Aberystwyth Chamber of Commerce backs Mill Street plans

Aberystwyth's Chamber of Commerce, which represents around 60 town centre small businesses, has given conditional backing to the building of a multi-storey car park and major supermarket on the town's Mill Street car park.

A letter from the Chamber, sent last Friday, says,

"The Aberystwyth Chamber of Commerce would like to express their support for the decision made to appoint a Tesco-led development on Mill St.

"This support is conditional upon there being sufficient municipal car parking provision that is available for all users of the town centre and not exclusive to the users of the Mill St development.

"Whilst Tesco may not be an ideal choice for a lot of people the primary consideration must be to ensure that the Mill St development takes place as quickly as possible to provide a regeneration fillip to the town. We are hopeful that this can be a catalyst to attract other quality retailers such as Marks and Spencer onto the other available sites within or close to the Town Centre.

"As ever the devil is in the detail in these deals and we would appreciate being kept informed of progress so that we can maintain a supportive role in the process.

"As an aside, it would have been a considerate gesture from the developer if consideration could have been made to relocating or retaining the day centre within the development."

Meanwhile, this morning's meeting of the Council's Economic Development Scrutiny Committee voted, following a lively and lengthy discussion on all the ramifications, to back the Cabinet's decision last Tuesday (see story below) to support the Mill Street scheme with the additional recommendation that, "All capital receipts be retained by the Council to sustain and enhance the retail provision of the town". The discussion was held after six councillors (including this one) signed a motion to 'call-in' the Cabinet decision for more scrutiny.

Open public discussion of the scheme has been beset by commercial confidentiality and procurement regulation restrictions. Full details are now expected to be made public in the next couple of weeks.