THE URBAN SPONGE

We need to build into our communities the resilience to cope with flooding - sadly in a warmer wetter world - flood events are going to become more common - we need to think and act smarter, with shifting the focus from flood prevention to flood avoidance. Our communities, our nation and our world are becoming more prone to extreme weather, torrential downpours and periods of warmer or hit dry weather. 

Dealing with the consequences of this on a marco level is one thing.  Small relatively simple steps to store water for later use, with water butts (if only to water garden plants and vegetables) can make a very practical if minor use of excessive rainfall and runoff if only very locally.  Aside from helping to save water and to cut water bills.

Local water storage and management is increasingly part of intelligent urban design, something that is becoming more common and necessary in a warmer wetter world.  On a larger scale this is something we will all have to do, naturally some people and nations are a head of the curve when it comes to re-engineering their infrastructures to deal with extreme weather events. 

The concept of the sponge city or urban sponge. something that is embedded and central to urban planning should now be coming into its own, particularly in Wales, with our urban areas being redesigned or designed from the start to soak up, and store deluges of torrential rain to prevent damaging and dangerous flash flooding but without the construction of large scale flood defences.  

The Dutch, for historical and geographical reasons have been involved in serious water management for centuries. Yet in a warmed world, even the Dutch are having to take long hard fresh look at how they deal with the consequences or severe weather and more regular flooding. 

Many urban areas have developed with any serious co side ration of the impact of flash flooding - back in July, in localised parts of London heavy torrential downpours saw local drainage systems overwhelmed - as streets became rivers, homes and businesses were flooded and public transport ( including trains and tubes ) brought to a standstill. In London, heavy rain, which fell on hard surfaces, overloaded drainage and severe flooding resulted. 

Elsewhere things are done differently - the songs city concept has been embraced in parts of Berlin, were green roofs have been created with living plants, mosses and grasses, with plants Boeing on vertical walls, with courtyards planted with vegetation, etc - all of which helps to hold and slow excessive water. One beneficial side effect, if that the retained water helps to cool local neighbourhoods as the water evaporates from vegetation and the ground. 

In the Netherlands, the concept of making room for the river has been embraced to give space for flooding, something which slows the speed of riverine flooding. In Amsterdam, they have constructed rain gardens which have been created from parking areas, which are designed to collect water, people have also been encouraged to remove paving from their gardens, to grow plants and to build ponds to help with runoff and water storage. 

In the city of Rotterdam, public places have been turned into what are called water plazas which turn into shallow lakes during periods of heavy rain, when times are drier these locations are used as public parks and playing fields. Underground car parks have been redesigned or specifically built so that lower levels can be used to store storm related flood waters - which can then be pumped dry when water levels have dropped. 

These concepts are only slowly being looked at a adopted within these islands, we still tend to defy logic and build on flood planes, but, tend not to harden infrastructure of buildings ( commercial and domestic ) or to build with flooding in mind  e.g. build smart using ground floors for storage or parking and raise plug and power points, protect utilities and drains, and put washing machines, fridges sand freezers up off the ground. 

Some urban areas, within these islands, have slowly begun to adopt the concept, there are examples in Llanelli and at West Gordon Park, near Manchester - were porous pavements, shallow depressions, grass berms and small ponds help to absorb and direct surplus water into rain gardens or natural sumps or green spaces that double up as parks in drier periods. 

These are small steps, in a warmer, wetter world with more erratic and extreme weather events the problem of flooding will only get worse. As homeowners pave over their gardens for parking spaces the problem will worsen. The concept of the urban sponge is one that we all need to embrace, along with smart design and smart water management to help to reduce or alleviate urban flooding. 

MISSED ANNIVERSARIES, MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

The end of August is a time of historic anniversaries, admittedly somewhat overshadowed by the drama and tragedy surrounding the collapse of Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul, normally its a time of often ignored or perhaps selectively not remembered anniversaries and interlinked missed opportunities. 

The last few days have seen anniversaries for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (in August 1968) and the collapse of the Soviet Union (in August 1991) pass largely unremembered. 

On Saturday 21st August 2021 it was the 53rd  anniversary of the Soviet led invasion of Czechoslovakia, it’s an anniversary that these days increasingly passes largely unnoticed save perhaps by some people in Prague. Now that the Soviet Union is history, although Russia on the rise in the east, people have lots of other things to be concerned about.  It’s been 53 years since Soviet troops and most but not all of their Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia on August 21st 1968. 

