6 Important Key Issues for 2021

I believe that there are six important policy areas that that should be important in the Senedd elections in May 2021.  They are Housing and Planning, Public Transport, Economic Development and Regeneration, the Devolution of control of Policing and Criminal Justice, control of our Water; and Energy. I firmly believe that these policy areas can set the agenda for our nation  for the next ten years +

We need to talk about Housing, Labour in Wales is silent on the matter and the other Unionist or anti devolution parties are silent on this issue. For the life of me, I cannot see any positives for Cymru / Wales simply being a simple adjunct to England, or Newport being a simple dormitory town for Bristol. I have never, and never will subscribe to the Severnside agenda, no matter how many times it gets rebranded and relaunched. In our south east, along the coastal belt and in and around Newport and Torfaen (not to mention around Cardiff and Caerphilly) and across Monmouthshire the last thirty years we have seen a significant if not spectacular growth in the amount of housing, a significant percentage of which of late has never quite been aimed to fulfil local housing needs. 

The other side of the coin, in relation to the pressing issue of Housing, is planning. Our Planning system is shambolic, Here in Cymru / Wales we face number of pressing problems, covid aside, many of our pressing problems are not helped by the inherent problems with our 19th planning system with its out of touch focus on unitary development plans, and the lack of decent affordable integrated public transport, which are all part of the problem we face.  Other than being an enabler to help with social and economic problems and the implementation of solutions, our Planning system is simply part of the problem. 

Another pressing problem that afflicts many of our communties, right across Cymru / Wales is that of redevelopment. Redevelopment is perceived by many people as something that is done to them, rather than by or for them. I have lived in Casnewydd / Newport for 43 or 44 years of my life - like many people  in the Port I have watched my home town / city get redeveloped to death. With the redevelopment companies moving in hoovering up the cash and departing. Newport’s 19th century Market which has served the city well, through good and bad times and two world wars, is to undergo yet another redevelopment. This redevelopment may be the final blow, as most to the remaining stallholders are in the process of moving out and the builders will soon  begin work to transform the market into a multi-million pound, multi-purpose centre.

Another key area, where the Unionist Parties are largely silent is that of Policing and Criminal Justice. At Westminster Unionist machinations (with Labour in Wales and the Conservatives working hand in glove in the voting lobbies - or Labour simply absenting themselves or abstaining) has resulted in a strange end result. Our Senedd is quite unique, it is the only devolved legislature within these islands not to have any control over its nation’s police forces. Now it’s worth noting, that control over Policing is devolved to Scotland (effectively since 1945), Northern Ireland, England, London, Manchester and even the City of London.

The issue of Water, in Cymru / Wales should still be more contentious than it is - again the Unionists are as quiet as Church Mice on this issue. On the 15th July 2020, for the first time in our history, our Senedd debated the issue of independence. While most independent observers will note that our devolution settlement is deeply flawed, by way of comparison to Scotland and Northern Ireland. It’s sometimes shocking when you actually look at the things that we don’t control - aside from Policing, and large aspects of the planning process, significant aspects transport infrastructure development and probably most surprising of all our water resources.

The final key issue is that of energy (both Policy and Development). Back in the 1960's people were actually told that by the year 2000 energy would be so cheap that it would be impossible to bill people for it. That never happened, largely as a result of the ideologically driven privatisation of the energy boards created a privatised (effective) monopoly. Once ‘market forces’ set to work we were left with the big six energy suppliers (a cartel by any other name). With weak regulation - despite some periodic and actually very effective work by Westminster parliamentary select committees - the cartel members have been able to get away with much - mostly at our expense (literally). 

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOUSING?

For the life of me, I cannot see any positives for Cymru / Wales simply being a simple adjunct to England, or Newport being a simple dormitory town for Bristol. I have never, and never will subscribe to the Severnside agenda, no matter how many times it gets rebranded and relaunched. In our south east, along the coastal belt and in and around Newport and Torfaen (not to mention around Cardiff and Caerphilly) and across Monmouthshire the last thirty years we have seen a significant if not spectacular growth in the amount of housing, a significant percentage of which of late has never quite been aimed to fulfil local housing needs. 

