PLANS for a community hub serving the Magor and Undy areas will go before Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) planning committee next Tuesday with a recommendation for approval.

The single storey ‘landmark building’ on the Three Fields site between the two villages, is intended as somewhere the local communities will be able to socialise, take part in leisure, sporting and cultural activities such as drama and film shows, and be a venue for community meetings, events like wedding receptions and support networks.

The scheme has been developed by the MUCH community group working alongside MCC. The plan is for MUCH to run the hub with a team of directors and representatives drawn from the community.

The building has been designed to meet BREEAM Excellent Standards, a low energy building using sunlight and natural ventilation - with solar panels and a waste water heat recovery system.

The plans include sports facilities, changing rooms, a community hall and kitchen and toilet facilities, all on the same level.

Vehicular access and parking provision for 34 cars has already been provided.

A condition of planning approval would be that a pedestrian crossing would be provided on the B4245 for safety reasons as well as a pedestrian island in the main road before the hub was brought into use.

Numerous consultations have been undertaken to establish the needs and desires of the community in relation to the proposed scheme, and a total of 777 responses were taken into account in shaping the plans.

Among six letters of support received, one said it was ‘a superb idea and essential for the future of Magor with Undy’ and another that ‘the central location of this facility is key to tying the communities of Magor and Undy, providing a space for activities that cannot be accommodated elsewhere in the village’.