WE were baffled when we learned that a Newport Council cabinet meeting to discuss the ditched Friars Walk shopping scheme was to be held behind closed doors.

How could the collapse of the single biggest project in Newport not be debated by councillors in public?

We were so incensed that we approached council leader Matthew Evans and asked him to review the decision.

We’re glad to say he did and now the meeting today will be open to the public with only commercially sensitive information regarding contracts and financial issues held in private.

It is the right decision.

Not to allow the public to hear the reasons why this major development ended up shelved would have been completely the wrong way of handling this.

Our letters page and our website has been full of people giving their opinions since we broke the news last week.

It has been the topic dominating talk in Newport for the last seven days.

The public has every right to attend.

And for those who can’t attend, they have the right to read a report of that council meeting in the Argus.

It is essential the public is armed with as much detail as possible on this subject.

Otherwise the whole scheme would continue to be surrounded in rumour, speculation and gossip.