "There is a real danger that if he town council does not take control of the hall, then the county council will take the opportunity to sell if off and we will l lose it forever. I don't thing the people of Chepstow could ever forgive them if they did that. The hall is the only place in Monmouthshire that had the facilities to hold the kind of exhibitions it has and it would be a massive blow to the town if it was closed down."

The county council were unable to comment on the closure date before we went to press.