Silence has been telling

One is in relation to the Welsh Government concerning its decision to repeal the Abergavenny Improvement Acts and the second relates to MCC giving permission to sell the land upon which the livestock market sits. It’s a matter of public record that the county council has struggled to balance the books, suffering from historic poor financial settlements and poor decision making. This has driven the county council to pursue a policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul by disposing of its assets. A report commissioned by the Abergavenny Civic Society pointed out that redeveloping the existing market site would cost approximately half that of the council’s new site. I have long been puzzled by Conservative-dominated MCC’s obsessive desire (let alone their motivation) to press for the disposal of the livestock market site and its replacement with yet another supermarket. Government and politicians have failed the good people of Abergavenny and the small farmers from the surrounding area. MCC has acted as judge, jury, executioners and main financial beneficiary from the closure of the livestock market. The silence of locally elected representatives, who are members of the same political party as those trying to remove the livestock market, has been as eloquent as it has been telling.

Jonathan T Clark, Lambert Street, Newport