Hay-on-Wye gears up for an uncivil war

Plans for a supermarket are dividing residents – and splitting families – in the idyllic literary town.

Wye, oh wye: traders in the open-air market in Hay-on-Wye fear a loss of income from the proposed supermarket Photo: Christopher Jones

By Iain Hollingshead - The Telegraph -11 Feb 2012

"Hay-on-Wye is paradise on earth,” says Rob Soldat, a fruit and vegetable trader at the town’s weekly open-air market.

Ignore the bitter February chill and it’s not difficult to see what he means. The Welsh border town, famous for its annual literary festival that has attracted everyone from Bill Clinton to V S Naipaul, is a delightful cluster of narrow, picturesque streets – home to 1,500 residents, 30-odd bookshops and a smattering of antiques shops, family-run delicatessens, newsagents, butchers and grocers.

In the past few months, however, an extraordinary row has erupted, dividing the small community – even dividing families – over an unholy trinity of schools, supermarkets and developers. And now Mr Soldat is not the only one worried that he might be facing a case of Paradise Lost.

The row started last year when Powys council said that it intended to sell a primary school site to Gaufron Developments, which offered to build a new school nearby in return for the right to build a supermarket on the school’s existing site. While few deny that the town could do with a new school building – built for a 20-year life span, the current one is now 40 years old and has asbestos, a leaky roof and rodents – many are furious that they’ve been presented with this Faustian pact as the only solution.

In October, opponents of the scheme formed a pressure group called Plan B. Its activities have two strands: to discredit the council’s Plan A; and to produce an alternative plan, namely a cheaper new school on the existing site without the need to build a supermarket. Given that the Welsh Government has earmarked £1.4 billion for building new schools, why, they ask, can Powys council – which has secured £78 million of funding from the central government pot and is about to close four schools nearby – not pay for a new school in Hay-on-Wye without getting into bed with the likes of Tesco?
Full story at The Telegraph.