The Soviet-led invasion effectively established the Brezhnev Doctrine, which Moscow said allowed the U.S.S.R. to intervene in any country where a Communist government was under threat. The Soviet backed occupation of Czechoslovakia lasted until the velvet revolution brought an end to the Communist dictatorship in November 1991 as the Cold War ended. It was always contested - the reformist communists were finally defeated in the mid 1970's just as detente created the Helsinki accords which inspired Charter 77. Russia’s attitude to the invasion still touches raw emotions, evens in the Czech and Slovak republics. 

The thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of the USSR largely passed unremembered, in both the West and more importantly in Russia, the reasons for Russia’s desire to forget the past are understandable. The Brits lost their Empire fifty years ago, and some of them have not got over the losing of it. The Russians lost their Empire in a fortnight, which must still sting a bit, even thirty years down the line. 

The West was strangely silent when it came to remembering the anniversary of the collapse of the USSR. Perhaps considering the hubris displayed at the time and the wilful glee the came with the dismemberment of the old Soviet state industries and assets, the rise of the oligarchs (some of whom were very close and comfortable with New Labour and still comfortable with he Conservatives and the rise of President Putins new Russia, the silence is understandable. 

The it comes to anniversaries August may be the month that keeps on giving on the Monday 23rd August 2021 was the 82nd anniversary of the 1939 the signing of Nazi Germany’s and the Soviet Union’s pact which effectively guaranteed the start of the second world war. The event is remembered the Baltic republic and Poland but very rarely anywhere else, especially in the Russian Federation, where history is both important and selectively remembered. 

When the Poles held a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, world leaders gathered, but the Brits did not go, obviously other important things to do and remember. 

Human history is understandably complex, and remembrance is important, forgetting is very human and is part of life, but, remembrance should be balanced rather than selective. Selectively forgetting the past and erasing our collective history is a more dubious practice ( especially in these islands, Hungary, Russia and the Peoples Republic of China, etc ) but also within these islands, especially when it comes to ‘Brit washing’ the perceptions of and the grim realities of Empire, etc. 

Even in the West, the elite can be very selective about the anniversaries and the history they wish us to remember. Creating a rose tinted view of the past, is neither history nor remembrance, its manufactured / peddled nostalgia - and that too is both dubious, dishonest and potentially dangerous. 

Hence the urge to remember the first day of the Somme, Passchendaele, the Dunkirk spirit, the Battle of Britain (all absolutely important to remember, in their correct historical context) - to reimagine these islands past simply to distract people from the mess the Westminster elite have got us into since Suez, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the financial collapse of 2008, etc is unacceptable but nothing is quite as unacceptable as blatantly lying and manipulating evidence to justify a war. 

Other less reputable awkward embarrassing anniversaries are ignored or effectively selectively airbrushed from history e.g. the Sykes-Picot-Sazanov agreement, the anniversary of  Amritsar, bloody Sunday, etc.  

For most of the last 20 years successive Westminster governments worked hard to ensure that our service personnel have had a much higher profile, making use of various important anniversaries of previous conflicts, sporting occasions and regularly promoting armed forces day. That emphasis had effectively ceased as the  direct involvement of UK service personnel in the cycle of Blair’s wars has finally wound down save for covering the evacuation.

It is important to remember how we ended up in this mess and who made those decisions. It is equally important that we remember that Westminster (with the honourable exception of the 1945 Labour Government) has often neglected our war veterans after previous war’s ended and faded into memory. We all still need to work to ensure that never again does a Westminster Government makes the decision that dead heroes are cheaper and less trouble to remember than live ones.

THE AFGHAN TRAGEDY

When it comes to the on-going Afghan tragedy, a few quotes spring to mind, Karl Marx said "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." Winston Churchill said, "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it" and “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” When it comes to Afghanistan there is more than enough history to provide enough examples of what to do and what to avoid.

The long and bloody history of Afghanistan is littered literally with the would-be invaders who came to grief and eventually through in the towel and admitted defeat. Back in May of this year, almost unnoticed an anniversary passed, Wednesday 15th May 2021 was the thirty third anniversary of the start of the then Soviet Union’s nine month long withdrawal from Afghanistan. Around 100,000 Soviet troops had left the war torn country by February 15, 1989. This was the conclusion to ten years of brutal warfare which had killed over 14,000 Soviet soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Afghan combatants and civilians.

