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.

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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.

 

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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.

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MENTAL HEALTH ONE STOP SHOPS

A Plaid Cymru Government would establish Wales-wide hubs to provide mental health support for young people.

The hubs would offer early intervention for young people who are not ill enough to require advanced psychiatric treatment; yet require support for their mental health. 

They would offer pre-arranged counselling and could deal with emergencies and other walk-ins.

We would establish hubs to provide comprehensive, youth-focused services, including mental health services, health and other community and social services in a single community-based setting, sometimes referred to as “one-stop shops”, with “youth” defined to include both adolescents and young adults .

The hubs will also offer other services to treat the whole person in an age appropriate manner. There will be the opportunity to co-locate other services (employment, specialist education etc.) in these areas. This would be a one stop shop for young people to access a range of services focused on mental health.

They would be offering counselling on both an appointment and emergency basis – with a large enough team to deal with emergencies. 

The main selling point would be anyone could walk in and get advice and arrange counselling if needed. 

They would be linked with other health services to refer people. They could also offer group activities and more general youth work.

By offering intermediate services and early intervention the teams will prevent problems from developing into significant psychological needs.

SUPPORTING WELSH STUDENTS

Annwyl Mark,

In the words of UK Labour Leader, Keir Starmer, “across the last twenty-four hours, we have heard heart-breaking stories and the scale of the injustice caused by the fatally flawed results system has become clear. Young people right across the country, in every town and city, feel let down and betrayed.”

His views have been echoed by the interim leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey who said that the system has led to “some utterly unfair outcomes.”

Both were referencing the downgrading of results in England where 40% of A level results were lower than predicted.

In Wales, 42% of results were downgraded, leaving pupils angry that they have suffered at the hands of a flawed system.

If the criticism from your parties in England is to mean anything other than political game-playing, you and the Education Minister must now reassess your approach as a Welsh Government to ensure that no pupil is disadvantaged in what has already been an anxious year.

Pupils who were awarded lesser grades than the teacher assessments in A level and AS exams should be upgraded to the teacher assessment grades.

Further, this should be used as the mechanism for awarding GSCE results and this should be communicated to learners today for peace of mind.

In these extraordinary times, we must be ready to respond with unprecedented action in the interest of fairness and pupil welfare.

I am copying this to the Education Minister and to your UK Party leaders who have made these comments.

Yn gywir,

Adam Price AS/MS,

Sign here: http://www.partyof.wales/support_welsh_students?recruiter_id=172282 

UNMEASURABLE SUCCESS ?

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.

Some of the market stalls will remain but the redeveloped market will include apartments, offices, a food court with pop-up units and a performance space. 

Newport city council has described the redevelopment as “potentially the largest market redevelopment in the UK” and it says it will create a “24-hour working/living space”.

This all sounds good, but, the poor old market has been managed to death by the City / Town Council who could never leave it alone. 

Years of faffing about with the buses / bus routes near the site of the market has not helped. That it managed to survive so long is close to miraculous.

If you live in various parts of Gwent or are intimately familiar with your home community, then over the years you will have noticed that redevelopment / regeneration comes and goes in phases, in any particular community or town.

Regeneration schemes will have cleaned areas up, built in cycle routes, created transport plans, pedestrianised streets, reopened them to traffic, re-pedestrianised them and (as is the case in Newport and no doubt elsewhere) made certain streets shared space with both cars and pedestrians (this is not as crazy an idea as it sounds, and it actually works) and so on. 

Parking has been restricted, created and removed, made it free and charged for it, bus lanes have been created, removed and the hours when bus lanes operate varied. 

Now this is all well and good and may reflect the latest trend in regeneration and development, but at the end of the day has it made the places where we live, work and shop any better? 

The one question that tends not to be asked, and hence not answered is: Has the regeneration process or scheme increased or generated wealth in our communities or provided people with the opportunities to get jobs, to go into business for themselves or generate wealth? 

One of the unintended features of redevelopment is that quite often it is (or is perceived as being) driven from the top down i.e. by elected bodies whether they be Town or County Councils or the Senedd. 

Regeneration is a process that merely consults, usually after the plans have been drawn up rather than before, during and after - any process run this way runs the real risk of becoming deeply flawed. 

Local communities and towns and cities of South Wales have over the years has been the recipient of much grant aid, development and redevelopment schemes and initiatives - how can we measure success? 

Measuring a regeneration schemes success should be a key factor in any regeneration scheme. 

This is the key question that needs to be asked - after the cement and the paint has dried, after the development / redevelopment / regeneration professionals have banked the cheque and moved on - have the various schemes made a difference. 

I mean beyond any immediate physical improvements to the environment, have they made a real difference when it comes to wealth generation in the area affected by the regeneration scheme and can the people who live here actually see and benefit from the change? 

If the end result is in reality a makeover, and the targeted community is no better off, save for being bereft of the 'regeneration funds' that have been effectively hoovered up by professional regeneration companies - some of whom make a good living out of regeneration - then we should ask is this success? 

