YESTERDAY’S NEWS

A classic case of yesterday’s news and yesterday’s ideas from yesterday’s party.

Labour had thirteen years in power in Westminster to deliver radical devolution for Wales and failed.

They again promised a “radical extension of devolution” in 2017, as did Keir Starmer during his leadership campaign only to now deny Scotland’s right to hold a new referendum on independence.

As has been said  broken record won’t save a broken union, and neither will we re-build our economy with the handleless shovel that Labour in Westminster and in Wales have given us relation to economic powers.

Time and again Labour in Westminster have voted in the UK Parliament against more powers for the Senedd.

Labour in Wales are simply part of the problem rather than the solution, or as my father once put it, if you think Labour is the answer then you are asking the wrong question…

The Labour Party is being overtaken by events and the desires of the people of Wales - including half of their membership - to see our nation have full control over deciding its own future. 

More and more people want independence for Wales but if they want it, they have to vote for it in the Senedd elections.

TIME FOR A NEW DEAL

Plaid Cymru will stand up for the interests of Wales and vote against the Tories’ bad Brexit Deal.

This Tory hard Brexit will mean farmers who sell their lamb to the EU will now face complex new paperwork and checks. Businesses will face significant new barriers to trade when our economy is already in crisis because of Covid-19. It paves the way for ripping up workers’ rights and environmental standards and undermines democratic devolution. And our young people will be locked out from opportunities – such as Erasmus - granted as a right to other young Europeans.

No party that claims to stand up for Wales, or for working people, can do anything other than oppose this deal and the future it represents.

The notion that the choice is between the Brexit deal and no deal is also an entirely false choice. 

What Wales really needs is a New Deal.\

A relationship with Westminster which would allow us to be a good neighbour rather than a badly-treated tenant. 

This means control over our economy, justice, welfare system and natural resources where decisions are made in the best interests of everyone who lives here – a truly independent Wales.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE…

At the end of the day, Plaid Cymru is powered by people for the people. Help get them into Government next May to Change Wales for Good.

Next year, we can elect the first ever pro-independence Welsh Government ever. We can all help make that a possibility today by donating to Plaid Cymru.

We aren’t funded by a Westminster head office in London, or helped out by the Trade Unions  We are funded by the generosity and kindness of our members and supporters, and the challenging conditions facing us ahead of the next election make this support more important than ever. Chip in today.

 

We can expect the big donors from outside of Wales to fund the Tory campaign, and the unions will once again be writing blank cheques for Labour. We cannot hope to elect a Plaid Cymru Welsh Government without your help.

 

The double threat of Covid-19 and Brexit will shape the next decade in ways we cannot imagine, and as the campaign to elect a Plaid Cymru Government in 2021 builds, we are once again asking for your help. Whether its £2.10, £21 or £210 – every little helps.

 

Build back better has become the mantra of the Covid crisis but Plaid Cymru is striving for something more lasting, more permanent. We want to change Wales forever – a sustainable economy and public services where there can be no going back to old ways of thinking and working. Help us make this a reality by chipping in today.

 

We want to ensure that Plaid Cymru is in the strongest position to compete in next year’s Senedd election. Can you help?

 

We can change our NHS for good. We can change our economy for good. We can change our schools for good. We can change Wales for good. Help make this a reality. Chip in today.

www.partyofwales.fundraise.tech/one-off

FOLLOW THE MONEY?

Our nation, as one of the poorer parts of these islands (we are currently also, but not for long, one of the poorer regions of the European Union), we will have received more than £5 billion in so-called structural funds by the end of 2020. One of the consequences of BREXIT is that this source of funding will cease. Now the Conservatives have said the new Shared Prosperity Fund is intended to reduce inequalities across the four UK nations. 

One of the major flaw in this argument is that the current crop of Conservatives are unionists and centralisers - who at a fundamental level don not believe that sovereignty lies with the people, but, within that decaying gothic monstrosity on Thames, which means that the new fund could be used to draw decision making back to the gothic pile and away from the devolved governments.

