Tepid response to new Caernarfon business group

Sep 4 2008 by Alex Hickey, Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald

A NEW business consortium, set up with the aim of making Caernarfon a tourist hotspot, has met with a lukewarm reception from some councillors and a local businessman.

The Caernarfon Business Consortium (CBC) wants businesses, mainly involved in the town’s tourism sector, to join forces to boost the town’s image.

The new organisation includes former chamber of trade chairman Gareth Edwards, Councillor Roy Owen, Doc Fictoria manager Debbie Thomas, the spokesman of the town’s licensed hackney drivers Gareth Parry and Mena Vaughn from the Celtic Royal Hotel.

On Tuesday it invited Caernarfon Town Council clerk Katherine Owen to join the group but councillors voted to defer joining any new consortium until a report on the town’s tourism needs was published later this year.

Speaking before last night’s council meeting, the town’s current chamber of trade chairman, Bob Anderson, expressed doubts about the motives of the new group.

He said: “Over the years the chamber has worked with many different organisations and will continue to do so. However I do have reservations about this because of some of the people involved and wonder what their motives are.

“I would be in favour of setting up a tourist association that drew its members from existing organisations such as the Caernarfon Civic Society, Segontium and Caernarfon Chamber of Trade. My fear is that this organisation will cause splits in the business community.

“I don’t know whether this has been set to rival what is already on offer but it has taken me three years to get the chamber back on track from a pretty poor position.

“We now have more than 70 businesses working with us from across the sectors. I think it would be premature to set up this type of body before the Caernarfon partnership’s report has concluded what gaps there are in the town’s tourist sector.

“I will work with the devil himself if it benefited the interests of Caernarfon and I hope this group has the same outlook, and not set up as a rival organisation to settle old scores.”

CBC acting chairman Gareth Edwards said the new group was “not here to tread on anyone else’s toes”.

“We want to develop a network of businesses working towards the good of Caernarfon. It is very early days yet but we plan to focus on the tourist sector, although that may change if the members choose to do that in the future,” he added.

Mr Edwards denied that CBC was replicating the work of the existing chamber of trade, or any other organisation in the town.

“We are an entirely separate body and wish any other bodies in Caernarfon all the best in what they are doing.”

Speaking at last night’s meeting, town councillor Tony Yendall Williams said: “I have read this (letter from the consortium) and it seem that some of the people involved are old members of the chamber of trade. I think they (the consortium) should work through the chamber of trade. Having several small groups with the same aim in the town is not going to work.”

alex.hickey