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News 2025

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Here you’ll find all the latest news and information from Caerleon  Civic Society.

January 2025

The Civic Society’s meetings in December and January were attended by a modest, but enthusiastic, number of members. As usual, a range of local and current issues were discussed.

 

Perhaps the major issue, raised at our January meeting, was Newport City Council’s proposals to review the provision of public libraries and community centres across the City. This review is part of the Council’s budget-making process for 2025/26.

In particular, members were extremely concerned that Caerleon library was being considered for closure and that the future of Caerleon Town Hall (termed a community centre) was also being reviewed.

Members heard that the Council’s Cabinet report on these proposals acknowledged that our library is well-used and that the Town Hall has the most bookings of any centre.

The future of the library seems to depend on the future of the Town Hall. The report states that the whole building requires significant capital expenditure to bring it up to a modern standard and that the Council does not have the budget to fund such work.

The report states that the alternative to closure is that the whole building could be transferred from the Council to an organisation from within the community which would run it in the future. This is called a community asset transfer. The report suggests that Caerleon has a high proportion of people with experience in professional roles, implying that there would be community capacity for a community asset transfer.

Members did not accept this argument and considered that the threat of closure within a relatively short timescale needed to be countered robustly and certainly before any consideration of the viability of asset transfer. Members felt that the future of this building and its use needed to be seen in the context of any major investment in Caerleon as a whole as part of the emerging Roman Caerleon Partnership between the National Museum, CADW and the City Council.

Members concluded that this issue needed a more sensitive approach with less emphasis on the ‘bottom line’ and with more recognition of the basic requirement to ensure the continued existence of this much-needed building, and its current uses, which are central to the life of the community.

 

The Council’s proposals are open to public consultation until February 5th. Members were encouraged to make their own comments on the Council website within the consultation period. Please make your views known so that the Council is clear about the strength of feeling in Caerleon. There is also an online petition that you can support.

©2018 by Caerleon Civic Society.

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