Old Colwyn (East) Residents’ Association
Minute of an address by David Jones MP for Clwyd West
to the Open Meeting Wednesday 8th August 2007
David Jones MP thanked the Chair for the kind introduction and thanked the Association for inviting him to speak; he said that it is always a pleasure to come to Old Colwyn, particularly as every time he comes, the sun shines. He commented that the last occasion was at the visit of the Earl of Wessex and his wife to Wynn gardens recently.
He said that the community is really good in Old Colwyn and part of the reason is because the Association exists and because people in this part of Colwyn Bay do take their community responsibilities very seriously indeed and commented that it shows that if people become involved with their community it makes it a better place to live.
He stated that the meeting had heard a catalogue of concerns but it seemed he said the exceptions to the rule in Old Colwyn which is a very nice place to live in.
He congratulated the secretary who he said is very active and a credit to the association. He commented that not many weeks go by when he does not get emails from the secretary and it cheers him up no end some times. He spoke of one evening after a long day whilst he was waiting for a vote in the House of Commons at about 9.30pm and an email came through from the secretary with a picture of a butterfly attached and that really cheered him up. Last week he had received a picture of St John’s Church with a Green Pennant flying from the flag pole. Congratulations on the award of the Green Pennant and the excellent performance in Wales in Bloom which he said would speak about later. He also gave his specific congratulations to Cliff Prout for being awarded the MBE in the Queens Birthday Honours List. He said that when people like Cliff receive such an award it goes to show that these things do not go unnoticed.
He returned to the question of Wales in Bloom and reflected on what Councillor Cossey had said previously that Colwyn Bay had done exceptionally well this year as it does most years.
He expressed his concern at the future of the Wales in Bloom competition and said that he had been approached informally by the organisers of the Wales in Bloom who have expressed concern over the future of the competition.
He continued that there appears to be some doubt about whether the Welsh Assembly will continue funding it at least in its present form. One of the objections to it from an assembly perspective appears to be that that it is competitive. He wondered how one can have a non-competitive competition. He went on to say that it is more serious than that however as winners from Wales in Bloom are invited to represent Wales in Britain in Bloom. The Wales in Bloom competition over the years has done more to engender civic pride than many things. He said that he finds it extraordinary that people should object to a competition where people are only competing in terms of civic pride and wanting to show their own locality in as good a light as possible.
He continued by saying that he is waiting for Wales in Bloom to come back to him formally before taking action and objecting publicly to what he considers a crazy proposal by the Welsh Assembly Government.
He continued by saying that various points had been mentioned during the evening principally to do with the police and said that he had been involved in a number of the issues.
One of the matters which he said is causing him considerable concern is the proposal for an automated needle exchange in Colwyn Bay at the back of Rhiw Road. He had objected to the proposal when it was put before the local planning authority and when it was in his view quite properly refused. Recently he said just before Parliament rose for the summer recess was to write a letter to the Planning Inspectorate objecting to the appeal. He said that he does not believe that people who are suffering whichever way you look at it from a severe medical condition should be expected to go down a dark and gloomy alley to obtain the needles that clearly they need to maintain their condition. Their condition should be supervised professionally, he said and as Councillor Squire had said earlier, the local pharmacies have now banded together to provide a properly supervised needle exchange scheme. He continued that he cannot see any reason at all why the police should persist with this appeal, it appears to be stubbornness. It is not wanted in Colwyn Bay, by either the Town or County Councillors or every member of the community that he speaks to, he said. He commented that he doubts that it is wanted by the addicts who he thought would far rather go to a professional and have the exchange properly supervised.
He wondered why it was being done except that there is a very expensive piece of machinery sitting in a cellar at police headquarters which cannot be resold because nobody else wants it. It is probably the only one in the country. Mr. Jones said that he thought the appeal a bad retrograde step and thought that the association is right to oppose it as he is doing as strongly as he can.