That is of course, the other problem, in that can we actually believe them in relation to the new Shared Prosperity Fund. If you think about it rationally, especially considering that historically they blocked regional aid to Wales in the 1980’s and early 1990’s and considering that one of the underlying feature of the UK has always been that the failure when it comes to the centre promoting sustainable regional economic development, why would we?  

When you use public money, the old sensible adage is that you should work it extra hard, squeezing out every possible benefit. In recent years, the funding from Brussels has been used for a wide variety of diverse infrastructure projects from the Ponty Lido, Swansea University's Bay Campus, the Heads of the Valleys road, Harbour Way link road and the National Sailing Academy at Pwllheli. EU funding has been used to fund educational and training courses and other programmes via our Universities and colleges. 

When you spend public money, you should also openly audit how it’s spent and chase down any waste. I fundamentally believe that a new Plaid government should commit to carry out a fully comprehensive review of just exactly on what? And how well the money has been spent along with examining in detail how the funds were spent and what the end results were - before any future funds (if they ever arrive from Westminster) are thrown at any potential problems and projects in the future. 

200 Days to change Cymru / Wales

 

200 days to Change Wales for Good

We in Plaid Cymru have a clear goal for our country: we want to stand on our own two feet, independent, free and equal with other nations across the world.

But in becoming an equal nation we have our eyes on a higher goal: of becoming ourselves a Nation of Equals.

We can do this by caring for everyone in society – from cradle to grave - building the economy and believing in our nation. Not managing problems – solving them.

During such a difficult time for us all it can be hard to look to the future. But as we face the darkness of winter, a 'fire-break' lockdown , and an alarming increase in the spread of Coronavirus, it is our responsibility to light a candle of hope.

​Wales also needs hope. Hope that things won’t just change but will change for good, for everyone, forever.

There are 200 days to go until the Senedd election. We have 200 days to offer Wales that hope. 200 days to Change Wales for Good.

Adam Price

A NEED FOR GREEN BELT

The 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. 

One thing our country lacks, aside from a serious well though out integrated housing structure plan, and a modern planning system and a realistic vision or plan for strategically developing our housing for the future, is green belt. 

There is a clear need for formal legally protected green belt, around Cardiff (including the Northern meadows), Newport, Cwmbran and Caerphilly along with our small towns in Monmouthshire: Abergavenny, Chepstow and Monmouth and elsewhere in Cymru / Wales.

We have a clear, if not a dire need for the creation of Green belt across all of our country, to fringe our urban areas, to help focus out of town and fringe of town developments, and to protect green spaces around, between and within some of our urban areas. 

Green belt, if respected is still a useful planning tool, originally introduced for London in 1938, it was rolled out to England as a whole by a government circular in 1955 but interestingly enough it was only enough never rolled out here in Cymru / Wales.

Now the original concept was to allow local councils to designate green belts when they wanted to restrict, control or shape urban growth.  

The idea worked and it worked well, as by 2007, Green belt covered something like 13% of England (about one-and-a-half million hectares) despite the best efforts of previous Conservative, New Labour and Conservative–Liberal Democrat Governments it is still remains relatively well protected by normal planning controls against "inappropriate development".

It is worth noting that there is no designated green belt in Cymru / Wales - save for one patch of notional green belt (actually a Green wedge) that lies between Cardiff and Newport. Scotland has seven and Northern Ireland has thirty - each has its own policy guidance. 

This absence of green belt in Cymru / Wales explains much - it has certainly contributed to urban sprawl and significant out of town and edge of town development - something that has done little to help our communities, economically or socially especially over the last 30 years.

The preservation of green spaces aside, comes down to planning permission (and ultimately our planning process), which can be a touchy subject in itself, especially when a development (whether for commercial, housing or energy development) is controversial or the final decision is made against the wishes of local people. 

