PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL have made the decision that the ‘Motorworld building’ at 70A-80A Charles Street, Milford Haven, should be demolished and passed onto a developer to be turned into housing.

At Monday’s (Apr 24) cabinet meeting at County Hall, members of the Cabinet said that the premises was not attracting any commercial interest, and that all the units in the dilapidated premises were empty.

Cllr Keith Lewis said to Cabinet:

“This is a site which was held in lease by a company by Libra. We agreed as Cabinet that we should take the building back into our control at some cost.

“This site is an eyesore in Charles street. We have failed to find anyone who is interested in these premises commercially. There was some interest shown by town council, and the police, but that has come to nothing.”

Cllr Lewis added: “I would like to see this morning that we authorise the director of development to move forward.

“We should demolish the building. We should pass this on to a developer as 100% residential development. We are paying money out. We cannot allow this waste to continue.

“We can finance this via the Town Centre Loan Fund”

Leader Jamie Adams added: “We have explored commercial opportunities for this site. It has long been an eye sore. It will provide some valuable accommodation. It will improve the street scene and put people in the heart of the town where all goods and services can be supported as well. It is a pragmatic solution at this juncture, rather than hanging onto this site any longer. It is time for action.”

The Cabinet passed the recommendation that the building be demolished and passed over to a housing association for redevelopment into new residential properties.

The decision has come as a shock to some business people in Milford Haven. The Mayor, Cllr Stephen Joseph told The Herald that he was not convinced that there had been enough effort to find commercial occupants for the property.

Speaking after the Milford Haven Town Council meeting on Monday night, Cllr Joseph said: “I have been keeping my eye on this property for a number of years. The last thing that I heard was that the police were going to take it over as a police station. I don’t know what happened to that proposal. I did not attend the Cabinet meeting, but I was surprised that the decision has been made so easily to turn this into a residential premises.”

“I think that the Council just want to sign it over for a £1 and then there will minimal costs to them.”

“The Council already have been offered £1.5m funding from the Welsh Government to re-develop the property commercially, but now we can expect that this money will be transferred to other projects.”

He added: “You can bet that if this property was in Haverfordwest, then more would have been done about it sooner. My view is that the Council have delayed getting things done because they were not sure what to do with the place. They should have got the property back sooner, before things got this bad.”