THE heated debate over the proposed change of use of the Halfway Inn at Talycoed, Llantilio Crossenny, to a private residence continued at last week's meeting of the Community Council.
Before inviting members of the public to air their views, the Chairman, Cllr C D Lewis asked Cllr A V Watkins to explain the handling of the application and the reasons for the Council's decision not to oppose the change of use.
Cllr Watkins said that he had dealt with the matter "with pragmatism" - It was a question of either opposing the application or recommending approval. This was set against "the over-riding background" that a publican was under no obligation to keep licensed premises open and could, without reference to authority, close his door to the public at any time and keep it closed as long as he wished.
Having considered the facts, Cllr Watkins felt there was very little scope for manoeuvre and the best chance would be to support the application in the hope that the premises would be more attractive to a prospective purchaser if there was a "fall back" clause which would enable a new operator to close his business in the event of not meeting with the success required to keep it open.
A wide cross section of the public, from within and outside the Llantilio community, spoke in what at times became a heated atmosphere, with the Chairman obliged to call for order. Speakers who were in favour of supporting the application viewed the situation in the same light as the explanation given by Cllr Watkins.
In bringing the debate to a close, Cllr Lewis said that MCC's Planning Department had been seriously at fault in displaying their notice of planning application two weeks after the date which they had allowed the Community Council to commence decision making. It had been imperative that he call an extraordinary meeting of the Council to establish the exact situation by pooling the facts and placing them before all the councillors to find out if any one of them had reason to differ from Cllr Watkins. As had already been made public, each councillor came to the same conclusion as Cllr Watkins and the Council agreed to support the application.