Plaid Menefesto
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The “Welsh Poppy ” is yellow and I have several out in my garden already, they self seed and are easy to grow .
[quote quote=129982]So the Fire authority are backing Marc Jones because of his help in protesting?? Forget the fact that the reason the cut was on the table was because the Chair of the authority…a Plaid member pushed for the cut?? You couldn’t make it up. Do they think we believe everything they write.
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No, it is the Fire Brigades Union who are endorsing Marc not the Fire Authority, 2 totally different bodies. Marc has been extremely supportive of the people who actually work in the Fire Service and has been at the forefront of campaigns to protect the service from cuts pushed by central government over the last 15 years or so. His activities are well known by Firefighters throughout the Welsh region.Copy of reply received from Marc Jones of Plaid Cymru — quite lengthy covering the background to their manifesto information — it does not however confirm that the Council have agreed the 12,000 house proposition as covered on the leaflet. What he has stated is that this is the number the Council went out to consultation on – he also admits that he has not seen the final version submitted to the Welsh Government. I therefore still maintain the information as written in the manifesto is actually misleading but it is up to the electorate to make their own determination on the accuracy or interpretation.
(I do find it somewhat surprising that given the level of coverage that Wrexham.com are giving the election that Plaid are not monitoring the site – with so many hits the potential coverage would far out weight that of any election leaflet going through a letter box!)
From Marc Jones Chairman Plaid Cymru Wrecsam
Dear Dylan
It’s a shame you didn’t raise your concerns directly with Plaid Cymru in Wrexham directly before taking to the forum. I would have been more than happy to respond, as I am doing here, in detail.
I’m not a member of the Wrexham.com forum and am therefore not in a position to respond there. I’m also busy knocking doors in my ward for the forthcoming election.
The background to the current situation is worth recounting.
Plaid councillors, including myself, were involved in drafting the initial LDP that was submitted to the Welsh Government in 2011. This process involved consulting widely with the community and deciding that any new builds should be on brownfield sites and have a decent amount of affordable housing. The council (including all parties and independents) agreed to allocate land for around 8,000 houses between 2013-28, including existing planning permissions. This, like its counterparts in Conwy and Denbighshire, was rejected by the Planning Inspectorate on the grounds that it did not provide sufficient land for housing as the Welsh Government had a population projection of a drastic 20% increase in Wrexham over the coming years.
The Welsh Government insisted on a new LDP that provided land for 11,700 homes – a 45% increase on the carefully considered original LDP.
Back in 2012, Wrexham Council agreed to back my motion condemning this. I reproduce that motion and my supporting statement here:
Wrexham Council tonight agreed to back our motion opposing attempts to impose 12,000 new houses on our borough. Despite attempts by Labour to stop the motion, they eventually and reluctantly backed the call to respect local community wishes to limit development. This is how the motion was presented:
We are in total agreement in our opposition to attempts by the Planning Inspectorate to impose unsustainable housing development on Wrexham. In this, we’re supported by the people of Wrexham, who made it clear during a two-year consultation that they did not want excessive levels of housing built on our playing fields and green spaces. We have a duty to listen to that consultation and to represent our communities, where we have already seen large-scale housing developments over the past decade.
To continue with that level of development would threaten our communities in terms of our schools, our road networks, our health service, our identity and social cohesion.
We need a housing strategy that addresses the very real housing needs in Wrexham – affordable homes to meet local community need. I challenge anyone here not to be aware of the pressure for more genuinely affordable housing that is within reach of local pockets.
That is a world away from the top-down and abstract projections made by the Welsh Government’s officials, which in turn allowed the Planning Inspector to announce that we need to up the numbers of houses from 8,055 to 11,700 – a 45% increase. More specifically, the inspector said this would mean building on open spaces and green fields because this is what housing developers want.
That is not what Wrexham people want. Do we really need to repeat the argument against building on the Nine-Acre Field? Do we need to spell out that the green barriers that separate our villages should not be eroded and Tarmaced over?
More importantly, should we put up with a Planning Inspector dictating to an entire borough about an issue that will have fundamental implications for our future?
That’s why we’ve brought this motion before you – to ensure that the democratic voice of Wrecsam is heard loud and clear. We’ve seen this kind of rapid development for the past decade and that past decade has seen affordability become a bigger problem. Building houses in our communities without regard for local people does not solve problems, it makes them worse.
Please support this motion; send a clear message to the Planning Inspectorate and, more importantly, to the people of Wrexham that we have listened to them and we are acting on their behalf.
THE MOTION
“Given the significant levels of public concern and objections to Planning Inspectorate proposals to significantly increase the housing allocation in the LDP and allocate greenfield land for housing, this Council:
1) supports housing development based on local wishes that is affordable and accessible to the local community;2) does not support unsustainable large-scale development based on flawed population projections;
3) calls upon the Welsh Government to conduct a major review of planning policy in Wales with the aim of halting urban sprawl and better reflecting the needs of the local community;
4) calls upon the Welsh Government to implement an immediate moratorium on large-scale housing development of greenfield land outside settlement limits whilst it conducts this review;
5) invites all other councils in Wales to support this call.”
