Old Colwyn (East) Residents’ Association
Minute of a talk by Darren Millar AM for Clwyd West
at the Association Open Meeting Wednesday 9th September 2009
Darren thanked the meeting for the opportunity to return to speak to the residents association; he had enjoyed the opportunity last year and thought it was a beneficial meeting from his point of view.
He took the opportunity to pay personal tribute to Cliff Prout. He regarded Cliff as a very good friend who had done a tremendous amount of work, not just in Old Colwyn but along the coast in other communities and added that his legacy will be with us for years in terms of the wonderful gardens that we have and the vast amount of money that he had helped raise and draw down from different grant – making organisations. He said that he had been very sad to hear of Cliff passing away and felt for his family who are still suffering and grieving from the loss. Cliff was a pillar of the community in every sense; he threw himself enthusiastically into everything that he got involved with.
He continued by saying that he has an excellent working relationship with all the local County Councillors in the area and thought that residents would be pleased to know that there are no political barriers to that work despite various political parties being represented locally by the councillors. He praised the local councillors who he said were dedicated to the community.
Darren then said that he would take some time to deal with various issues that were dealt with in his last visit, to give an update.
There had been a big discussion about the need for regeneration of Colwyn Bay. Darren had at that time pointed out that he had campaigned about the subject for a number of years as an Assembly Member. He had also told the previous meeting that there had been a debate in the Assembly where he and other AMs had called for a Regeneration Focus on seaside resort towns. Fortunately earlier this year, the Assembly Government Deputy Minister for Regeneration had made a special announcement in respect of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl and the coastal corridor in between; they were designated as a Strategic Regeneration Area, for targeting by the Assembly Government, therefore a huge investment of cash was going to follow.
He continued saying that he liked to think that the residents and himself, in shouting at the corner for Colwyn Bay and other seaside resorts, have been successful in managing to drag this regeneration status forward so that we can see tens of millions of pounds invested in Colwyn Bay.
He added that there is a risk that the regeneration will not be approached in a holistic way. We have seen in other places that they had regeneration money over the years, particularly in Rhyl, where significant sums of cash has been pumped in and very little benefit has been delivered. We must not let that happen in the case of Colwyn Bay.
Darren stated that it is absolutely critical that the association as an organisation in Old Colwyn is fully engaged as a key stakeholder in the regeneration process and that you are at the table when those decisions are being made.
He added that he had looked at faces with a little bit of alarm when Councillor Cheryl Carlisle was indicating that the local authority were finalising proposals for regeneration in Old Colwyn. He said that he thought that the association should already have known about the plans, as people with a keen interest in regenerating their area. That was a message which he said that he would take back to the Local Authority which is spearheading the regeneration of Colwyn Bay and the coastal strip because he wants to make sure that residents are involved and are aware of matters well before they are finalised so that people can have their say.
It is great that we have got this regeneration status, it is great that there are huge sums of money being committed to Colwyn Bay over the next few years but it is also very important that the local community gets to have their say and that ideas are not imposed in a “we know what is best for your community” manner.
He added that he was grateful for the way in which the secretary keeps him informed about the activities of the Old Colwyn East Residents Association. Every month, he gets a report with the minutes and it is fantastic to get the level of detail that he does because it enables him to do his job as an Assembly Member far better.
Darren said that he is very concerned about the Pier; indeed last time he spoke with the residents, there was no prospect of any kind of regeneration of the Pier; there was no money on the table and nobody wanted to invest in the Pier at that time. He had managed to persuade the Deputy Minister for Regeneration to allow proposals for the regeneration of the pier to qualify for WAG investment – provided that a credible owner puts forward a credible proposal.
The last thing that we want is the waterfront to be improved dramatically and this huge carbuncle to still be on the promenade, unwelcoming to visitors and is a nasty eyesore for local people to look at.
