Elin Jones wins AM of the Year award... and Rhodri's reflections on Ceredigion

Ceredigion's Assembly Member Elin Jones won the Assembly Member of the Year Award during a ceremony in Cardiff last night.

She received the recognition during the annual Welsh Yearbook Awards, "for developing into a Plaid Cymru heavyweight through her highly competent running of a department not usually seen as an obvious portfolio for a woman" (what on earth can they mean?).

Elin responded,
“I’m privileged to receive this award in recognition of my work as the Assembly Member for Ceredigion and the Minister for Rural Affairs. The people of Ceredigion are demanding and challenging of their politicians, and that's exactly how it should be. They keep me on my toes everyday in the Assembly and in Ceredigion”.

Shortly afterwards Elin paid tribute to Rhodri Morgan following his formal resignation as First Minister earlier this week,

“Rhodri Morgan has made a great contribution to Wales during the past decade and, under his leadership, our political process in the Senedd has become mature and stable. I wish him well now that he has decided to resign as First Minister and I hope that he will have more free time to spend on having restful holidays at his caravan in Mwnt”.

During his final address to the Senedd as First Minister, Rhodri Morgan had highlighted his fondness for spending time at his caravan in Mwnt, just north of Cardigan. He also expressed his gratitude to Ceredigion residents for their continued warm welcome and for respecting the fact that he was on holiday during his periods in the area,
“In the future, of course, Julie and I and the family—especially Julie and I—will have more time to spend a few extra weekends in Mwnt. Mwnt has been extremely important and I would like to convey my thanks to the very kind people of Ceredigion and North Pembrokeshire, and especially the people of Cardigan, Aberporth and Mwnt, where we have the caravan. It has been an eye-opener for me to see how considerate people are in thinking, if the First Minister is on holiday for two or three weeks over the summer, that you should not bother him with your personal problems or your own political ideas.

"To be honest, everyone has always respected that. For 10 years running, no-one from Ceredigion, Aberporth or Cardigan has bothered me while I am on holiday. That is quite incredible and it means that I, Julie and the family can spend three weeks of genuine holiday time without the need for some entourage to protect me from the people because they are so considerate. They understand that anyone who shoulders the burden of being First Minister is under strain. It is as if they think, 'Leave him alone—he is on holiday’. On occasions, I've heard people saying that when someone is perhaps thinking of approaching me on the beach or when I'm out walking”.

Tai Ceredigion up and running

Now that the new housing association Tai Ceredigion is up and running (with their newly decorated vans zooming everywhere) a few people are asking how to get in touch with them. These are the details:

General Enquiries: 03456 - 067654

Repairs and out of hours: 0800 - 1114228

E-mail: post@taiceredigion.org.uk

Ceredigion's Credit Union wins £100,000 grant

Ceredigion’s Credit Union, CredCer, has been awarded a grant of £99,995 by the National Assembly.

The money was awarded so that the organisation can buy its own property, computer and office equipment. Brian Gibbons, the Assembly’s Social Justice Minister announced that CredCer would receive a tenth of the £1 million being made available to credit unions across Wales to enable them to reduce their costs by purchasing their own properties. This in turn will boost their balance sheets by ensure that they have long-term ownership of a substantial asset.

Elin Jones, Ceredigion’s Assembly Member, said about the award in her press release,

“During the current economic difficulties, credit unions have become increasingly important both as a way of providing a local and safe place for savings as well as tackling financial exclusion. By providing this funding, the Assembly Government is ensuring that CredCer has an even stronger financial footing through the ownership of its own office”.

Penri James, Plaid Cymru’s Westminster candidate, said,
“I know that CredCer’s presence in Ceredigion has made a great effort to tackle financial exclusion and poverty in the Ceredigion. From my work on the need to address child poverty levels in Cardigan, I appreciate the positive contribution which a credit union like CredCer can make and I hope that this additional funding can allow the union to further extend its activities”.

CredCer, which is based in Cardigan but operated throughout the county, was formed in 2005 as a way for people in Ceredigion to save and borrow money at beneficial rates of interest whilst retaining the money saved in the local community. It’s a not-for-profit organisation and is owned and controlled by its 1,200 members.

Aberystwyth street parking control breaking down

Street parking around Bronglais Hospital and other areas of Aberystwyth has broken down, with car drivers openly flouting double yellow lines. That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from pictures like those above, taken outside Bronglais Hospital yesterday.

In the photos, not only is a row of five cars parked on double yellow lines but the pavement is blocked to pedestrians. Most of the cars were still there several hours later.