The Soviet withdrawal in 1989

NATO forces had been on the ground in Afghanistan since the 7th October 2001, and preparations for NATO’s withdrawal (which were originally to be completed by 2014) were finally if hastily completed this summer. Unlike their Soviet predecessors who treated much of Afghanistan as free fire zone, NATO forces were relatively restrained when it came to using their firepower - although many Afghans might have begged to differ. Despite this many people have argued that just like their Soviet predecessors NATO troops in Afghanistan found themselves engaged in waging a campaign which was "unwinnable in military terms".

‘Lessons from Afghanistan’s History for the Current Transition and Beyond’ was a thought provoking paper produced by the MOD Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (in May 2013) it made interesting reading.  The paper noted that between 1933 to 1973, Afghanistan was stable and reasonably effectively governed, however, that stability was firmly anchored in the two pillars of traditional local governance and the Afghan state such as it was a weak centralised though weak state, both of which were gravely damaged after 1978.

Afghanistan history’s is littered with a series of chronic succession problems and associated conflict, the presidential election in 2014, saw the first peaceful transfer of leadership since 1933 and only the fourth since 1747. The paper noted that any expectations about the pace of any progress and reform should be modest and the dangers of overly ambitious reforms leading to violent reactions needed to be recognised.

‘A new approach to understanding Afghanistan’s transition’ was produced by the United States Institute for Peace also made interesting reading. This paper by way of comparison with other countries who have passed though conflict, significant military intervention and  a post conflict period of transition looked at Afghanistan and its preparedness for life after NATO. Amongst the key issues that this report flags up is the issue of foreign aid and its impact on Afghanistan.

In 2013 there was been a relative flood of papers from a whole range of military and civilian institutes studying and analysing what has happened and what might happen in Afghanistan once NATO left. Back in May 2013 I noted that our soldiers and their families and many Afghans will carry the physical and mental scars for decades, and that the politicians (at least in the West) will probably do their best to air brush Afghanistan and the consequences of NATO’s intervention and subsequent withdrawal to that of being out of site and out of mind and off the media, much like South Vietnam (in 1975). 

Saigon 1975

Back in May 2013 I wrote, as someone who has had relatives who served a number of tours in Afghanistan ( and Iraq ) who come back in one piece I will (no doubt along with more than a few other people) be more than grateful when the last NATO soldier hops on the last plane and comes home. Following NATO’S withdrawal I had little doubt that what will follow will be a public redefinition of ‘success’ at least as it is applied to Afghanistan - though the speed of the shambolic collapse of the Afghan state means that they will have a hard job justifying anything. 

Kabul 2021

The peace negotiations began the process of undermining some of the gains that some Afghan women and girls had made over the previous twenty years. President Trump’s final decision to pull out  (a decision that President Biden was never going to reverse) paved the way for the emergence of a Taliban governed unitary Afghan state which will probably complete the process of obliterating women’s human rights. The collapse leaves the Afghans (in general) and Afghan women (in particular) facing a decidedly uncertain and potentially dangerous future.

RUNNING OUR OWN RAILWAYS

A cross-party group of MPs has called for HS2 to be reclassified as an England-only project so Wales receives proportional funds - better late than never. They noted that the Westminster government's own analysis concluded the rail project would produce "an economic dis-benefit to Wales". The Welsh government and many people in Wales have long called the classification of HS2 as an England and Wales project "unfair and biased". 

HS2 is a high-speed rail line planned to link London with Birmingham and on to Manchester and Leeds. The £106 billion project has been controversial after estimates that the Welsh economy could lose out due to inferior transport infrastructure. 

Without a fair funding settlement, the Welsh government periodically receives a proportional top-up to the budget when new spending is announced for devolved areas in England which will not apply to Wales, through what is known as "Barnett consequentials".  So now the MPs want HS2 to be reclassified as an England-only project despite rail infrastructure not being devolved in Wales beyond the core valleys lines.

The parliamentary select committee report noted that the Welsh government received "approximately £755 million in Barnett consequentials" between 2015 and 2019 as a result of the Department for Transport spending money on HS2, it will not receive a proportionate amount for HS2 because it has been classified by the Treasury as an "England and Wales project". 

Understandably this has attracted criticism from the MPs because the rail line will run solely in England. The Welsh Affairs Committee said: "It is a project of unprecedented size and complexity and has already created several thousand jobs as part of a supply chain that spans the country, including Wales." The Committee reported that Wales would not benefit in the same way as Scotland and Northern Ireland from Barnett consequentials arising from the HS2 project. 