Some money has therefore been put on the table but the ownership issue is still an obstacle which must be overcome. Twelve months had elapsed since the last time he spoke to the residents meeting and he had hoped that something would have sorted itself out by now. It is still up in the air, the administrators are in charge of the Pier and there are huge legal battles going on behind closed doors between the owner of the Pier and the Local Authority.
He regularly presses the local authority to get the matter sorted as we will otherwise be in the situation where the time ticks away and the regeneration money which is available for the refurbishment, improvement or demolition/ rebuild of the Pier, will disappear.
Darren recalled that on his last visit he had also touched on the issue of devolution. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the existence of the National Assembly for Wales. He added that he had not voted for an Assembly for Wales, as he thought that it would be South Wales dominated and much more expensive than the Welsh Office that used to manage things in Wales.
The prophecy is fulfilled he said but we have the Assembly and we need to make it work.
The problem with the Assembly is that when there was a vote to establish it, the people of Wales were sold the Assembly on the back of a promise that it would bring decision making closer to the people of Wales. In reality, we have actually seen decisions being taken further and further away from the people.
Not only have powers been transferred from Westminster to Cardiff Bay, but they have also been sucked up from Local Authorities into Cardiff Bay which ties the hands very often of local councillors to make changes that they think will be of benefit to their communities.
Nowhere is this clearer than when you look at planning decisions. Local authorities quite often take a view to not grant planning permission for a certain development in a community and those decisions are then overturned by bureaucrats in Cardiff Bay simply because of planning guidance which has been issued by the Assembly Government. This is still a problem and it needs to be resolved.
Darren added that he now has a chance to have a greater say in local government matters because last time he came he had been appointed Shadow Minister for Environment and Planning. In February this year, his role changed to Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government. He has now been able to start to develop policy in the area of local government.
He said that one of the things that he wants to see happen is not only local government getting more powers back from the Assembly but also for local government to pass on greater powers to Town and Community Councils and further than that, to get powers back into the hands of individuals. He asked the meeting “Why should you not be able to vote down an increase in Council tax if you don’t like it? Why should you not be able to reject a particular recycling scheme that the local authority might propose, if you think there are better schemes which could be on the table?
Darren continued to say that these are the sorts of issues which the public ought to have a greater say in and therefore one of the proposals that they have been developing to put forward at the next election will be for the ability for individuals to trigger referendums far more easily on local issues, that will be a huge step forward in the right direction.
Darren recalled that there was a discussion at the last meeting on Vodaphone masts in the Colwyn Bay area. He had been in correspondence with the secretary who had no doubt updated the members but he just wanted to reaffirm that the whole situation is on hold now as the operator is seeking opportunities to share masts with other providers.
There has been new guidance to the Minister which if she adopts it will make it far more difficult for mobile phone masts to be erected in our communities in the future. It will look for as a starting point, the opportunity for different mobile phone companies to share masts, which was one of the things that we were calling for when we discussed the Vodaphone proposals in the first place.
That is all very good news and he undertook to keep the secretary informed about any developments.
He recalled that he had shared five facts the previous year and he wanted to end his talk by sharing five more facts.
1. According to the statistics thirty seven thousand more people are unemployed today than there were at this time last year.
2. There is a higher percentage of children in Wales today living in poverty than in any other part of the United Kingdom.
3. Wales is the poorest of every nation and region in the United Kingdom and it is falling further behind.
4. Council Tax levels in Wales have more than doubled since 1997 and have increased at a far greater rate than they have over the border in England.
5. Next year, the Assembly is going to see a reduction in its budget of £416million, much of which would have been going into frontline services and now will not be. Therefore he predicted, we will see some significant cuts in public services as a result.
The Chair opened the question and answer session by saying with relation to regeneration that he had heard a lot of caustic comments about Station Road in Colwyn Bay.
Some feel that there is very little difference in what it was, to what it has become, except that they have taken away the planters, the general feeling in the shops is that the grey flagging looks awful; the flags are terribly marked with the grease and the oil from the market people setting up their stalls.