The recent explosion in housing and commercial developments around our cities, small towns and villages across Cymru / Wales over the last 40 years - often with little provision for public transport or alternative ways for potential residents to get around beyond using their cars - has flagged up the rapid loss of green spaces in and around our urban and not so urban areas - and has done little to provide affordable let alone reasonably priced housing for local residents. 

Affordable housing?

As a result of this excessive overdevelopment the infrastructure along the coastal belt between Chepstow, Caldicot, Rogiet and Magor which struggles to cope with existing developments is beginning to creak and this is well before the projected expansion of housing on and around the former Llanwern site (where the proposed railway station was recently cancelled) really kicks in.

Northern Newport has been linked to the south Cwmbran - something that has brought little material benefit to the residents of either urban area but has contributed much to traffic congestion. Similarly linking Cwmbran with Sebastopol will bring scant real benefit to local residents - when the housing development is complete - just exactly how much of it will be affordable to local residents remains to be seen?

Factor in the removal of the Severn Bridge tolls resulted (as expected) in a bump in house prices as people living in and around Bristol moved to cash in on cheaper housing over here.  This development has understandably impacted on both affordable and available housing, developers will no doubt pitch their developments accordingly to cash in on perceived higher wages in the Bristol area and perceived cheaper housing over here (and no doubt our local authorities will fall over themselves to accommodate the developers wishes regardless how local people feel).

We have all seen the consequences and the impact of purchasing power, between areas of relative affluence and areas that are less affluent in various parts of Wales, particularly if those areas happen to be desirable places to retire too or move to, this problem is not confined to Wales, if affects places as diverse and distant as Cumbria, Cornwall, Friesland (in both Holland and Denmark. 

Once the tolls went house prices continued to rise and the pressure to build new houses to deal with the demand for cheaper housing from across the bridge has grown. Simply building houses in south Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen in an effort to cash in on the projected housing shortage in the Bristol area is not acceptable - we need a sensible longer term strategic plan with primarily focuses on local housing needs.

The, then, National Assembly (now Senedd)  should have known better and acted accordingly, the institution when established was supposed to have sustainability enshrined in its actions, but, at times you really have to wonder, especially when it comes to the impact of some of the proposed developments on our communities, whether it does or not. The Senedd still can, if it chooses too, focus on developing affordable housing within and around our communities and to prioritise local housing needs.

We need to bin the fundamentally flawed UDP process and make our local government structure fit for the 21st century rather than the 19th century and accommodate re realities of devolved government. As it should be pretty clear by now to even the most dispassionate of observers that in Wales, we lack a coherent national strategic development plan for Wales judging by the half-baked way local unitary development plans have been put together over the years.

We need to look at championing the development of new homes in small-scale housing developments in both rural and urban areas. We should focus o ‘exception sites’, where land plots, not covered by general planning permission, will be capped at an affordable price designed to benefit those in local housing need with family and work ties to the area, and whose sale will be conditional on these houses continuing in local ownership in perpetuity. We should also favour small development companies rather than the bigger firms.

What’s left of our social housing stock that remains under the control of the housing associations needs to remain intact in order to meet the demand for homes. Where practical strategic planning should favour smaller scale more integrated housing developments - thrust are an integral part of our communities rather than oversized bolt on developments that fundamentally change the nature of the communities they are dropped onto. 

Along with developing social housing stock there is a need to introduce a more rigorous system in the allocation of social housing to give priority to those in local housing need. Part of the problem is that our planning system, along with our almost nineteenth century local government setup is not designed to coexist with devolution or for that matter to deliver planning decisions with real and lasting benefits for local people and local communities. 

Our current planning system remains far too focused on railroading through large housing / commercial developments, that often bring little benefits for local people and local communities and often fail to resolve real and pressing local housing needs. 

