A CARDIGAN businessman has made Ceredigion CountyCouncil a five-year rent-free offer to keep Cardigan Library in its current premises in the heart of the town.

County chiefs are considering moving the library to smaller premises after councillors failed to back the sale of the town’s Morgan Street council office.

Ceredigion Council’s leader Ellen ap Gwynn has warned that the move placed a question mark over the library’s very future.

But, in a dramatic new twist, Nick Laing, whose family run Principality Developments, the company which owns Canolfan Teifi where the library is housed, has offered to waive the £37,000 yearly rent until 2020.

“The reason I’ve made this offer is simple: I want to see the library to remain in the centre of the town,” Mr Laing, 61, who has run a number of local businesses over the years, told the Cambrian News as he prepared to board a flight to the Cayman Islands where he now spends much of his time.

“I’m from Cardigan, both my kids were born there and my company has been very successful in Cardigan over the years.

“I believe it would be a travesty to see the high street lose such a community facility.

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