CHEPSTOW traders have said they will look to get the best out of the decision to continue monthly pedestrianisation days in the town centre.

The town council resolved to continue the markets until the end of November at a meeting late last month despite letters of concern from traders.

The plans close High Street to traffic on the fourth Saturday of every month.

One of the traders, the manager of the Orange Crate juice bar on Beaufort Square, Lesley Sterry, said: “We raised the issues we felt affected us and they have come back to us with a letter telling us they were going to go to the end of the year.

“We would prefer the pedestrianisation to be held on a Sunday – that would give shops an extra day’s trade.

“The flea market (on June 28) meant we had a good day, but I am in catering so I don’t know whether it was because they were coming to Chepstow because of the flea market or because it was sunny.

“It’s a Catch-22. You don’t want to be a nuisance.”

The owner of the Runaway, Angela Seymour, who has run the High Street shop for six years and also wrote to the council, said: “None of us are going to get militant. We are going to work with the council.”

The manager of the Herbert Lewis department store, also based on High Street, said she was positive about the plan.

“From our point of view, we welcome anything that is in town because it gives us something to talk to our customers about," Dee Griffith said. "We want them to come to Chepstow."

And she said the latest flea market had generated a “great feeling” in Chepstow town centre and that the markets gave traders the opportunity to say they work in a “fantastic town where things are happening.”

Other concerns regarding signage and the event's marketing were raised by the Chepstow Marketing Group by its chairman Marc Le Peltier last month.