We need a fundamental change in planning culture to encourage appropriate and sustainable smaller scale housing developments, which are based on good design and actively promote energy efficiency and good environmental standards and that puts our communities first. The current housing strategy fundamentally fails to solve the problems of local housing shortage and demonstrates the need for a genuinely balanced new all Wales housing plan. 

Locally one consequence of the demise of the tolls has been the  speeding up the on-going process by which local residents continue to be priced out of the market and their own communties. We have already seen this happen along the coastal belt of Gwent between eastern Newport and Chepstow and around Abergavenny. This has happened partially because some actual and proposed houses have been priced to maximise profits and new housing has been effectively marketed and sold in Bristol ('Get your free bridge tag for 18 months, etc').

Cymru / Wales needs to have substantially more affordable housing otherwise an entire generation will miss out on the reasonable expectation of having a decent affordable home. The supply of more affordable housing should be met through a combination of bringing empty properties back into use, and new developments of mixed housing in the social and private sectors, but only, when local needs and environmental sustainability have been taken into account.

Our country would be well served by the establishment of a National Housing Company, which could borrow against rents to build a new generation of public rental housing in Wales limited in number only by demand. Whatever Government holds power in Cardiff Bay should support Local Authorities that wish to build new Council Housing. We need to revisit and repurpose the housing associations that have proliferated across Wales since housing was transferred from local authority control to the housing associations. 

Local Authorities should be expected to agree targets for supplying affordable housing, including new social housing, with the Welsh Government, but should be given the flexibility to decide how they would achieve this based upon the needs of their area. Local Authorities will be able to develop joint long term plans with neighbouring local authorities, or work through housing associations or the National Housing Company, if they believed this was the best way to meet the needs of their areas.

We also need to look at championing the development of new homes in small-scale housing developments in both rural and urban Wales on ‘exception sites’, where land plots, not covered by general planning permission, will be capped at an affordable price designed to benefit those in local housing need with family and work ties to the area, and whose sale will be conditional on these houses continuing in local ownership in perpetuity.

This problem has been aggravated because  during the last few decades (on Conservative, Labour and Conservative- Liberal Democrat government) local democracy has been consistently undermined, as developers (and here we are not just talking about housing) simply appear to carry on appealing until they get their way or get their development retrospectively approved at a higher level. Or the process of land acquisition literally begins long before the proposal even goes to inquiry almost as if the decision has already been made (this happens at both local, national and a Westminster level). 

Local government officers will (and do) advise local councillors not to turn down developments (whatever the grounds) because the developers will simply appeal until the cows come home and that local government just does not have the finances to cope with this situation. My own father (who served as a City councillor in Newport from 1999 until 2012) observed the development of this practice while sitting on Newport city council. 

Part of the problem is that our planning system, along with our almost nineteenth century local government setup is not designed to coexist with devolution or for that matter to deliver planning decisions with real and lasting benefits for local people and local communities. There is a real need for root and branch reform and reorganisation of our planning system; the Welsh Government’s simply decided to tinker and tweak with existing out-dated legislation rather than reform it.

Our current planning system remains far too focused on railroading through large housing developments that bring little benefits for local people and local communities and often fail to resolve real and pressing local housing needs. We need a fundamental change in planning culture to encourage appropriate and sustainable smaller scale housing developments, which are based on good design and actively promote energy efficiency and good environmental standards.

Our planning system and planning processes are too slow, too bureaucratic and too unresponsive to real local needs and local opinions. The current system is based on the post-war Town and Country Planning Act from 1947 and is simply out-dated; our country needs a modern planning system that meets the needs of modern Welsh society. In line with the realities of devolution our country needs an independent Planning inspectorate for Wales as the old single planning inspectorate for England and Wales is increasingly unsustainable.

It has to be unacceptable for young people in our own communities to be in a situation where they cannot afford to buy a house in the communities in which they grew up. That's simply cannot be right. It weakens community cohesion and shatters the social fabric of our society - which has gone through so much over the years.  So much that was done to us, rather than done for us. 

