A FORMER mayor celebrated after railway station wasteland owners were forced to clean the site.
Cllr Billy Evans has battled for more than four years to clear station yard wasteland, which runs alongside Llandudno railway track and Builders Street. He claims the site has painted a bad impression of Llandudno for visitors and tourists entering the resort. Rubbish and household waste has been dumped on the land, leaving the former mayor hoping for council action.
Cllr Evans said: “I’m happy, my wife has seen them starting to clear it. Four and a half years ago they did get it cleared up and then it got in a rut again, with rubbish getting dumped, three piece suites and armchairs. It has just been crazy.
“The thing is that we need something useful for the town, we are screaming out for car parks. There have been ideas put forward for an open market. Once it is cleared it needs to be made into something respectable. The council tried to get a compulsory purchase order on the land years ago, but that got knocked on the head,” he added.
The site is owned by Manchester based company, Northern Markets. Bethan Lloyd, Conwy’s principal environmental health officer, confirmed an enforcement notice had been served on the company. She said the station yard owners had been asked to clear the accumulated rubbish, cut back the overgrowth and tidy the area.
Business proprietor of Northern Markets, Michael Don, said the land is tied up in a family estate. He said: “I will happily clear the land. We do not need a 28 day enforcement, a phone call would suffice. I have been down to station yard and have cleared bottles and rubbish myself. The land was used as a car park at one point, but it wasn’t profitable.
“It is not that I don’t want anything done, the best thing would be to have something done with the site, a development. There were ideas about a retail development, but at the moment my hands are tied,” he added.
Station yard has been used on a number of occasions to site a funfair and extra attractions during Llandudno’s annual Victorian Extravaganza.
Mr Don said: “I have never said no to any charitable event, I would be happy to let the land be used in the future.”
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