The question of arson was also raised by Councillor Squire. Arson is he said a very serious criminal offence; it is not a social problem. He said that when he used to practice in the criminal courts, cases of arson were always sent to Crown Court and always resulted in a custodial sentence. He continued by saying that it is disturbing to see outbreaks of arson continuing and astonishing to see the attitude of it being a social problem. It is a serious crime and we need to stamp it out, he said and in order to stamp it out we need police officers. We have a lot of police officers at the moment, more now than we have had for some time, the question is how are they being deployed?
He said that the fact is that there were earlier in the year a number of redundancies among civilian staff in the force and they have backfilled the jobs with uniformed police officers resulting in not so many police officers on the streets.
He associated himself with a remark by the secretary that there is a place for PCSOs but said that their role is very limited. It is important he supposed that they be the eyes and ears and feed back their reports to the CBMs. He said that the fact is that they have very, very limited powers, they cannot get involved in confrontational situations so to that extent, their usefulness is very limited indeed and they cost approximately 90% of the cost of a newly qualified police officer and they have 10% of his powers.
He pointed out that the Mail on Sunday last weekend had carried a report indicating the extent to which the government is increasing the deployment of PCSOs and is reducing the deployment of fully fledged police officers. North Wales was singled out as an area where we will be seeing, if current trends continue an increase pro rata in the number of PCSOs and a decline in the number of police officers which he went on to say he finds very worrying.
He agreed with the association view on the expenditure of money by the police he said that he finds the police force’s proposals unusual having not noticed serious crowd control problems, which tends to be what police horses are used for, controlling large crowds. He stated that he would prefer to see more officers on the streets.
He stated concern about what he had heard over concerns about the control room and asked for a précis of difficulties could be prepared for his information.
He said that he had heard in the meeting that Sgt Gary Kelly is being reassigned from Colwyn. He said that Sgt Kelly in his experience is an excellent police sergeant who knows this patch well. He continued that he has the right policing attitude and is prepared to get stuck in. He stated his view that if we had more police officers like Gary Kelly on the streets generally, the whole of North Wales would be a more secure and pleasant place to live.
He said that he has regular meetings with the Chief Superintendent and hopes to have a meeting soon with Inspector Banham.
There was a question about the role of the Police Authority in policy matters. Mr Jones replied that operational control is in the hands of the Chief Constable. He added that there is government policy too and said that the idea of Community policing generally is very laudable, if however there are insufficient officers to carry out that policy, then it is difficult to see how it can be progressed particularly if it relies increasingly on PCSOs rather than police officers, that is of particular concern he said.
He stated concern about the fencing to the A55/ railway line and offered to become involved if there was any assistance or support needed in dealing with Railtrack.
He stated that he had one or two matters to raise, of general concern to residents that had not been mentioned during the evening, one is the question of the windfarm. He stated that he had read only that day that the developers appear to be trimming the size of the proposal by about 20%. There has been a significant amount of objection to this proposal he said and he is in constant touch with the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (previously the Department of Trade and Industry).
He described another matter which causes him great concern, the proposal of the Welsh Assembly to reorganise neurosurgery services. The proposal from the new Welsh Health Minister Edwina Hart is that the neurosurgery service should be located in both Swansea and Cardiff. This is despite a report by Health Commission Wales which was that the Swansea Unit was not supportable and should be closed. What is proposed is that all elective neurosurgery in Wales should be either conducted in Swansea or Cardiff. At the moment, North Wales patients travel to Walton, which is very well regarded locally and also convenient for North Wales patients along the A55 in 90 minutes. To travel to Cardiff takes at least 4 hours and much more than that by ambulance.
We are assured that acute and emergency surgery will continue at Walton.
Mr Jones went on to describe some problems with that assumption and told of a meeting a couple of weeks previous with a senior neurosurgeon from Walton, a resident in Clwyd West who is very concerned by the proposals. He pointed out that people should realise that even in terms of elective neurosurgery there is not just one trip, there is an assessment which has to be done on the first visit, then a second visit for surgery and then at least one post operative checkup is required, a minimum of three journeys.