In Cymru / Wales we face the same problem across all of our country, be it around Wrecsam, Carmarthen, northern Cardiff, Swansea of any of our smaller towns and villages. 

A familiar site on our green spaces...

More locally, a number of these housing developments, which have done (and will do) some pretty serious damage to our environment have come without any necessary improvements in infrastructure e.g new railway stations with reasonably priced (or even free), adequate and secure park and ride facilities at Caerleon (closed as a result of the Beeching cuts in 1962, in the UDP since 1984) not to mention Llanwern and Magor.

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 has seen a significant if not spectacular growth in the amount of housing, a significant percentage of which has never aimed to fulfil local housing needs. 

As a result the infrastructure along the coastal belt between Chepstow, Caldicot, Rogiet and Magor struggles to cope with existing developments 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?

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 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).

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. 

We need to develop and protect our own green belt around and within our urban communities – because once developed (or overdeveloped) it’s gone for good. 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. 

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.

The problem caused by a lack of protection to our Green spaces is aggravated by the fact that while one generation of elected officials (and council officers) envisages as a green wedge, green lane, etc as a social necessity they are often seen by following generations of elected officials (and council officers) as either prime land for development or a nice little earner to help balance out the books.

This means that there is a real lack of stability and a lack of a sustainable long term vision for many of our urban areas and impacts on our quality of life. 

The Senedd needs to grow up and act like the Welsh Parliament it has become - it should take the long view and legislate to create and protect Green belt land with full legal and planning protections in Cymru/ Wales. 

This might go some way to calming things down when it comes to development planning and might introduce a more long-term sustainable democratic element into the process. 

This is something that could be accomplished by creating Welsh Green belt land, as part of the process we also need an urgent and open debate into the planning process in Wales - something that has been long overdue.

Successive Westminster government’s (in England) talked about getting planning officers "off people's backs" with a relaxation of planning rules. 

When they talked about ‘people’ they meant developers. 

No doubt post Brexit Westminster ministers will want further changes to planning rules (in England) in an attempt to boost house building and revive the economy.

Not wanting to be left out (and also perhaps bereft of any fresh ideas), a few years ago Carwyn’s Labour in Wales Government in Cardiff also pursued major changes to planning rules in Wales aiming to ‘tilt the balance in favour of economic growth over the environment and social factors’. 

That decision was in my opinion aimed quite specifically at overturning those few occasions when our Local Authorities have rejected developments (often at the behest of local residents) rather than putting economic needs ahead of economic and environmental benefits and will do little for sustainable, flood free development to deal with local housing needs let alone preserve our green spaces. 

It explains much of the housing overdevelopment in various parts of our country and it does not deliver for our hard pressed communities or our country. 

We 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. 

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. 

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. 

There is a real need for root and branch reform and reorganisation of our planning system; something the Welsh Government has failed to deliver with tinkering and tweaks to existing out-dated legislation rather than and real reform.

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. 

This is 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. 

BUILDING WALES BETTER?

From the periphery, which often largely depends on where you stand and how you look at the map, a change of economic focus in Wales is long overdue, perhaps ironically where ever we end up post Brexit may well compel us to think and act differently.  

It is clear we cannot go on as we have, our country is literally littered with the tombstone like remnants of failed models of economic development. Most of them having failed to deliver long-term economic benefits and more than a few long-term jobs to our people and our communities.

What is badly needed is the courage to step away from the over centralised state dependent model of economic development as applied by successive Westminster and Welsh governments. Successive  Westminster Governments have consistently failed to deliver beyond the short-term for Wales. 

With the crutch of EU regional funding about to be kicked away, despite some weak and wobbly promises from Westminster to the contrary, we desperately need some fresh economic thinking and action rather than more words.

The older economic models which reduce Cymru / Wales to simply a region (of part of larger cross border regions) where we provide relatively cheap labour with industries that a heavily dependent on grants for funding just won’t wash anymore. 