The Westminster government's own analysis has concluded that HS2 will produce an economic dis-benefit for Wales". The Westminster government has said HS2 could "yield direct benefits to Welsh rail passengers if it is accompanied by enhancements to the North Wales mainline, including upgrades at Chester and Crewe stations which will be required for full electrification of the North Wales mainline to proceed". 

The report also calls for a new Wales Rail Board of Welsh and UK government bodies to identify areas where Welsh railways could be improved and invested in. The MPs also have called on the Westminster government to bring forward proposals for greater connectivity between Swansea, Cardiff and Bristol by the end of 2021, calling the decision to cancel the electrification of the Cardiff-Swansea mainline "short-sighted and regrettable".

The group, chaired by Conservative MP Stephen Crabb, said if clear benefits for passengers and freight users could be delivered by transferring powers over rail infrastructure from the UK government to the Welsh government then "the case for further devolution would be compelling".

The Committee said "few benefits to rail users have been identified" and the benefits of "existing management arrangements are considerable". The Welsh government welcomed the calls to "address unfair and biased categorisation of HS2 as an England and Wales project, which continues to disadvantage rail investment in Wales".

A spokesman said their "long term objective remains full devolution of the rail network and a fair funding settlement for rail infrastructure in Wales". They said "irrespective of where responsibility rests in the short term" they supported "close strategic collaboration" to "meet passenger needs" and "support our decarbonisation commitments".

A spokesperson for the UK government's Department for Transport said: "We have already committed a record £1.5 billion to the Welsh railways in recent years and the recently announced Union Connectivity Review will look at how best to enhance transport links across the United Kingdom to improve connectivity." The Westminster government has argued HS2 will boost reliability, connectivity and capacity on routes across the UK, including services into Wales.

We certainly don't need "a new Wales Rail Board of Welsh and UK government bodies to identify areas where Welsh railways could be improved and invested in" - that would simply be another layer of arms length bureaucracy.  Whats needed is for full control over the network (such as it is), the Network rail budget and resources (within Wales and the Marches) and Network rail priorities to be devolved to the Senedd as soon as possible. 

Quite simply decisions about railway infrastructure development and spending need to be made here in Cymru / Wales, not in Westminster - as happens in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. A final thought - it is worth remembering that in 2005 powers over railways were offered to be devolved to Wales by the then Labour in Westminster government - the Labour in Wales National Assembly government, Labour in Wales simply said no thanks. What a pity…

ACROSS THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

The ongoing rolling programme of bank closures affects all of us, but, certainly not equally - Age Cymru, have raised concerns about the impact of bank closures on older people (across our Wales). Some people find themselves the wrong side of the digital divide, older people may struggle to access their money as they are unable to access branches and some are unable to use or access on-line banking. 

Age Cymru research has noted that over half of over 75’s still do not have access to the internet and fewer access internet banking. Older people also may find themselves living on a limited budget, and some prefer to use cash, as it’s easier to budget their finances week by week, to pay for services. 

Our few remaining High street banks actually enable older people to access and manage their accounts through the post office network, but, the number of post offices has been reduced in recent years. This is a consequence of the pre privatisation re-education post office closure programme that was carried out by New Labour and the Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition government. 

The closure of high street banks also makes it difficult for small businesses and shops  to operate on local high streets, which are also places which some older people find easier to visit, rather than out of town shopping centres. Access to cash on the high street plays an important part in ensuring that older people have much more financial inclusion, security and social interaction. 

Bank numbers have fallen over recent years, down nine percent up until March 2020, from 405 to 370 - a trend the Age Cymru and others believe is only going to continue. The ability to make deposits and withdrawals for basic, current and business accounts that are held with high street banks and building societies is important and should be retained. 

We need a risk free Post Office Savings type  bank – it is a pity that it was recklessly sold off by a previous Conservative government on the cheap - separate from the big four commercial banks. Now this is not about living in the past, we are where we are because of the demise of the regional banks, which was as part of  the relentless rise of the big 4 banks which also led to the growth of the reckless casino banking and cheap credit that brought about the financial crash. 

We cannot turn the clock back, nor should we try, but, we do need to think and act differently.  We need to be honest with ourselves sorting the mess out is not going to be easy, but, it can be done, and there is no reason why it can be community beneficial  –  as has been said before we need some sort of community owned community beneficial  Wales savings bank or perhaps even a Bank Cambria.

MARKS AND SPARKS TO THE RESCUE?

