Ioan y Ffin
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Usually it is best to make your case by putting forward arguments based on principles and facts rather than making sweeping generalizations about people based on the clothes they choose to wear. These kinds of remarks feed into the current trend of disrespecting people who disagree with you and othering them which encourages hate and harassment via social media and people in politics being threatened or worse.
Considering the number of people who vote in local elections, usually around 20 – 30%, the question remains how to motivate the other 70 – 80% to consider voting because if we only got turn out up to the levels at general elections (i.e. 70%), any popular newcomer could easily win more votes than any of the current incumbents in the council chamber.
The main problem is that the aqueduct towpath was designed to allow a horse to pass in one direction pulling a canal boat. The towpath was not designed to enable crowds of people to pass in both directions at the same time in a totally unregulated way. It is simple to attract loads of visitors to a site but managing the consequences is not so easy as we are rapidly learning. None of this could not have been anticipated, but an obsession with performance indicators has clouded people’s vision. Building a larger car park is probably going to exacerbate the problem. The best ways to control numbers and regulate visits is to limit access by controlling vehicle numbers, moving car parks to further away from the main site or introducing charges. None of which will be popular in short term, but when crowding on the towpath leads to an accident on the aqueduct it will be too late.
The Planning Department’s main task is to devise a Local Development Plan for Wrexham for the period 2013 – 2028 so the Council can actually plan development locally. However… ten years have gone by since the last plan covering the period 1996-2011 came to end and they still have not produced a new plan. As this rate, they are never going to get the 2013-2028 plan signed off, so they might as well start on the next LDP (for the period 2028 – 2043). If they buck their ideas up and employ some competent people, it is just possible they might be able to get something completed in the next seven years!! No one is holding their breath, least of all developers who are enjoying every minute when in effect ‘Anything goes!!’
The services and experiences that Maggie’s Centres offer are different and complementary to those offered by Macmillan, and it is certainly not the case that one is better than the other; they seek to meet different needs felt by cancer patients and their families. I can only speak from experience, but travelling less than an hour for cancer care would have been absolutely brilliant. Sadly despite the many excellent services offered at the Maelor, we frequently had to travel much further than an hour’s journey to access the medical treatments that were required. What Maggie’s Centres provide is a unique and welcoming environment, which having had to attend a series of institutions was such a blessed relief it is hard to convey how revitalizing these places are. I hope the people of north Wales are enlightened enough to embrace and support what has been such a successful model of care in Scotland and England, but we will have to be a lot more open-minded than we usually are.
Criticisms about Ty Pawb’s cost are misplaced. Anyone who thinks that public art galleries make a profit, obviously knows very little about the art sector. Money is made in the art world by buying and selling art; the National Art Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the National Portrait Gallery, the Walker, the Whitworth etc are museums of art, not art dealers intent on flogging off our cultural heritage to wealthy private collectors. All these big national institutions rely on public subsidy for which they deliver an incredible amount in return year in year out. Likewise Ty Pawb delivers a lot for the people of Wrexham, not least improving the town entre leisure offer while in comparison the retail offer is mediocre tp put it politely and the food offer is almost non-existent (apart from one or two notable exceptions, once you take out fast food). In contrast Ty Pawb replaced the depressing, soul-destroying People’s Market and provides art exhibitions, activities, workshops, performance space for gigs and films, a food court, community social spaces and the market stalls have much better premises from which to trade.
It is happening everywhere. A roadslip near Fownhope, near Hereford turned a five minute or so trip into the city into a ninety minute round trip. Took the council over a year to raise the funds from the UK government. There’s Hammersmith bridge in London that has been closed to vehicles for over a year while the MoT and the Mayor argue who should foot the bill for the repairs. Work has not started despite a high profile campaign by the ‘inconvenienced’.
The media complain if public figures stick to a script, and then complain when they go off script. The press and media spent most of Prince Philip’s life highlighting whenever he made a joke (always referred to as a gaffe) and when he dies they print reams and fill hours of airtime lauding him and saying what he great chap he was. It is all about selling papers or advertising and very little about the content. Compared to some of the stale and predictable platitudes coming out of the Senedd and Westminster, he was a breath of fresh air, with an intellectual curiosity that our politicians, with a few notable exceptions, show little evidence of matching.
This substandard accommodation is down to the developer greed. They could choose to convert the upper floors into fewer, but larger flats and afford people the ‘luxury’ of a window in their bedroom or the ‘privilege’ of not having their only bedroom window for fresh air open over a communal bin. A hundred years ago, the council was knocking down slums and moving people in to houses that had meet to standards. Now we are giving the thumbs up to developers to profit from building slums to order. If the planning officers are not able, owing to the law, to turn these applications down, they could at least have the decency and self-respect not to defend it by making assumptions about other people’s expectations.
The Lib Dems don’t have enough money to agree a printing contract with a series of printing firms across every constituency so it looks like they have approached D C Thomson of Dundee, famous printers and publishers of The Beano, The Dandy, Jackie, The Broons, Oor Wullie, and Commando Comics, to print one of their less entertaining publications.
We have a problem with recruiting to the NHS. There are many causes for this
a) the UK and Welsh Government aren’t very good at planning ahead when it comes to deciding on the number of new doctors and nurses to train. nor is the sector good at offering multiple routes in to working in the NHS
b) Society has some conflicting attitudes towards the NHS – we praise them as heroes as now, but we don’t appear to value, encourage or support people to make the effort it takes to train to be a doctor or nurse. We are also quick to criticize the profession despite having little knowledge.
c) It is hard to know how much pay is an issue since working terms and conditions, management attitudes, career progression, lack of investment in facilities and society attitudes are very important factors in staff morale. Everyone would like to be paid more and at least in the NHS jobs are usually secure, unlike elsewhere in the economy. Social care is a different matter, where pay is poor and working conditions are exploitative because we as a society refuse to pay the taxes or the fees that could fund social care properly. This is our choice – we vote for such an approach repeatedly and we must take the blame.
d) The NHS has always relied on recruiting from outside the UK and we decided to turn off part of the supply by leaving the European Union. Also many other countries are now recruiting so it is a competitive market.We have millions of people working in insecure work, which is low paid, often unproductive, much of which could be automated; meanwhile the medical and caring professions have so many vacancies. The Government needs to be far more proactive and strategic. Is it too much to hope?
e) Are our schools encouraging and enabling pupils and students to make their careers in the medical profession? Too many people leave school scientifically illiterate. Too many people are leaving education overall with few skills or irrelevant skills to following a career in medicine. There needs to be routes into retraining for those who have the right aptitudes and attitudes so they can gain the skills and knowledge required.
f) The media must take some responsibility – they organize massive competitive TV shows to recruit people into singing careers, the vast majority of which will fail. How about organizing a show that encouraged people to get a career in medicine, most of which would result in success.
Fortunately during the pandemic society has final paid attention to science and medicine, and the amazing people who work in those sectors, which is such a welcome change from the usual dominance of entertainment and sporting celebrities. I hope it continues because actors and sports people are not that interesting and it has been great to see other people in the limelight for a change – people who really make the world a better place for all for the long term.