We need to find other economic models that can deliver long-term jobs and lasting material benefits to our communities and to our country. 

We have been historically over dependent on Westminster or Cardiff Bay waving their magic wand to solve our economic problems, this is entirely understandable considering the nature of our economic and political history, but this simply compounds the error and won’t solve our economic problems or create sustainable jobs. 

The days of bringing in significant amounts of ‘inward investment’ are probably over, Westminster has better things to spend its money on - Cymru / Wales does not matter electorally (or economically) as far as the Conservatives are concerned. 

Post the CORONA virus and Post BREXIT its time to be honest and admit that ‘The Union’ as it has been, even with devolution has failed to deliver for Wales. As far as it is concerned the current Welsh Labour government remains fresh out of ideas, unless compared to the current Conservative Westminster government. 

We desperately need indigenous home grown businesses (small, medium and larger scale) which will put down roots and stick around when economic times are tough rather than pulling up sticks and bugging out when the grant money runs out and be more able to resist being hovered up by multi nationals. 

We need to develop small to medium sized enterprises or local co-operative industries that could provide medium to long-term sustainable job opportunities.

Part of the economic mix should include developing and encouraging the co-operative model of economic development. The co-operative model works well in a number of countries including both Ireland and in the Basque country, there is no reason why it should not work well here. 

The Basque cooperative model, as personified by Mondragon co-operative suggests what can be accomplished. If we are to grow local businesses and local jobs we are going to have to create a real Bank of Wales, perhaps using the German Sparkasse and Landesbanken model. 

For too long far too many small and medium sized businesses in our country have been denied credit by banks and this has prevented the growth of our private sector.

Our over centralised dividend driven pretty much rootless London based banking model that has been followed in the UK is incapable, indifferent or simply unwilling to deliver or support economic development in our country. 

In Germany, the Sparkasse and Landesbanken operate on a geographical basis, and have developed special expertise in the local industries so that they are better equipped to make investment decisions and should offer a real alternative.

Mondragon a collective of over 264 companies and organisations mostly based in the Basque Country has proven to be one of the more resilient economic success stories in recession-hit Spain. It has a revenue of 12,215 million euros, with 81,837 employees with 15 technology centres in 41 countries and sales in over 150 countries. 

The Basque co-operative may well be the world's largest worker co-operative, it has certainly assisted the Basque economy to try and resist the worst ravages of the recession in Spain. The company was established in 1956, in the province of Gipuzkoa; with a business philosophy built around co-operation, participation, social responsibility and innovation. 

It began small (this may very well be the key to its success) and form the bottom up with a group of workers in a disused factory, literally using hand tools and sheet metal to make oil-fired heating and cooking stoves.

The Cooperative continues to compete on international markets using democratic methods within its business organisation, helps to create jobs, and is committed to the human and professional development of its workers and pledges to development with its social environment. 

Some parts of the co-operative are wholly owned, others are run as joint venture operations. 

Co-operative members as equal co-owners of their own workplaces enjoy job security and individual capital holdings, with an equal sharing of profits on a proportionate basis and an equal ‘one-member one vote’ say in the way their enterprises are run. 

Pay within the cooperatives is strictly egalitarian, with the highest rates payable other than in exceptional circumstances being refreshingly no more than six and a half times the lowest rate. 

The Basque country has Spain’s highest GDP per capita, its richer than even Catalonia and Wales is the poorest nation in the British Isles, and in northwestern Europe. 

We in Wales have much to learn from the example of Mondragon and its methods when it comes generating and retaining sustainable jobs, simply remaining poor (or increasingly poorer) west Britons is not an option. 

There is no reason why the co-operative approach combined with a rich mix of small to medium sized enterprises cannot be used to bring in a community focused upward economic slow burn approach to economic development.

We desperately need something that will not just provide local jobs but real community beneficial sustainable developments which can transform our communities and fundamentally boost our country’s economic potential. We can take that first step in May 2021 at the Senedd elections.