The cross-party support for this motion further isolates Labour AM Ken Skates and Labour MP Susan Elan Jones, who have been actively arguing for these 12,000 homes. If they can’t even persuade their own Labour councillors, who spend more time in the area than they do, what hope is there for convincing the rest of the local population. Wrecsam now joins Conwy in standing up to the flawed population projections and challenging the Planning Inspectorate and Welsh Government’s bureaucrats. Other councils are also under pressure to build on greenfield sites – watch this space for growing resistance!http://wrecsamplaid.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/wrecsam-council-tonight-agreed-to-back.html
Since then the council has been working to deliver those additional houses under what they term LDP2. The only way to deliver such a dramatic increase is to effectively create two new villages on the outskirts of Wrexham.
One would be on the Ruthin Road stretching from the A483 down to Ysgol Clywedog and across to Bersham Road. That housing development would have 1260 homes.
The other is on the Cefn Road and would swallow the rugby club grounds, good farmland and Ysgol Morgan Llwyd’s playing pitches. These would be for 1500 homes.
The basis for this growth is based on previous dramatic housing growth in Wrexham in the mid-2000s. The Welsh Government’s population projection are a nonsense – already undermined by the 2011 Census stats – because it looks back to the period of rapid growth in the mid-2000s locally. This was based on 3 factors that combined to create a perfect storm in terms of housing development –
(1) Glyndwr University’s rapid expansion leading to demand for student accommodation
(2) The decision by the UK Govt to allow open access to EU Accession States in 2002 and
(3) Chester council’s limit on developing its green belt for housing.
All three led to a brief housing boom in Wrexham – up to 1,000 homes per year were built at its height in around 2005.
Circumstances have changed drastically re Glyndwr, EU citizens and Chester’s greenbelt and it’s very unlikely that there would be the same demand for housing.
Nobody’s arguing for no new houses – about 4,000 already have planning permission. Plaid has made the case for new council housing in Wrexham to tackle the 1800-strong waiting list. We’ve also highlighted the 2,500 empty properties in the borough that need bringing back into use. I hope you can see that our manifesto – a plan of action for any Plaid Cymru councillors who are elected – is serious about tackling the housing problems we face. I would challenge you to find a similarly detailed plan produced by any of our political opponents.
The consultation for LDP2 was around the 12,000 homes. It has now ended and the council is in the process of submitting it to the Welsh Government. As there has been no official statement to the contrary, we have to go with that information.
Finally, I’ve looked at the forum thread and you also asked about the party symbol. The Welsh poppy is a distinct flower and is yellow/orange – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meconopsis_cambrica.
Please get back to me directly if any of this is unclear or requires further clarification.
yours
Marc Jones
Chair
Plaid Cymru, Wrexham
Trouble is with Plaid they promise you the earth and deliver nothing hypocrites the lot of them all they want to do is promote the Welsh language yes they look the part in their matching jackets even their leader Leanne Wood, argues helping constituents is a waste of time because it does not translate into enough votes for Plaid Cymru. FACT. They protested against the removal of a pump and the loss of jobs but it was one of their own on the fire authority who supported the removal of the pump FACT but they don’t mention that. Party of Wales more like Party for themselves.
I think we can safely say that the level of Plaid bashing going on that hasn’t existed before, means that they have ruffled a few feathers and are potentially a credible threat. No-one is going after the Tories or LD etc…
A major problem in Wales is that Labour have not satisfied voters in North Wales that they are going to help us out any time soon. We aren’t interesting enough for His Corbs in Chief to give us time of day and the Welsh Assembly are too busy with South Wales as usual. I am a lifelong Labour supporter yet am completely unconvinced that they could form a credible leading council in Wrexham. They haven’t even bothered to field a local candidate in my ward which further alienates me.
Personally, I don’t think a Plaid led council would be strong enough either but I do believe that the fact that they have actually opposed bad decisions last time round and generated debate means it is essential that a few of them get elected this time. Couldn’t even tell you what Labour were up to after the great defection last time round or what they stood for.
I do think there is an issue with all these independents, as someone said in another thread. Some are genuinely independent and vote for what they believe in issue by issue, but others are just closeted Tories and Labour who are too scared to run on the party ticket because trust in the country’s 2 major parties is at an all time low.
So basically they said ‘if you have a meandering and pointless question you’d like to put to us, please address it directly to us rather than on a forum we know nothing about, so that you can then whine when we don’t answer on said unknown forum’
Leanne Wood, says helping constituents is a waste of time because it does not translate into enough votes for Plaid Cymru. FACT
Plaids representative on the fire athority supported the removal of one pump and the loss of 24 jobs FACT
Plaid’s involvement in the local development plan what a mess you made of that. FACT
Matt not bashing just telling the truth.
[quote quote=130008]Leanne Wood, says helping constituents is a waste of time because it does not translate into enough votes for Plaid Cymru. FACT
Plaids representative on the fire athority supported the removal of one pump and the loss of 24 jobs FACT
Plaid’s involvement in the local development plan what a mess you made of that. FACT
Matt not bashing just telling the truth.
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Please can you provide sources for your ‘facts’. Also please can you also confirm what other parties were also involved, as clearly it wasn’t just one party.
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