Late last week, Julie James — the Welsh Government’s Minister for Climate Change — decided that German supermarket chain Aldi should not get approval for a new store along Park Avenue in Aberystwyth.

Citing fears over flooding, Ms James pulled the plug on the project.

We cannot let this misguided decision go ahead without comment, and in making her decision, Ms James has displayed a high degree of ignorance over the site and this area of the town.

Simply put, the decision is illogical, given that the immediate vicinity is one where other developments have been given the go-ahead, and we are therefore left to wonder if inconsistency is part of the minister’s brief.

In recent years, permission has been given for flats to be built on an adjoining site. In the neighbourhood sits another large commercial development for a department store and supermarket, while a hotel and pub, other commercial retail properties and indeed the Welsh Government’s own offices have been built on sites that would fall foul of the planning principles applied by Ms James and her officials.

The reality is that our towns are crying out for investment and new opportunities — exactly the type of development that brings life and footfall to our communities.

It is difficult not to suspect that other commercial and competitive factors may have entered the decision-making process when it comes to refusing the Aldi application. It is disappointing, as the people of this region know, that a sheer weight of numbers either in support of, or against applications, is never enough to sway any final decision. That in itself speaks to a fundamental flaw in the way our planning process works. There is a flaw too when officials hold final say over the fates of our communities, making decisions that seem good on paper in Cardiff but certainly not in Ceredigion, Gwynedd and Powys.

At a time when our shopping bills are increasing weekly, competition in the aisles is a sure way of keeping prices lower. The consumers and shoppers of this region have been deprived of that opportunity by a minister who likely wouldn’t know Park Avenue from Park Lane on a Monopoly board — and it the people of this region who have lost out. Shame on you, Ms James.