How do you make regeneration projects work beyond the tick box list of the regeneration schemes managers? 

One key component that is often ignored or marginalised during the regeneration process is the communities greatest resource - its people.

If we truly want to build and develop strong sustainable communities, then any regeneration scheme should from the start and at every stage of the process. We don’t need regeneration professionals coming into an area and engaging in a largely token consultation process. 

They should directly talk to local people (who are an asset to the process) rather than at them, and actually find out what they would like to be done, what they actually want for their community and their town.

If you are reusing or renovating old buildings then any regeneration scheme needs to ensure that old buildings can make a sustainable contribution after the regeneration scheme is finished. 

If we do this rather than merely making a token gesture towards public consultation, then any regeneration schemes will, with hard work, really begin to deliver tangible benefits to our communities. 

Regeneration schemes and projects should be bottom up rather than the top down. 

The bottom line should be when spending public money, work it extra hard and squeeze out every single possible benefit and maximise the impact locally of the regeneration process and make every effort to build in local benefits into the tendering process - whether by employing local people, using local resources, local skills and local input. 

Now a plea for a more people focused and community driven regeneration is not driven by nostalgia or about living the past - we have to re-image our urban spaces for the 21st century - but not at the expense of the people who live and make their living within them. 

 

As had been said elsewhere, regeneration should be a process rather than a cash extracting event, that delivers unmeasurable success. 

A SCOURGE ON OUR SOCIETY

If you live in Allt-yr-yn, Pill, Tredegar Park, St Julians or anywhere else in Newport - or pretty much anywhere else in Cymru / Wales you will know that fly tipping is a significant problem. 

Household rubbish and waste is being dumped on our streets, our nature reserves, in fields on the Gwent levels (in the drainage reens which aggravates drainage problems and flooding), on our mountains and in our national parks. 

Fly tipped fridge freezer and chill cabinet

More Locally Newport City Council is directly responsible for removing dumped items from any council owned land, including housing estates, grass areas, parks and reens, canals and public highways. 

It remains one of those anti-social problems that plagues all of our communities across all of Cymru / Wales affecting both relatively well off and less affluent communities of our country and our city. 

Fly-tipping affects both rural and urban areas equally and despite the best efforts of financially strapped county councils shows little sign of being discouraged or curbed. 

Local fly-tipping regularly costs Newport council over £100,000 a year to clean up (South Wales Argus). In 2019 clean up costs were £117,452. 

Based on observational evidence and stories in the media, 2020 is going to cost great deal more - judging by the rubbish (including domestic and commercial waste) that has been dumped in and around Newport in the last few months (across Cymru / Wales fly-tipping has increased by 88% since Lockdown started.

The South Wales Argus (back in July 21015) reported that there were more than 7,000 fly-tipping reports but only five prosecutions in the last four years in Newport, a Freedom of Information request showed. 

No-one was taken to court in the city between April 2011 and March 2014 and the five offenders the council prosecuted in 2014-2015 were handed fines totalling just £2,600, the Argus reported.

It was noted in 2015 that fly-tipping costs Newport council tax payers £300,000 a year.

Fly-tipping in Newport by and large fell in the four years between 2010 and 2014, with 2,014 reports in 2011-12, 1,982 in 2012-13, 1,578 in 2013-14 and 1,672 in 2014-15, totalling 7,246, the Freedom of Information request showed. 

In February 2017 the South Wales Argus reported that 135.8 tonnes of waste was picked up by the Pride in Newport team since it was launched.

Newport council (and other local authorities) have no doubt mostly done their best it can to resolve the problem, made worse recently by the close of local tips during lockdown. 

Some local authorities operate  a "zero tolerance approach" to fly-tipping, and regularly hand out dozens of fines and fixed-penalty notices to offenders - others don’t. 

One problem is that the sums raised through through fines pale into insignificance when compared with the large costs involved in clearing up illegally-dumped waste.

Much of this activity is worthwhile, but, it’s reactive and after the fact, with the waste dumped. 

The Welsh Government’s on-going campaign urges everyone to use their duty of care and ensure all waste is disposed of legally by a registered waste carrier and to report any fly-tipping to their local authority. A list of registered waste carriers is also provided on the Natural Resources Wales website.

It’s clear we cannot go on as we are. We need to a lot more creative to fix this problem. 

Household waste makes up 70% of tipped waste - with the remainder being commercial / industrial waste – something that may well be aggravated by the charge that commercial concerns face at some refuse sites (including Newport). 

For a start we need to produce less waste to start with, eliminating or reducing packaging would also help. 

Part of the problem is lack of systematic approach to enforcement - some councils are very active, others, to be generous are less focussed on the problem - that needs to change. 

What’s needed is to develop a realistic and sustained all agency approach, which can initially reduce and then bring an end to the problem of fly tipping – one step in the right direction would involve accepting commercial (but not industrial) waste at the tip for no fee - and greater enforcement across all our local authorities.