A PONTYPOOL cafe has become the first local business to sell food in the street in what could become a regular occurrence in the town centre.

Get Stuffed Cafe in Osborne Road decided to sell sandwiches and crepes “al fresco” last week in a bid to attract new customers to its first-floor premises.

The novel approach initially raised a few eyebrows but council chiefs said on Thursday another food business had also expressed an interest in street trading.

Torfaen council praised the cafe's "entrepreneurial spirit" and is now planning to organise a joint meeting with other food businesses to try to establish the way forward.

The street trading could help to boost business in the town centre, which has a street market, but only one day of the week - a Wednesday.

Cafe boss Louise Shepphard, 35, said: “It’s all positive. A lot of people said it was nice to see someone outside, in the middle of the town.”

Get Stuffed Cafe was given permission to trade at a pitch with seats outside its premises twice last week, on Tuesday and Thursday.

The coffee shop hopes to sell food in the street on a regular basis, thereby advertising its presence and services, including meals on wheels.

A Torfaen council spokesman said on Thursday: “This is the first time a local food business has applied to trade in the public realm.

“We agreed to support the application as we know from experience that there is a correlation between traders operating in the public realm and an increase in footfall to the town centre.

“We are also keen to support our local businesses and the entrepreneurial spirit shown by Get Stuffed.

"We have been approached by another local business, which is supportive of the idea and would also like to trade from the public realm in the future."

The kind-hearted cafe also raised hundreds of pounds recently to buy a stroke survivor a monitoring machine that could save her life.

Pontypool mum Lorraine Jones was unable to speak and left paralysed in one arm after suffering the debilitating stroke in June this year.

Months earlier, the 51-year-old also had to have a valve fitted to her heart because of an aneurism.

Ms Shepphard became aware of her plight after delivering meals on wheels to her door.

The generous cafe boss needed just three weeks to collect the £770 needed to buy Ms Jones a heart monitoring machine which could help prevent a future stroke or heart attack.

Ms Jones said she could not get the hand-held device on the NHS.

Ms Shepphard said: “I had seen on Facebook she was in hospital all the time."

Ms Jones thanked customers at the shop who donated funds for the lifesaving machine.

"There is a lot of people I don’t know in the town who put money into this," she said. "We don’t want to forget them.”

Her husband Merfyn Jones, 55, added: “It’s a life-saving machine for her."