Shopkeepers feel that the market should have been left around the corner to keep the Station Road pristine and not be ruined in three weeks.
Darren replied that people have been talking about regeneration for years and that many schemes have been drawn up via initiatives such as Bay Life in Colwyn Bay; these have often led to projects being drawn up with the very best of intentions but will little or no consultation. With Station Road, obviously a lot of money has gone in to do it up, there are people who have different opinions as to whether they are for or against what has happened, and what has happened cannot be undone.
He commented that there needs to be a far more joined up approach with any of the new regeneration monies and one of the key areas is outside of the railway station. It dramatically needs to be improved. For visitors arriving at the station, the first impression they get is an unsightly old kiosk for taxis, which is never manned, this is an eyesore and needs to be removed.
Visitors might turn and try to go to the Promenade and find that the view is obscured by an ugly, uninviting bridge which probably feels unsafe to walkers in the evenings and that is bad. It should be addressed by the regeneration scheme.
Darren commented that he had welcomed some of the ideas that have been coming forward from the project, for example, the project that Councillor Bob Squire has championed for some time; that of compulsory purchase of some Houses of Multiple Occupation (HMOs) in Colwyn Bay, that could be a good thing.
The problem is that when you compulsorily purchase HMOs and potentially knock them down, you have to be careful what you put in their place because you can end up simply moving problems around. The majority of people are law abiding, decent folk but we have a small but not insignificant group that make life awful for everybody else. Largely the problem has moved into our area from other parts of the United Kingdom. There are some social misfits that we have seen moving into the area and unfortunately it has changed the culture in Colwyn Bay. That is why we see the social problems that our police have to deal with on a daily basis. It is therefore very important that through the regeneration process, they don’t just look at the physical side of Colwyn Bay (buildings and fabric) as important as they are. They also need to address some of the social problems that we have got in our society. Unless we get to the root cause of the problem, we will never really address regeneration in its fullest sense in the Bay.
The Chair added that he had been invited to sit on one of the regeneration panels as a member of the Chamber of Trade. After two or three meetings he got the idea that it was lip service to invite such groups. The people who worked on the Council had already made up their ideas about what they wanted to do. They asked for ideas on paper but never gave the impression that they were listening. The meetings were always during the day (in Council work time which stood in the way of other groups such as traders attending through work commitments. Traders never got the feeling that their not insignificant input was taken on board.
Darren replied that his biggest criticism of the local authority and the way that the SRA status is being used (they have set up a program called the SPACE PROGRAM looking at regeneration of Conwy East) but that they have not been engaging fully so far with stakeholders. They have not consulted with hard working residents associations such as yours with ideas. It is remiss of the Council not to speak with such groups. There are groups such as the local Civic Society which has ideas for regeneration and they have not been spoken to. It is critically important that this is not just led by politicians and Council officials; people from the “real world” have to get involved and that means that your association and others like you should have already been consulted. If you have not, I will take that message back to the local authority.
In reply to a question about why we get so many misfits settling in the Bay Darren replied that it is a problem across the whole of North Wales. We have in place in Wales a Priority Needs Order in terms of homelessness. This is a little different to what they have over the border in England; effectively it means that people who are designated as homeless should get housing. The problem is that it is far easier to be designated as homeless in Wales than it is in England and people who know and understand the system find it easier to present themselves as homeless and would rather be homeless and housed on the beautiful North Wales coast than an ugly city centre.
In reply the questioner told him of a person that she had met recently who had just
come out of prison in Scotland and he had been told to come to Colwyn Bay and make
himself known to the Council as homeless and they would be obliged to re-
Darren added that one thing that he had been working on with Councillor Bob Squire
for some time, having meetings with Assembly Ministers, is to get a change in the
way that points are accrued to allow people to take advantage of our housing system
here in Wales. The first thing that needs to be addressed is something called the
local connection criteria which says that if you have been here for six months then
you are entitled to be re-
The Minister has been quite sympathetic to the call for a twelve month local connection criteria status and has said that she will be issuing new guidance at some time later in the year. Housing Associations and Local Authorities will have to consider those guidelines when making allocations for housing. That will stop some of the social misfits that have been presenting themselves from coming into the Bay.