Aberystwyth has two traffic wardens who both work extremely hard and also have to cover other areas of the County. The problem is that a town the size of Aberystwyth needs far more than this. Anyone working in the field, like the police and council highways officers, will tell you that the police have no more resources to provide extra traffic wardens and that what’s needed is for parking control needs to be transferred from the police to the County Council. That’s what local authorities across the country are increasingly doing. Instead of parking fines going straight to the UK Treasury, as do those from Aberystwyth at the moment, this enables them to be collected by the Council who can then recycle the money into more wardens and improved facilities.

In a sense it’s working in Aberystwyth already. When Ceredigion Highways Officers walk along the Prom in yellow jackets the tourists parked illegally all clear off sharpish. This is because they’re used to Council Officers booking them at home. The locals know better and stay put. It's time Ceredigion caught up with the rest of the country.

Housing transfer goes ahead on Monday

The transfer of Ceredigion’s 2600 council houses and flats to the new housing association Tai Ceredigion will go ahead on Monday following a meeting of the Tai Ceredigion board today.

Although the date of transfer had been announced two weeks ago it became apparent that there were still considerable negotiations to be undertaken before all aspects of the transfer could be agreed. From their point of view, Tai Ceredigion were determined to avoid a financial settlement that would have restricted their ability to undertake the £40 million worth of improvements needed over the next five years to fulfil the all-important Welsh Housing Quality Standard. Agreement on the key issues was finally reached this week after officers and legal representatives of both organisations worked round the clock.

A formal signing of documents and transfer of the council’s housing staff will now take place as hoped on 30th November, a year after tenants voted to accept the idea.

More can be less when it comes to leaflets

Penri James's blog quite rightly draws attention to Ceredigion Council’s recently published ‘Highways During Winter/Priffyrdd Dros y Gaeaf' leaflet. This was sent out to absolutely everyone on the county’s electoral roll, resulting in some households receiving four separate copies in different envelopes.

The issue was raised in last week's Highways Scrutiny Committee who were told that the Council employed a private contractor to distribute the leaflets for a fixed fee on the basis of one for every household. For their own reasons the contractor chose to send their leaflets out the way they did without any additional cost to the Council.

This led to a bit of head scratching in the committee followed by the supposition, and it was supposition, that the contractor must have had the software to send one leaflet to each elector very easily but that employing someone to manually reduce their electoral list down to single households would have cost them more than the extra leaflets. Still, as one councillor pointed out, although the additional leaflets didn’t cost the Council any more, there’s been some wastage somewhere and four identical envelopes on the door mat didn't look good. When you’re a local council, being seen to be economical is almost as important as actually being economical.

Council officers accepted that, as part of any future contract, they’d actually have to spell it out - that one leaflet for every household means just that, and more is less in the eyes of the public.

Ceredigion 'acting in the interests of the taxpayer' shock

In the wake of the opening of the new Council offices – Canolfan Rheidol - in Boulevard St Brieuc many people have asked when details of the prices obtained for the seven now redundant former council offices in Aberystwyth town centre will be released.

Ceredigion Council has come in for criticism for refusing to disclose the price of the sales made so far with doubts being cast as to whether the best price is being obtained on behalf of ‘the taxpayer’. Yesterday the Council defended their silence as good sales strategy adopted on the advice of the two estate agents working for them, one local, the other based in Cardiff.

Now it's too easy for Councils to use 'commercial confidentiality' as an excuse for keeping the public in the dark. But, to be fair, you don’t have to be a corporate estate agent to appreciate that the price of one large building in a small town like Aberystwyth will affect the price of similar others. And that disclosing any sales figures before the whole package has been sold could result in a lower return to the council and hence the taxpayer. That’s the thinking of the Council and their estate agents anyway, and it seems to make sense - a case of the taxpayer's interests outweighing open government (an interesting essay topic for politics students). My criticism is that, with a bit of imaginative thinking, one or two of the buildings could have been retained for renting to the numerous local charities desperate for space.

Two of the properties, which can all be seen here, have been sold so far with negotiations on others at an advanced stage. I’m assured that once all seven offices have been sold the prices obtained will be made fully public and that this may happen in a matter of weeks.

In a related development, the Council’s Highways Property & Works Scrutiny Committee heard yesterday that the new Council offices will save an initial £30,000 a year in energy bills compared to the old offices and that these savings are likely to increase over the years as fossil fuel prices rise.

New Co-op opens in the supermarket shuffle

I don’t much like supermarkets. I prefer to shop in small independent shops. But there is one exception – the Co-op. It’s ethical, environmental and customer involvement policies set it apart from the rest of the field. So, for those who like to temper their supermarket shopping with some ethics, it’s good news that today the Co-op opens a large new food store in what was previously Somerfields at the Ystwyth Retail Parc off Park Avenue in Aberystwyth.