He had also pointed out another important issue, that there is not the critical mass of patients in North Wales to support a neurosurgical unit, it requires at least a million people living in the area. So Walton is the obvious centre of excellence for people from North Wales to attend. He added that it is all very well for the Welsh Assembly Government to say that critical surgery will continue to be conducted at Walton but if Walton loses the patient case from North Wales will have to look elsewhere. Arguably for example the Stoke on Trent area, if they undertook an obligation to Stoke on Trent for example to conduct their neurosurgery that will have to extend not only to elective surgery but also a critical and emergency service and it may well be that with the best will in the world, they would no longer be able to cater for people from North Wales because of commitments elsewhere.
Mr. Jones said that he saw that as very worrying and could see no good purpose at all behind switching neurosurgery to South Wales where they have a perfectly decent convenient hospital on Merseyside. He said that he is writing letters to Edwina Hart on the matter as he believes that it puts lives at risk, it is more than likely that people will die if this proposal goes ahead.
The Health Commission Wales report made the point that there should only be one neurosurgery unit in South Wales, he said that should be Cardiff, Swansea should be closed and North Wales people he said should continue to be served by Walton. Everyone should be aware of the issue he said.
At this point he asked if there were any questions from the residents.
A resident commented that the theory is to keep all Welsh patients treated in Wales and it is ridiculous to just think like that.
David Jones replied that he agreed and that it was dogma getting in the way of patient care.
Councillor Cossey said that he thought it was more to do with Mrs. Hart being re-elected, as the Morriston Hospital at Swansea is next to her Gower constituency.
A resident said that her friend who is deaf had made a request that when the digital TV switchover occurs, could sub-titles be put on for all programs. There is 888 on the text but that does not extend to all programs on the digibox, she had been informed.
David Jones replied that he believed that there are proposals for that to happen but he would make enquiries and report back to the secretary.
Councillor Squire said with reference to the dogmatic attitude of Mrs Hart which had been spoken about, he concurred with the thoughts expressed as the County Council had gone through it as far as the housing situation is concerned and have got no further forward. There were references earlier he said to ombudsmen’s reports against the County Council, some of them were justified but a couple of them were not justified and one of them was an extended family from Burnley.
Councillor Squire said he supported homeless provision for genuine homeless people, especially local people. The situation in Colwyn is that because there are so many houses of multiple occupation and because the residency period is irrelevant when coming to social re-housing. Edwina Hart failed to recognise that there are exceptions to what she tried to do, she dogmatically pressed on with her policy, what is good for them is good for you and it is not good in seaside towns. That has caused so much damage in Colwyn Bay he continued. Because there so many homeless in Conwy there are 870 homeless applicants with no accommodation for the socially so the council is leasing properties in the private sector to put them into already there are 100 properties leased for homeless occupation with another 23 being added fairly quickly. It is a vicious circle he said and asked the question how are places like Wrexham and Flintshire, Gwynedd and Anglesey resolving the cost of homelessness accommodation, the answer is he said that they have not got the same problem as Conwy and Denbighshire which have houses of multiple occupation. These properties permit Edwina Hart’s policy to accelerate in the area. Because they can come in from the North West of England often the wrong types of families and individuals come in as he believes that it is often communities getting rid of them in many respects. They come here get a flat, are quickly evicted and are then homeless and are re-housed way ahead of local people.
Councillor Squire said that though Philip Evans and himself particularly had fought this one, they had still not got there and believe that the homelessness legislation is bad in general but dreadful as far as Wales is concerned because the Welsh Assembly has added secondary legislation which gives priority to people that it does not favour in England.
David Jones said that he understood that people with those problems have picked up on this to the extent that there were adverts saying “draw your dole at the seaside”
Councillor Cossey added that the family from Burnley was a prime example, did not like Burnley so decided to go to Colwyn Bay and declared themselves homeless.