The loss of Debenhams in Friars Walk was a bitter blow - which while covid did not help  - in reality the Debenham’s retail model had been failing for some years. That said, Marks and Spencer quit the city centre stating amongst other things the lack of parking and the difficulties of modernising their building. Perhaps they might consider making use of the former Debenhams building - which is effectively brand new and has plenty of parking. The Friar’s walk development itself was too small, too limited in scope and failed to create the retail space for local businesses to set up from the start. While there have been some tentative steps towards that recently, at a fundamental level that has to change from now on - there has to be a blend of local businesses and the usual suspects - there is room enough to make this work. One basic economic fact is that if you spend ten pounds in local business it will circulate three times longer locally in the local economy that ten pounds spent in a chain outlet. Newport has suffered because of the unhealthy obsession with directly competing with Cardiff and Cribs Causeway. We seriously need to focus on growing small local businesses that supply our needs as well as hosting the usual suspects to bring economic life back to our city centre. If we can do this then we can bring sustainable economic growth and some life back to our city centre.  

NOT GIVING A SCOOBY

Bank closures, remain, and are likely to remain at least for the foreseeable future a simple sad fact of life for many communities across much of rural and not so rural Wales. The closures for all intent and purposes appear relentless and unstoppable, despite the fact that high street banks could and should have a roll to play within the economic life of our communities. We have been here before and will no doubt be back. It should now be obvious by now that the big 4 banks don’t care about public opinion or the consequences of the closures on local communities. 

There is a recognisable pattern to the process - local political and community leaders rightly kick off and are justifiably angry along with local residents who are often interviewed by local media. As part of this cycle we have the usual weasel words from the bank themselves, but, once the initial fuss settles the closure will roll on – as the large London based banks are pretty much answerable to no one save themselves – certainly not anyone here in Cymru / Wales.

Dropping the spin (about the growth in on-line banking and it’s use – if you have no choice what else are people going to do) this is about little more than cutting costs, most of the banks have little (or no concern) for their relatively unprofitable personal customers or the concerns of their local business customers or our larger or smaller communities. As has been noted elsewhere, by no less than the US Senate, some banks have other more pressing interests than those of their domestic customers like helping to launder money for drug dealers, dictators and terrorists, so much for being a local bank. 

Over  200 banks have shut in Wales since 2008, leaving towns such as Newcastle Emlyn,  Hay-on-Wye and Llandovery (since 9th June), too name but a few towns, without any banks. The loss of small town banks is not confined to rural areas - it has been paralleled by the loss of suburban banks which have also quietly disappeared from local shopping centres in our cities and smaller valley towns.  

Now it’s not much better in our larger towns and cities - Newport East has 2 bank branches, and Newport West 9. Since January 2015 some 67% of the bank network in Newport East has gone, and 18% in Newport West. It is worth noting that there were only 370 banks in all of Wales as of March 2020 down from 715 in 2010. 

Local banks remain useful for the high street and local communities, they help to promote vitality and vibrancy and make it easier for local businesses to operate. Local businesses to a degree benefit from the existence of local high street branches by picking up passing trade from bank customers. Once local bank branches close, the impact will be felt locally especially by older residents and local business owners who have to trek further and further to pay in their taking and the subsequent drop in passing trade. 

Even where banks survive there is a visible trend to replace person centred banking with machine centred banking. In my bank - even if there is no cue customers are regularly referred to machines to pay in cash or cheques or withdraw cash before you get a chance to talk to cashiers. This trend which is also being mirrored in some of the larger supermarkets is not about giving customers a choice or and easier service it's about reducing staffing costs to a minimum - something that will cut jobs and the wage bill. 

This situation has been further aggravated by the demise of many building societies, most by no means all of which were largely hoovered by the banks within a few years of them being floated. It is perhaps a pity that we don’t have some sort of risk free Post Office Savings bank – save for the fact that it was recklessly sold off by a previous Conservative government on the cheap. That said, it is of course important to remember that one result of the demise of the regional banks was the relentless rise of the big 4 banks which led to the growth of the reckless casino banking and cheap credit that brought about the financial crash.

Once you factor in the ruthless Post Office closure programme that was pushed through by the then Labour Government, and continued by the former Con - Lib Dem coalition government prior to it’s privatisation of the Post Office - you could see where this process was heading. Which in turn was preceded by the rapid floatation and rapid demise of most of our building societies you can clearly see how we got here - sorting the mess out is not going to be easy – perhaps as has been said before we need some sort of publically owned community owned Wales savings bank or perhaps even a Bank Cambria.