WITH THE disappointing news that CADW will not be listing the Chartist Mural, because relocating it would be dangerous and would also ‘jeopardise the Friars Walk scheme which is seen as vital for the regeneration and revitalisation of the city centre’, here’s a question I would like to pose to the Council; When issuing the call for development plans for Friars Walk, did the Council not stipulate that the Chartist Mural be incorporated into the successful design?

Many, many towns and cities have faced the issue of balancing heritage with development in the past, and the usual way of addressing the challenge is to simply ensure that heritage be retained and protected within new developments.

It’s not difficult and does not cost the city.

I suspect that this idea had not even crossed the Council’s collective mind and it was simply a case of ‘you’re free to knock down whatever you want’.

If the Council had included this stipulation at the design stage, we wouldn’t now be seeing the growing and increasingly passionate friction which is developing between the people of Newport, who clearly want to see the city’s heritage retained, and a Council that clearly doesn’t consider it to be as important as the needs of big business.

David McLean Allt yr yn Avenue Newport