MADAM

High streets up and down the country are struggling to keep customers in the face of internet competition, rising taxes and property costs. Monmouth is no exception, with an increase in empty shops and the likely continuing loss of bank branches.

Many market towns are learning that to keep footfall they have to give people a good reason to be there. If it is less to buy things then it can be more for social and leisure reasons – to meet, to learn, for events, for markets, to feel part of the community. It has to be a place for people not a race track for cars. To enable this to happen the environment has to change. Much more street space has to be under the control of pedestrians, not vehicles, with the best quality natural stone surfaces across the whole space to match the high quality buildings, with room to stop, to sit and to browse, to take in the history and architecture of the place.

Abergavenny, Chepstow and Caldicot have long since built new schemes.

What is the county council and the town council’s answer for Monmouth? For the last 10 years it has been to do nothing. Now they are to spend our money on new “temporary” black tarmac on Monnow Street without changing the environment at all.

Now it is also to propose a scheme for the historic heart of the town - Agincourt Square – that, other than a “pinch point” by the music shop, pretends to give priority to pedestrians but in reality is just another road through the middle of the square, this time with red tarmac instead of black and slightly wider pavements. Essential control over parking and delivery lorries? This might or might not be brought in.

When will all this happen? Who knows?

David Farnsworth

(Trellech)