Sunday 19 August 2007

A breath of French Air


It was so good to see the Maes full of people this week.
After a truly dismal summer with the weather not helping us at all, the Maes was creaking with people visiting the French market.
I for one was pleased to see the Caernarfon 'Eye Sore' removed this week and Caernarfon return to normality.
As a World Heritage Site the Maes is certainly not the place for such a monstrosity and if this is to return in future, I for one, hope the council re-considers its location and places it somewhere far away from our historic treasure.

It was so pleasing to see the town this week looking as it should look - A Market Town!

Market problem
There seems to be a problem at the moment as to what day the market should be allowed to trade. The traders want to see if a change from Monday to Tuesday would be of benefit to them and the punters. This resulted in a confusion that saw the Market on the Maes for Sat, Mon and Tues!
Never the less, I was still a little bit surprised that a former market trader who now has a business in town decided to attack the current market traders.

Working together
It is not difficult to see that all the town's businesses should be working together (Including the market traders) and this should be for the good of the town.

The Bangor Business Forum seem to have the right idea of how to get businesses together and perhaps we should learn from this.
Everyone wants to make a living, but it seems that Caernarfon has far too many barriers and hidden agendas.
It's time to stop bickering and have a plan of action.

Not many members
Week in week out we hear a statement from the Chamber of Trade about different subjects.
I know from experience how difficult it is to get businesses on board this organisation.
Of those who used to pay subscriptions, not many were interested or had the time to attend meetings.
Oh yes, one or two had a moan even when we re launched it a few years back after it had been in moth balls for years since, but these people were the ones who had failed in the past and never did anything except attack those who tried.

It would be interesting to know which businesses the Chamber of Trade represent?
Of the businesses in Pool Street only 2 said they belonged to the group and most insisted they were not interested in what they were doing.
The same could be said for the rest of the town.
None of the larger stores we asked were involved in any way or form.
Tesco, Morrisons, Argos, Ethel Austin, W.H.Smith, McDonalds, KFC, New Look etc
For the Chamber to be successful, they need people to be involved, otherwise they don't represent the majority of businesses. At the moment this is the case.

This is a sad state of affairs and until we have an organisation working for the good of the town (and with this I mean WORKING and not moaning in the press) then the Caernarfon business sector will never have a strong voice.
Having a French Market is a step in the right direction, we need more things of this nature and learn from Bangor, Llandudno and Llanberis to name but a few.

See you soon!

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