The Co-op bought Somerfields in July. Under competition rules, they then had to sell their smaller supermarket at Waun Fawr to avoid monopolising trade in the Aberystwyth area, already owning a further small shop in Penparcau. The Co-op on the Waun was bought by CK Supermarkets, an independent chain based in south Wales. This is the latest addition to the supermarket shuffle in Aberystwyth but unlikely to be the last as Aldi are still awaiting the outcome of their planning application to build on the old Quik Save site on the other side of Park Avenue.

At some stage the question has to be asked how many supermarkets does a town need? Whatever the answer, the Co-op look to be here to stay.

Ceredigion Housing Stock Transfer Date Announced

Ceredigion County Council and the new housing association Tai Ceredigion have released a joint statement announcing the date for the transfer of the Council’s housing stock. This will be Monday 30th November. Negotiations have been quite difficult at times but the parties feel confident enough that agreement can be reached on exactly which properties and associated land will be transferred to give a transfer date. Many staff in the Council’s housing department will also be transferred over to the new organisation.

The transfer comes a year after Ceredigion tenants voted by 58% to 41% to support stock transfer so that funds could be found for the repair and maintenance necessary to bring the stock up to the Welsh Housing Quality Standard.

Assembly to bring in plastic bag charge by 2011

The National Assembly’s Environment Minister, Jane Davidson, has announced legislation to charge for plastic bags by the time of the next Assembly elections in 2011 following a consultation over the summer. All money collected will be distributed to good causes, with an emphasis on those involved in environmental projects.

Despite the problem of plastic bag pollution now being well known, many shops still seem reluctant to take initiative on their own, even though some of those doing so have seen a 90% reduction in bags used. Pontypridd was a rare exception when last year it became the first plastic bag-free town in Wales but still an astonishing 13 billion plastic bags are given to shoppers in the UK each year and these can take up to 1000 years to break down.

Ceredigion’s Assembly Member Elin Jones said today,
“I know that businesses in some Ceredigion communities such as Cardigan have been working together to introduce local ‘bags for life’. “However, even though good progress has been made over recent years to decrease the number of single-use plastic bags handed out every day in Wales, it’s increasingly evident that a mandatory charge must be introduced in order to lower our use of plastic bags even further."

Some things can't be left to the market. Voluntary schemes amongst major retailers have produced only modest results so actual legislation at the Wales level is probably the most effective way to make a substantial difference. Well done Jane.

Ken Jones book signing

Ken Jones's writing is a unique combination - haiku poetry about the Cambrian mountains.

His booksigning is in Ottakers, Great Darkgate Street in Aberystwyth

Parc Natur Penglais - residents consider the damage

Following up on the last post about the cliff top in Infirmary Road, Aberystwyth made unsafe by a developer cutting into the hill, I’ve now received comments and photos from local residents concerned about the effect on the nature park at the top of the cliff – Parc Natur Penglais.

One local resident, Moira Convery, takes up the story,
"This land is not just a bit of waste ground as the developer would like to think. Parc Natur Penglais was created as a Pocket Park in 1991, received a Prince of Wales Award in 1993, was designated a Local Nature Reserve in 1995 and in June 1997 was selected by UNESCO for inclusion in its network of the best urban reserves. At the time it was the only Welsh site on the list. These honours and designations should imply that PNP would be protected against encroachment for purely commercial gains.

"The bank is clearly unsafe but any remedial action must take into account the conservation of the park. Removal of the moving material will destroy a large area of vegetation. Because of the presence of the partially completed buildings, it is now difficult to remove the unstable ground by pushing it down the slope. It will have to be pushed backwards into the valley behind it - more complete destruction of trees and other vegetation. Heavy machinery will be required. There is no present access so more of the park will be trashed taking it in.

"It is important that restoration is left in the hands of the conservation bodies. Who would be happy to entrust it to a company which has demonstrated such a complete indifference to the nature reserve? Expert advice and most of all an interest in the end result is required. All costs must be met by the developer.

"However it is done, permanent visual damage will occur. The area is a significant part of the scenery of Aberystwyth. The view from the town will be of a wire netted cliff face with the trees and the old wall vanished."

Another resident, Laurie Wright, has sent the pictures below illustrating digging which took place two years ago leading to the long hilltop cracks over a metre deep illustrated in the last post. The space at the foot of the cliff has since been built on.

Developers risking landslides by cutting into cliffs

Two separate housing development schemes on the north side of Aberystwyth are risking major landslides after attempting to gain land by eating into cliffs.