Councillor Squire added that the Council had done everything for them, paid for them for a couple of nights accommodation, looked at the case said that they did not qualify so go back to Burnley and they took the case to the ombudsman who found that because of the Welsh secondary legislation the Council was wrong and they had to be given a council house ahead of everyone else. The people that suffered in the family, they said they were under threat of violence, that was the reason that they came here, they went back to Burnley but the family got a council house out of it and that has been repeated on a few occasions.
Councillor Cossey added that if a person in prison says that he or she wants to go to Colwyn Bay then they are priority for a council house.
David Jones added that it is known that the word is in prison that when you get discharged, go to Wales; obviously, to this part of the world because we have got the accommodation.
Councillor Squire There are councils in the North West suggesting that they go as well, they go to the top of the list.
David Jones I had a young couple come to see me a couple of weeks ago with a baby, living in a single room, she sleeps on the bed with the child and he slept in an armchair, she had lived in this area all her life and could not get accommodation. It does cause a lot of resentment and understandably too.
A resident stated with relation to the neurosurgery issue and communication with the Minister that there is now a coalition government now with a Deputy First Minister resident in North Wales. He asked if Mr. Jones had had any feedback from for instance Plaid Cymru or any of the other AMs in North Wales as to how they feel about the proposals.
David Jones replied that the local Assembly Member Darren Millar agrees with him 100% to the extent that he was at the meeting with the neurosurgeon that was previously referred to. Darren is very concerned and is pressing the issue. Mr. Jones stated that he had not spoken to any other AMs and one would hope that the Deputy First Minister would agree that the proposals were wrong as he is a resident and a North Wales Assembly Member. He stated that he would think that he is now bound by cabinet responsibility and if a decision is made by a member of the cabinet, it binds every member of the cabinet. He went on that one can only assume that the decision that Edwina Hart has announced meets with the approval of all members of the cabinet. The decision was made since the coalition came into being.
North Wales does not get a fair crack of the whip out of the Welsh Assembly; I was a member of the Assembly and I know the extent to which the Welsh Assembly is South Wales dominated. In North Wales we have 13 Assembly Members and there are 60 altogether. He went on to say that he does not believe that there is an understanding on the issue. South Wales is big; it has a large population and is self contained. North Wales does not have a big population and has always historically and traditionally been allied to and looked towards the North West of England and that is not a problem. We have east to west travel patterns that are not understood by the Assembly. The idea put forward by a resident that it was just to get an All-Wales service which is crazy if it is imperiling life.
A Resident said that neurosurgery is just the start of it, it is the thin end of the wedge.
Councillor Cossey said that it is the same with the National Children’s Hospital of Wales which they have just built in Cardiff, the only way that that could be sustainable he said is if all children from Wales go to Cardiff to be treated in that hospital.
David Jones continued by saying that medical treatment for example hip replacement are frequently done in Gobowen which is the centre of excellence for this part of the world, we have to preserve those links. It was established that on average it is 18 months for a hip replacement at Gobowen if you come from Wales, it is 9 weeks if you live in England. He said that we pay our taxes and National Insurance contributions at the same rate. Why should we be treated any worse?
A resident asked about neurological issues that do not require operations will they go to Walton. She added that her husband suffered from a rare condition and traveled back and forth to Walton for eight years because the specialist was studying that condition. He used to go by taxi.
David Jones replied that he had a letter from Ms Hart the previous day which tended to indicate that she wanted to come up with some sort of new neurology service. She was hoping to arrange for neurology to remain at Walton. He went on that his concern is that she is making an assumption that Walton will be willing to provide those services when it is having a lot of its work taken away. Hospitals are as much business operations as anything else he said, and they rely on a catchment area which if lost has to be replaced. He said that he intends later this month to meet the medical director of Walton to make sure fully what Walton’s position is and whether they have been consulted on these proposals, he suspects that they have not been consulted.
