A PROJECT to redevelop the entrance to Y Plas is hoping to raise £100,000 to allow work to begin.

Phil Wheeler, project manager for the development, approached councillors, during a town council meeting on 30 May, to ask if they would be willing to help raise the £100,000 needed for the renovation project.

“It’s an idea we’ve had for some time, to improve the Plas entrance, which is awful, to make it a better entrance and to make it into something else,” Phil explained.

“We thought about a bandstand, but now time has gone by and with the cost of everything, it might be too grandiose.”

There is a pot of funding that could raise about £10,000, “for purely the making of the plans, designs, not for the actual building”.

Phil said there are other pots of funding to apply to, but asked if the council would be willing to help if he could not raise the funds: “The price at the moment is looking like £100,000. When you do your next budget in September, would you be willing to ask the tax payers?

“Is it worth that for the people of Machynlleth? It could just be a lick of paint, but what we’re looking at is far nicer for the people who come to the Plas, there’s not even a sign yet.

“There’s a muddy path which the council put in. Nobody we’ve spoken to doesn’t want it to happen.”

Phil said the new design would be raised to one level, and would take over three parking spaces to make it “wider, nicer, with a slightly bigger performance area”.

“The inside could be done, the vortex could be done, the back of the Plas needs doing. I can’t get that done. But I can give my guts to get this done.

“But it’s something to think about, do you want to take on a big thing?”

In terms of the financial aspect, Mayor Cllr Jeremy Paige said: “It’s not something we can decide on today. What might be a good way forward is if you could come to a finance committee meeting, so you can make the case and we can throw some numbers around.”

Cllr Mike Williams said: “I don’t think we’re in a position, at the moment, to make any decisions based on money. I think the town would be hard pressed to provide, say £100,000. I think we are just about the highest precept in Powys.”

As well as attending a finance committee meeting, it was decided Cllr Norma McCarten and Deputy Mayor Cllr Ann MacGarry would involve themselves in the project as council representatives.