Motte and Bailey site to be fenced off
The Town Council has been questioning what to do with the decaying Motte and Bailey site for the past year, and an offer from a charity to take it on as a mental health hub has been met by certain resistance from councillors.
Last month, vandals destroyed the roof of one of its buildings (pictured), leading to confirmation at last night’s Strategy, Policy and Development meeting that it will now be fenced off for health and safety reasons.
In a report read out to councillors from the operations team, it was confirmed: “The Motte and Bailey was visited with the surveyor and contractors and it will be fenced off, and we will be putting heavy duty netting over both the old clubhouse and the old bike shop roofs.”
The site was the subject of heated discussion in the chamber late last year when Bikers for Suicide Prevention, a registered charity, offered to take it on and restore the buildings back to their original state free of charge as part of the deal.
But some councillors resisted the offer, questioning the charity’s background and whether the town wanted to have large number of bikers congregating.
However, there was also a lot of support for the proposal, so there is still hope that a deal can be reached to reinject some life back into the site which will otherwise remain derelict.
Welshpool first took on the 900-year-old castle site from Powis Estates in 2011 with plans to turn it into a tourist site.
Initial finance for the project followed an agreement with supermarket giant Tesco as part of its deal to open in the town and the European-funded Severn Valley Regeneration Project.
But once that money dried up, problems developed with the Town Council now stuck in a 25-year lease for the management of the site, and needing to return it at the end of the lease in 2036 in the state that it was first received.
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