It is important if the Minister says that these alternative provisions are going to be made, that they really are going to be made. He reiterated that he does not think that Walton will be able to do it because it will move its client base.
Ms Hart has announced there will be two centres for neurosurgery and they will operate on all patients throughout Wales.
Mr. Jones stated that we have a centre of excellence in Walton and should insist that it stays as the centre for Wales because of its trusted nature and convenience for patients from North Wales.
Councillor Cossey asked if the Minister has to take a paper to the Assembly for approval.
David Jones replied that she is the Minister and presumably she will make the executive decision.
Councillor Cossey questioned the way forward; the Minister has made a one line statement so far. We perhaps need more of the detail before writing.
David Jones replied that the more people that write to the Minister and express their concerns at her proposal the better. The Daily Post is supportive. By the time the detail is out, we are a long way down the road.
A resident asked on the issue of children’s hospitals does this mean that children with serious illnesses that are at present admitted to Alder Hey Hospital will have to go to Cardiff? He added that his son had leukemia in 1995, he is doing well now; he had been admitted straight away to Glan Clwyd and the following day transferred to Alder Hey. If that happened now would he have to go all the way to Cardiff, time was of the essence to get him on chemotherapy?
David Jones replied that this is the other concern; he had received comments on his weblog from a concerned person to the effect that Alder Hey is a highly regarded hospital for North Wales. Where children are concerned it would be highly detrimental to their best interest. Children need their parents and family to visit. The Minister has not made any announcement about Alder Hey, but it is of concern; Walton, Alder Hey, Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt, Clatterbridge, Broad Green, all these are places catering for patients from North Wales.
With reference to Broad Green he told of a constituent who had been told that she could not have an angioplasty balloon fitted at Broadgreen because of the funding issue but not to worry because if it turned into an emergency they could see her then.
The big problem is they do not understand the way things work in North Wales; we have to look to the North West of England, it is the same NHS. He said that it is important to kick up a fuss every time that issues like this arise or else everything will go to South Wales, then it will be tremendously inconvenient.
A resident asked if Ms Hart has an email address.
David Jones replied that it can be found on the Welsh Assembly website under Welsh Assembly Government.
A resident asked with regard to the police appeal for a needle exchange in Colwyn Bay, how much the appeal is going to cost the ratepayers of North Wales.
David Jones replied that it will be heard on the 20th November and as a full hearing it will cost a lot of money with lawyers involved, it will cost thousands of pounds. It is not wanted but operational control rests with the Chief Constable.
A resident said what makes it worse is that he is unelected spending all this money on what is not a police issue anyway.
David Jones replied that he was in favour of an elected police commissioner, who should not be responsible for operations but who should be responsible for general direction, this would be a far more sensible option. We have got the police authority whose function is limited.
A resident added that the Chief is responsible for operational matters but the police authority control the finance, one wonders who approved the purchase of this needle machine and approved the cost of the appeal.
David Jones added and of course the police horses too.
The resident continued and also the giving away of a police house in Penmaenmawr two years ago, an asset that was given away to the equal opportunities organisation, nothing to do with the police and yet they keep telling us they are short of money. It was refurbished at just under £100,000 a few months before it was given away.
David Jones replied It was the Commission for Racial Equality that they gave it to I think, this came up before the police authority meeting last month, when the Chief Constable was at pains to point out that operational decisions including the items of expenditure were a matter for him and it was up to them to decide if it could be afforded. He added that he thought the police horses thing is unusual. He related that last Christmas he was in Upper Mostyn Street, Llandudno. He had seen two police horses standing underneath the verandas, they had little lights on because it was after dark. It was Saturday night in Mostyn Street and he asked what they were going to do gallop after people? it would have been better to have had bobbies standing there on the beat.
The Chair thanked David Jones MP for attending and giving such an interesting talk. There was a round of applause.
