Sir,
In your issue of 15th June 'MCC sets out market future' you report the Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) deputy chief executive as saying that there are 'real practiced problems in relocating the present market in its entirety back to the Shire Hall site'.
Unless I am myself mis-reading what Monmouth townsfolk want, their expectation, based on a promise given, was for the type of market which operated on Fridays and Saturdays to be re-established on its original site at the Shire Hall.
They do not ask for 'the present market in its entirety' to be moved to the Shire Hall.
In any case, since it is now reported that only 30 per cent of today's market traders wish to relocate to the Shire Hall, the obvious question is what stands in the way of relocating this 30 per cent there?
And what objection is there to it operating on both Fridays and Saturdays? It would, moreover, be difficult to accept the reply that it would not sit happily with other ideas dreamed up in the interim, such as a 'programme of events' and small craft stalls.
The fact is that, like most bureaucracies, MCC cannot accept that markets (for example) are organic in nature, thriving where demand and officialdom permit – not activities needing policies and programmes imposed from above.
In short, MCC should have backed off and invited the Chamber of Trade and Commerce to tackle such problems as the refurbishment of the Shire Hall created.
Or is it too late now, of course, and the town is left to the mercy of the self-styled cabinet which is probably hoping that their creation of a 'chief officer of regeneration and culture' will ultimately help to produce something more tangible and coherent than excited references to 'vibrancy' and increased 'footfall'.
VF Kimber
(Penallt)