PLANS for pedestrian-friendly improvements at Monmouth’s Agincourt Square have been given the green light thanks to a £425,000 grant from the Welsh Government.

The news has come as a ‘welcome surprise’ to Monmouthshire County Council who will now need to come up with detailed plans, organise and analyse the public consultation and implement the final scheme by the end of the current financial year.

The proposals for Agincourt Square are the third phase of public realm improvements in the town centre.

Phase one was resurfacing the lower end of Monnow Street.

Phase two will be the resurfacing of and improvements to upper Monnow Street including the ‘pinchpoint’ and St John’s Street, scheduled for later this year.

The Agincourt Square scheme was proposed to follow on from Phase 2. But the funding allocation is going to require some rethinking.

MCC’s head of operations Roger Hoggins admitted that news of the funding was ‘unexpected’.

“I’m arranging an urgent meeting with Monmouth town councillors this week to discuss the best way to proceed,” he said.

“The money has come in as a welcome surprise and will certainly alter our timing a bit.

“We’ve prepared outline plans for general improvements to the pedestrian environment in Agincourt Square but we’ll need to work out the detail and get the work underway a lot quicker than anticipated.

“The aim is to make the area more pedestrian-friendly by widening the pavements, providing better quality surface materials, making more use of natural stone, introducing traffic management and so on.

“We were expecting to complete the ‘pinchpoint’ scheme first - but now it would probably make sense to do the whole thing at the same time. Things will be a lot clearer once we’ve discussed all this with the town council.”

The ‘pinchpont’ scheme, which will involve the closure of Monnow Street for a period of time, is already a controversial topic with local residents and businesses.