Developers at both the Infirmary Road development by the old North Road Hospital and the proposed flats behind the old Boars Head in Queens Road have cut several metres into the cliffs behind.

In the case of Infirmary Road deep fissures have now formed in the land at the top of the cliff, the Parc Natur Penglais owned by Ceredigion Council (pictured). An urgent survey has shown that rock six metres down remains solid but the cliff top is unsafe and substantial remedial work will be necessary.

In Queens Road there is, as yet, no similar evidence of subsidence but diggers have cut back to within two metres of the foundations of houses above and the risk is clear.

The problems highlight the need for greater scrutiny of large developments by Ceredigion Council.

Major funding bid for heritage buildings in Aberystwyth

A major bid has been launched to fund a Town Heritage Initiative for Aberystwyth - the kind of scheme that has transformed Cardigan in the last five years.

County Council officers have until 30th November to submit a bid to the lottery fund for the renovation of the many buildings of heritage value within the town centre. If successful, the lottery will match any money that can be raised locally.

Ceredigion Council have pledged £40,000 per annum for five years. The National Assembly, which has just awarded Aberystwyth ‘Strategic Regeneration Area’ status, will put in substantially more. Aberystwyth Town Council look set to put a smaller amount of money in and other donations may also be found. The lottery will then double any money raised.

Experience from the Cardigan scheme (pictured) shows that success breeds success and that, after the first year’s work, others are willing to put more money in which then also gets doubled by the lottery. Building owners are expected to pay for 30% of the costs of any work but the other 70% is funded by the scheme. This is more generous than the Town Improvement Grant scheme launched last year which has so far only been taken up by four properties in Aberystwyth.

In Cardigan the Town Heritage Initiative eventually brought in £5.9 million and resulted in major improvements to 70 properties, completely transforming the town. In all but one case the work was done by local craftspeople. Aberystwyth, being a larger town, could potentially attract much more money.

As well as raising the spirits and sense of identity of local people, heritage schemes also have a major economic value in attracting visitors. It may be that this kind of a scheme can ultimately have as good an economic effect on Aberystwyth as the controversial Sorting Office Scheme was hoped to have but by enhancing what the town already has rather than by destroying a large section of it.

The result of the bid will be announced next April. Letters of support should be e-mailed to garyc@ceredigion.gov.uk

Aber 350

Students and youth groups in Aberystwyth and Borth today took part in the worldwide 350 campaign. The campaign is aimed to highlight the 350 parts per million judged by scientists to be the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The current figure is 390. The event is being held across 181 countries today ahead of the UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

No place is home for Assembly hotdeskers

It was the desking arrangements that most intrigued visitors at the Open Day of Aberystwyth’s new National Assembly building yesterday.

In the interests of saving space, there are apparently only eight desks for every ten of the 460 workers at the new building, this on the basis that at any given time 20% are expected to be out at meetings, on annual leave etc. This means that all desks have to be cleared at the end of each day and any papers neatly put away in a small personal locker. Anything left won’t be there the next morning, presumably ending up in the materially-differentiated recycling bins dotted around the office. When people turn up for work in the morning they take their paperwork from their locker and put it down on the first desk they can find before logging into that computer - hotdesking.

Now we all know that the promise of computers saving paper hasn’t turned out to be true. Whilst they do reduce paper in many ways (e-mails instead of printed letters, scanning etc) this has been far outweighed by the ease of printing out documents. I can’t see the Assembly’s policy working in the Council’s Planning Department, for example, where in-trays are regularly stacked taller than the planning officers themselves, at least when they’re sitting down. Genuinely creating a paperless office requires managerial ruthlessness. This is what they’ve apparently done for years at Microsoft and it’s what they’re trying out now at the Assembly.

“Ah”, said one visitor on the guided tour, “If no-one know where they’ll be sitting, how can they be reached on the phone?” The Assembly had thought of that. “At the same time as logging into a computer they also log into the nearest phone so the switchboard always knows where they are.”

Another question: “Won’t the huge open plan offices be noisy?” Apparently the ceilings are designed so that noise goes straight upwards and out and doesn’t echo around.

These then are the offices of the future. They require a different way of looking at work, a shift of office culture, a new philosophy. They'll take a bit of getting used to - it’s not possible to put down the little homely knick-knacks that human beings seem to need to identify their own personal work space and I can imagine some lockers stuffed to overflowing with the dreaded papers. Since I work in the NHS, which seems to be institutionally behind the curve when it comes to IT, I doubt if I’ll see this kind of thing for another 15 years. Still, the offices we saw were certainly tidy. Maybe I’ll try some of the philosophy at home.