What we desperately need is a sensible properly planned housing strategy, not just for our south east, or for Monmouthshire, the rest of the former county of Gwent and Cardiff, but for all of our country. When it comes to large-scale housing developments, based on previous observations, we can pretty much predict what happens next - in terms of crumbling infrastructure, more congestion, more pollution and a poor quality of life in our own communties. 

This has to change - We need a simple all Cymru / Wales Housing Policy that deals with the problems of young and not so young people being priced out of their own communties when it comes to housing . This something that affects almost every community in Cymru / Wales, whether in the SE. NE or the N + W. And is a real pressing concern. We need to reform the planning system, replacing the planning inspectorate and tackling second homes and unaffordable overdevelopment. 

One key all Cymru / Wales issue is that people feel powerless to stop any development they do not want. People feel that they can sometimes get a result by overturning a decision at local level. Only for that decision to be overturned by 'the assembly' (minister in charge). We need a policy that actually empowers local communities while encouraging new affordable accommodation, rather than removing people from the process or keeping them at arms length.  We need to rebalanced the system so that it answers the needs of the community, not the shareholders of major developers. 

If we can do this, and therein no reason why we in Cymru / Wales cannot, then, we will have a housing policy and strategy that is fit for purpose and fit for the 21st century rather than the mid 20th century. Now the above suggestions are something we are never going to get from a Labour in Wales government, it’s time to change Cymru / Wales, with a Plaid Cymru government in 2021, for unlike Labour, Plaid actually believes that Wales can.  

SIMPLY PART OF THE PROBLEM

Here in Cymru / Wales we face number of pressing problems, covid aside, the lack of affordable housing, the weaknesses of our economy, the inherent problems with our 19th planning system with its out of touch focus on unitary development plans, and the lack of decent affordable integrated public transport, which are all part of the problem we face. 

For serious times, we need serious government and serious leadership. We lack both at all levels of government. If the governments in Cardiff and London were serious about public transport then our railways then some serious consideration should be given to looking at reconnecting some of our towns to the rail network. A good follow on would be reconnecting Caernarfon, Dolgellau and Builth Wells to the network, and reopening the line to Llangefni and Amlwch on Ynys Mon. 

Locally the re-opening / construction of stations at Caerleon / Ponthir (a well sited, well connected station could serve both communities well), Magor and Llanwern should be priorities. We also need to improving North – South rail communications and rebuild and re-open the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth line. We also need to get road  freight off our roads and back onto our railways. 

In the south east, we need Abergavenny and Chepstow railway stations to be real gateways, with fully integrated local bus services. We need better facilities at Severn Tunnel Junction and Caldicot railway stations and the provision of safe secure parking facilities. We need feasibility studies into the development of a Parkway Station at Little Mill and the possibilities of re-opening the railway line from Little Mill to Usk and the development of a new railway station at Usk.

The final stage of the rail-link from Ebbw Vale to Newport needs to be completed and along with new railway stations at Caerleon / Ponthir and Magor would help to reduce road congestion. Such developments would provide a regular rail service to local residents and reduce the ever increasing traffic burden from already overcrowded roads. The re-opening of Pontrilas Railway station (in south Herefordshire) for passenger traffic (and timber shipments) would also help, as would a feasibility study into developing regional rail freight services, removing heavy Lorries from local roads.

A lack of coherent governance in Cymru / Wales may explain, why when it comes to railways in Cymru / Wales, there is a tendency to focus on anniversaries of rail closures rather than anniversaries of openings. This could be because transport policy was something that was done to us rather than done for us or done by us. I mention this, because back in 2012 I noticed that a plaque had been unveiled marking the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the railway in Knighton (Powys).