In the Towyn and Kinmel Bay areas, what has been seen is people who will live on caravan parks for the ten and a half month season of the year: because the season is longer than the six month local connection criteria, they automatically have a local connection to the area. Worryingly, there has been a recent trend on caravan parks to apply for extended twelve month licences. Two parks in the Towyn area now have twelve month licences for holiday lets on their park. That essentially means that we now have residential caravan parks. Trailer park ghettos are a feature in America; these could develop in the Towyn area.
Darren said that he is extremely concerned about the issue and has had a number of meetings with Ministers to see what powers the Assembly Government might have to put a halt to the trend before it develops any further.
If twelve month licences are given, the problem is that even if the Minister for Housing decides to extend the local connection criteria to twelve months, people on the trailer parks will still be able to get access to our housing in our locality because they have lived in cheap temporary accommodation on the coast in a caravan.
Darren said that this presents a huge risk to our tourist industry.
The secretary said to Darren that he had alluded to cuts in funding coming from Westminster. Our money is spent by the Welsh Assembly Government on all sorts of schemes; free bus passes, free prescriptions….. We hear Westminster explaining to the public that certain schemes are going to be rolled out across England but in Wales we have a lottery as to whether the Assembly opt in to or consider those schemes at some stage.
He continued by pointing out that Darren had circulated a report a few days earlier that thousands of pounds monthly are being spent on Blackberry devices for Civil Servants in the Assembly; this is in addition to the thousands of pounds probably being spent on Blackberry devices for Civil servants in Westminster. Is it necessary to have a Welsh Assembly as well as Westminster if money is possibly being spent unwisely?
We are being told that we need to address social problems locally but the Priority Needs Order was brought in for Wales by the Welsh Assembly Government. It is apparent often that there is one law for people in England and another for Wales and we have no say in it except through the ballot box.
Darren replied that devolution is supposed to bring us to a point where we should be able to make decisions which reflect local needs and priorities. Take as an example, certain types of health problems; there are certain diseases that are more prevalent in Wales than in England.
Cancer in North Wales because of the geography, limestone and radon gas is more prevalent in North Wales than in some other parts of the UK. Therefore it is quite right and proper for the Assembly Government to be able to tailor some of its health policies to target cancer in a way different to that in England.
The fact that Wales is more rural and agricultural in terms of its economic base means that it is right and proper that we should perhaps put a greater emphasis and priority on that than they do in England. Devolution per se is a good thing and Darren emphasised that he is a firm believer in “real devolution” which he had previously said is about getting power right down to people and not sucking it up and storing it all in Cardiff Bay or alternatively to Westminster or worse still to Brussels.
Trying to avoid being party political, Darren stated that the problem that we have in Wales is that very often the Assembly Governments that we have had so far, have seemed hell bent on doing things differently; sometimes just for the sake of being different from England t rather than necessarily what has been good for Wales. That approach has not always served Wales well.
He continued alluding to the free handouts that the secretary had mentioned or the gimmicks as he calls them himself here in Wales. We have free prescriptions for everyone, even millionaires can get free prescriptions in Wales, relatively well paid people do not have to pay for prescriptions and he included himself in the remark do not have to pay and he described the situation as outrageous; especially when the Health Service says that it cannot afford to give cancer drugs to patients dying of cancer.
He argued he would like to see a reintroduction of prescription charges for people who can afford to pay. He added that he believes that people would be happy to pay if they knew that if they needed a cancer drug, they would have access to it.
Many groups of person get free prescriptions anyway in England, based on age, full time education, chronic disease sufferers, and people on benefits and so on. So it would not affect the majority of persons but it would help to make modern drugs and treatments available through the Welsh NHS.
