City centre is a sinking ship (From South Wales Argus)

City centre is a sinking ship

12:39pm Monday 31st December 2012 in Letters

TITANIC hit a single iceberg and sank, and crew got the lifeboats away. Newport City Council has hit numerous icebergs in granting planning for endless supermarkets and retail parks.

If Newport council was in charge of the Titanic, it would have done refits while it sank instead of getting out the lifeboats, judging by the badly timed and questionable refit of street furniture, old market car park and other such expensive works. There is a time limit for works to get the required funding, but why the rush to start all this work around the festive season when as I understand the work had to be started before April to comply? The rescue ship in the form of the long overdue John Frost Square area redevelopment, talks of rescue come out at regular periods with Debenhams and Cineworld being the anchors. Problem is Debenhams has been saying it’s coming to Newport for approximately 50 years. So why now, when Newport is about to sink? Why didn’t it come in better times? To be fair to Newport council, it only controls 20 per cent of shops in Newport, unlike other towns and cities, but what it does control it doesn’t lead by example.

Ray Clayton Monnow Way Newport