Businesses angry over seat charges.CAFE owners in Merthyr Tydfil Merthyr Tydfil (mûr`thər tĭd`vĭl), town (1981 pop. 38,893) and county borough, 43 sq mi (111 sq km), S Wales. Located on the Taff River, the town is connected to Cardiff by canal. It has ironworks and steelworks. say the council is hitting cafes with charges for outside seating. Merthyr has seen an investment of pounds 5.8m in its town centre regeneration Regeneration (biology) The process by which an animal restores a lost part of its body. Broadly defined, the term can include wound healing, tissue repair, and many kinds of restorative activities. scheme, which backers say has attracted pounds 2m private sector investment. But cafe owners say they have not benefited and have questioned the charges for outdoor seating. Samantha Lewis Samantha Lewis (born 26 June 1971) is a former teenage actress. She is best known for her role as Georgina Hayes in the long-running BBC school drama, Grange Hill, from 1986-1991. , who owns Cafe Enjoy, is leading the town's cafe owners in the fight against the charges. She said: "There's a group of us who are refusing to pay this money and now we are being sent threatening letters (Law) letters containing threats, especially those designed to extort money, or to obtain other property, by menaces; blackmailing letters. See also: Threatening from the council. "Shops in Merthyr are closing at a rate of knots. Shop keepers are not seeing new visitors and nor are the cafe owners." A spokeswoman for Merthyr council said it had implemented a scheme to charge businesses to "reflect the costs of instituting and operating the permit system on a cost recovery basis". |
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