Another gimmick he added is free breakfasts in school. If a school in Wales wants to set up a “breakfast club”, it can have access to Welsh Assembly funding. It costs £11 Million a year in Wales. Darren said that he believed that parents should give children breakfast, not teachers. Some argue that children perform better if they get a breakfast, but where does it stop? he asked. Children perform better after a good night’s sleep – should we give them all a new mattress? It is the nanny state gone wrong in Darren’s view.
There are to be £416 million in cuts as a result of the UK Government Budget, there are millions to be saved by scrapping free breakfasts, reintroducing some prescription charges for those who can afford to pay and more proposals will be coming forward from the Assembly group in the autumn.
Darren added that he had asked a question about how many people in the National Assembly have been issued with Blackberries, a type of mobile phone that allows remote access on the road to the internet and emails.
The majority of civil servants are sat behind desks every day of the week not out and about needing remote access to emails. Over 800 people in the Welsh Assembly Government Civil service have been issued with a Blackberry device at a monthly cost to the taxpayer of over £15,000. That is close to £200,000 a year.
Argument in government is about who is going to cut public spending which is not a popular concept.
Darren said that he believes that there is a good deal of waste that can be cut in the Welsh Assembly Government, NHS, Local authorities and other public services before it will even touch front line services. He said that he makes the same point about Conwy as a Local authority. We have far too many diversity officers and not enough police officers. If we get the balance right we will be ok.
Darren said that the freebies that he mentioned are just a few examples There is plenty of cash out there in the public sector and unfortunately too much of it is wasted.
The secretary added that The Welsh Assembly have the power to do something about it and asked why don’t they don’t do something?
Darren answered that the Welsh Assembly Government is made up of two political parties. He is in the Opposition and it is his job to ferret out and hold them to account for waste of money like this. It is up to them to come up with some answers as to how they can justify this sort of spending. He believes that the WAG has a duty to look at its budget carefully. It will lay its draft budget before the Assembly in November and he will be looking carefully at the WAG priorities and if he does not think they are right he will tell them so.
The secretary added that there is a lot of talk but while we talk the WA government do what they want to do and there is no control from a local level.
Darren answered by saying that it is what is called democracy, if the government have a majority; they can make decisions regardless of what the minority think. He added that he is in a minority in the Assembly as regards his views on prescriptions and free breakfasts. It is up to the people of Wales to decide who will be there in elections.
There was a short discussion about the Pier, a resident said that he had heard a figure of £6million talked about for refurbishment and he thought that was a bargain.
Darren reiterated that if a credible offer came forward there is WAG money, up to half the cost on the table but the ownership issue has to be sorted out.
A resident said that she understood that Bangor Pier was in a much worse state than ours, she asked how was that regenerated and why was it less complicated than Colwyn Bay’s.
Darren answered that it was because of ownership.
The resident replied that when the expressway was built, ownership of the houses that were compulsorily purchased was not an issue that prevented the road. It seemed that it was a matter of will to do something.
Darren replied that it was his personal opinion that the Pier should always have stayed in public hands. Where there is credible ownership, there is access to funding. He could not answer for decisions made somewhere in the past.
Mark Chatham asked if the Pier is structurally unsound who is responsible for cost of demolition.
Darren replied that he did not know but the current responsibility lies with the owner. If he is not financially able to do anything about the unsafe state then it makes resolution difficult.
The sooner the better that the ownership situation is sorted out, then we can move on and do something. Some people would like the Pier demolished, some restored. The regeneration of the waterfront is an important issue; the money is on the table now and is time limited. If matters are not sorted, the clock will go against anybody who is trying to see it regenerated.
A resident commented that if the Pier were demolished, it may have an effect on the tidal flow.
The Chair brought the session to a close by thanking Darren Millar AM for Clwyd West for attending, giving an interesting talk and answering questions so fully. There was a round of applause