The spectacular 22-mile section of the Heart of Wales line from Craven Arms, Shropshire, to Knighton was constructed in 1861, and managed to avoid being closed in the 1950's and 1960's.  A £5m project which upgraded parts of this rural railway was finished in 2011, which reinstated five passing loops at Knighton, Llandrindod Wells and Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys, and at Llandovery and Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire. This was a small but positive step which could, which with extra services could lead to more regular and better used trains.

In the last twenty one years in Wales there have been two successful railway re-openings carried out by Network Rail at the request of the National Assembly; the Vale of Glamorgan Railway Line (re-opened on Friday 10th June 2005) and the Ebbw Valley Railway Line (partially re-opened on Wednesday 6th February 2008).

Being brutally honest these were administrative rather than legislative projects, this has not been the case in Scotland, where bills to reopen old railways were vigorously debated, scrutinised, amended and passed by the Scottish Parliament. If we are serious about integrated public transport then we are going to have to get serious about how we are going to develop and redevelop our public transport infrastructure.

We face a future where relatively cheap fuel will be a thing of the past, so we need to ensure that all our communities have reasonable access to a reliable cheap system of integrated public transport, at the heart of which needs to be our long neglected rail network. 

The Transport (Wales) Act which came into effect in February 2006 gave the then National Assembly powers to plan and co-ordinate an integrated transport system. New railway stations in Cymru / Wales are mostly (not not entirely) down to seeking approval from Westminster - almost as if devolution does not exist.

The old excuses about a lack of funding (despite the banking related financial crisis) from Westminster are no longer acceptable; Wales making up 5% of the population of the UK, and makes significant contributions to the exchequer over the years - so we need 5% of the UK transport spend, and full control of our transport planning and our transport budget. 

If the current Governments in London and Cardiff are serious about cutting carbon emissions and reducing road congestion then we also need work to get heavy goods back onto our railways. There is no quick fix, but, the time for excuses is over, we need to plan for the future. This may not be cheap but it can be done if the political will is there, as has happened in Scotland, where there is a useful combination of the will, the funding and interested private partners. 

Now let's be honest, with all the best will in the world this is not going to work well, even with the current inert visionless Labour in Wales / Lib Dem coalition government in Cardiff and, as far as Cymru / Wales is concerned an indifferent / hostile Conservative government in Westminster that is openly hostile to the concept of devolution and to the very existence of Cymru / Wales’s very existence.  

The underlying problem is that devolutionary governance can no more be half devolved anymore than someone can be half free. A flawed devolutionary half-way house just won't work anymore, it will not deliver or even give us the chance to deliver, even with the weak / incomplete / flawed legislative powers that the Senydd has. 

The changes and reforms that are necessary to fix the problems in our country, to give Cymru / Wales  the tools to do the job, are unlikely to be gained anytime soon. Even were Cymru / Wales to gain the legislative powers, any future Welsh government would still be in some sort of half devolved limbo state of governance, lacking a fair financial settlement. 

Cymru / Wales need a fair financial settlement, full control of Network Rails budget and priorities within Cymru / Wales so we can construct a decent system of integrated public transport. This is what has happened in Scotland, where significant strides have been made to reopen, redevelop and build a coherent and integrated public transport system, partially due to the fact that Scotland has full control over Network Rails budget and priorities in Scotland. 

The other significant difference between Cymru / Wales and Scotland, aside from geography, lies with our current government in Cardiff Bay. Even if the Labour in Wales / Lib Dem coalition government in Cardiff wanted to do any of this they cannot - they don’t have the powers too, and more importantly they simply lack the political will or necessary vision to even try. How much longer do we have to wait to see some sort of coherent transport plan for Cymru / Wales, let alone the vision? 

Devolution, as is, simply won’t work with the current Westminster Conservative governments 18th century vision of the Union - basically a Greater England - complete with a compliant quit Cymru / Wales which sits as an adjunct to the west of England fulfilling the function as an add on to Bristol with cheaper housing and convenient areas of outstanding national beauty for leisure activities.  Making a observation, that as dominion status is not in the offing, even within a new Brit Empire 2.0, then Independence is the only remaining sensible option.