No to privatisation - Ceredigion abandons plans to share services with the private sector

Plans for Ceredigion, Gwynedd and Powys councils to combine with the private sector in providing current highways and other services have been abandoned.

A business review of the proposals carried out by the consultants Deloitte has concluded that a joint venture with the private sector is 'not conducive' in the current economic climate. The three councils are still intending to work together to save money through economies of scale but without involvement from businesses.

The decision was hailed by many Ceredigion councillors as the best possible outcome at yesterday’s meeting of the Highways Property & Works Scrutiny Committee. It’s been made clear by Brian Gibbons, Assembly Local Government Minister, that councils are expected to work more closely together in the future to save money and that working with the private sector should be considered. Hints have been made that councils refusing to work together could end up being re-organised or amalgamated. But many councillors on both sides of the chamber were very suspicious of linking up with the private sector as any efficiency savings brought about by their involvement would inevitably be eaten up by their need to make a profit.

There were some grumblings from councillors in the south of the county that it would be better to work with Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire but council officers pointed out that the nature of those counties meant that Ceredigion’s interests would come very much third in that kind of partnership, whereas Ceredigion can operate on an equal footing with the more similar (in terms of rurality) councils of Gwynedd and Powys. Plans for inter-authority collaboration are still being investigated and senior officers have been asked to draw up proposals.

2.1% - Assembly passes on increase to Ceredigion

Ceredigion County Council will be receiving a 2.1% increase in funding in the next financial year - the same percentage increase as the Assembly Government itself has received from the UK Treasury. The announcement of provisional figures for the financial year 2010-11 was made on Tuesday by Brian Gibbons the Assembly Government’s Minister for Social Justice and Local Government.

Ceredigion fared better than all other rural councils in Wales, including all its neighbours, some of whom were as low as 1%. Assembly Member Elin Jones is particularly pleased.

The Council is relieved that this year's settlement is significantly better (or at least less bad) than anticipated. However much worse is expected in following years, especially if the Conservatives win the next Westminster election. Inflation is currently running at a 5-year low of 1.1%.

No funding for latest town centre plans say Assembly

The National Assembly says the latest radical plans for Aberystwyth town centre are too ambitious to receive public funding. That is despite the developer putting forward new unpublished proposals said to have taken into account the views of the public following widespread protests in May.

The Assembly’s statement reads,
"The Welsh Assembly Government has been presented with revised proposals for the Post Office site in Aberystwyth. The proposals put forward by the developer have clearly taken into account some of the views put forward by local people and are now more sympathetic. “The illustrated scheme would still, however, require the purchase of significant additional areas of property and appear to be unviable without considerable public sector funding. The developer has been told by Welsh Assembly Government officials that these revised options are therefore unlikely to receive public sector funding support at this time, but has been invited to discuss alternative proposals in the future should he wish to do so."

It should be remembered that there was general support and hardly any opposition to the original Masterplan proposals for the site. These were properly consulted on in November and December last year and envisaged developing simply the old sorting office site without demolishing any of the small shops around (see above). It's only since the attempt to greatly expand this scheme out of all recognition from the public consultation that it's run into difficulty.

Although economic conditions have worsened since plans were first broached, it seems likely now that the controversial expanded scheme was never going to be viable, protests or no protests. The developer should now surely go back to the original Masterplan proposals for the derelict sorting office that won public backing. The statement from the Assembly certainly leaves that possibility open

Fairtrade status for Aberystwyth University

Aberystwyth University today declared itself the UK’s 100th Fairtrade University.

The announcement solidifies Aberystwyth’s status as a Fairtrade town which it achieved in 2005. Since then Ceredigion has become a Fairtrade county and, in June last year, Wales became the world’s first Fairtrade nation.

In order to become a Fairtrade university students and staff must make a commitment to supporting Fairtrade. This includes ensuring that Fairtrade goods are available in on-site cafes, restaurants and shops, and raising awareness of Fairtrade and the benefits it brings to producers in developing countries. Towns, counties and nations have to demonstrate that they have met similar set criteria to qualify.

The Fairtrade Mark can only be displayed on products - like tea, coffee and bananas - that meet internationally recognised criteria. All products that display the mark are independently audited to ensure they're genuinely providing a fair deal for producers.

It’s the adoption of Fairtrade status by large institutions like the University, with serious buying power, that has a real effect on small farmers in the developing world. The goods, most of which are not produced by farmers in Wales, are bought direct from the farmers for a fair price rather than through exploitative multinational companies. The campaign is revolutionising farming practice and local communities in the developing world.