Frank Little

It is nice to see that Peter Hain, MP for Neath, is concerned about the proposals for Neath and Port Talbot of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales, a fortnight after I blogged about them here, and a month after I wrote of my concerns as they affect Cadoxton to the director of legal services. Mr Hain’s email has been passed to me by a Liberal Democrat member whose name has somehow found its way on to Mr Hain’s mailing list.

Since it has been clear, almost from the date that the proposals were received in the civic centre, that not one council member was in favour, one wonders whether Mr Hain is not pushing at an open door. As one Commission member is said to have remarked to the council leader, “do we have any friends left in Neath Port Talbot?”.

Mr Hain’s later email campaigning against the bus timetable changes is more worrying. The council has a rôle in coordinating bus services, negotiating with all the local operators. Mr Hain appears to be cutting across this.

These are two examples of a Labour MP not seeming to have confidence in his local authority, which happens to be Labour-controlled. Do the cabinet and the MP speak to each other? Or perhaps these emails are an initiative by an intern of which Mr Hain knows nothing?

—– Forwarded Message —-
From: “HAIN, Peter” <HAINP@parliament.uk>
To: “HAIN, Peter” <HAINP@parliament.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, 1 December, 2009 12:39:36
Subject: Peter Hain MP Email

Dear Friend,

LOCAL DEMOCRACY UNDER ATTACK

You may or may not be aware that the Boundary Commission Wales has recently published truly dreadful draft proposals for changes to the County Borough Council ward boundaries, including:

• Aberdulais, Cilfrew, Cadoxton, Tonna and Bryncoch North forming one ward.
• Cwmllynfell joining with Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen and Lower Brynamman .
• Rhiwfawr forming a ward with Pontardawe.
• Tonmawr joining a ward with the top of the Neath Valley.
• Pontrhydyfen joining with a Cwmavon and Bryn outside of the Neath constituency.

A full copy of the proposals can be found at http://www.lgbc-wales.gov.uk/electoral/neath_port_talbot/neathpt_draft_proposals_report_e.pdf

It is clear that who ever has drawn up these plans does not know the area and has made no attempt to look at the local geography or the differing types of community. Instead they have taken a butchers knife to longstanding local communities with no thought as to democratic and community consequences.

These decisions have been purely based on figures with too large an emphasis put on achieving the 1:1750 ratio between Councillor and electorate at the cost of losing the vital link between Councillor and the community they represent.

Cilfrew, Tonna, Cadoxton and Bryncoch have a major dual carriageway running right between them and are miles apart at their perimeters with differing community needs.

Similarly Gwaun Cae Gurwen and Brynamman are miles away from Cwmllynfell and are separated by the Gwrhyd. It is ridiculous to separate the community of Cwmllynfell by amalgamating one half with Gwaun Cae Gurwen and the other half with Pontardawe.

The Commission has just skipped over Ystalyfera and Godrergraig to merge Rhiwfawr with Pontardawe which again is miles away - unless they envisage the tiny mountain road over from Rhiwfawr to the top of Rhydyfro. 

The craziest suggestion is to join Tonmawr with the Neath Valley and to put Pontrhydyfen in a ward outside of the Neath Constituency. Not only is the Tonmawr ward in a entirely different valley but it could take half an hour or more to get from Glynneath, at the top of the Neath Valley to Tonmawr in the Pelenna Valley especially if traffic in Neath town was bad as they would have to drive through there. While joining Pontrhydyfen with communities outside of the constituency will be confusing and lead to ineffective representation.

These are distinct communities with their own identities which they are proud of. The Commissioners seem to have looked at a map and not understood the geographical difficulties that their proposal would bring.

Bunching them together would mean they each lost their local County Councillor which I believe is bad for democracy. The Commissioners have placed far too large an emphasis on achieving a common average between councillors and numbers of voters at the cost of losing the vital link between County Councillors and their local community.

The size of the “super-wards” that will be created means that it will be impossible to effectively represent all the communities within them. It will mean the end of that important link between the local community and their County Borough Councillor, someone who is recognised within the community they represent and whom voters can either re-elect or sack. The proposals if implemented would only widen the gap between citizens and local politicians, at the very time when politics is held in such low repute.

Get in touch to let me know how the buses are affecting you!

Dear Friend,

I have been inundated with letters, emails and telephone calls about bus services in the Neath area. The decision to end a number of services is unacceptable and has caused chaos, disruption and anger across the constituency. That is why I’ve written to all the bus companies in the area calling for a Bus Crisis Summit in the New Year.

Bus services has been an issue that I’ve campaigned on for a while with the decline of services in Rhiwfawr, Pontardawe and Fairyland in recent months. The issue reached a climax at the beginning of December when First Cymru published a raft of changes to the services.

Bus services in the Neath, Dulais, Amman and Swansea Valleys have been severely affected. Services between Neath and Pontardawe, Swansea and Pontardawe have been reduced to an hourly service with the 125 no longer running to Cwmllynfell or Brynamman. Similarly the 132 service now terminates at Pontardawe, those wishing to travel further to Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen or Ammanford have to change to a connecting bus.

In the Dulais valley the 158 service will now run between Neath and Seven Sisters leaving the top end of the Dulais valley without a bus service. While the X58 no longer runs direct to Swansea instead passengers wishing to travel from Seven Sisters to Swansea will have to change in Neath.

The service between Glynneath and Neath via Resolven and Tonna has been removed and replace by a bus from Resolven to Neath and a direct bus from Glynneath to Neath. This has created problems for people living in Glynneath who work or visit relatives in Tonna Hosipital.

College students have also contacted me highlighting the difficulty they are facing in getting to lectures on time. Many rely on buses to get to and from college as they have no other form of transport. With the change of timetables and removal of services students are struggling to get to lectures.

For many people, especially the elderly, the bus is a lifeline. It enables them to get to the doctors, to do the shopping, to get to work and to socialise.

People are struggling to make doctors and hospital appointments. Others have been left waiting at bus stops in terrible weather because the connecting bus as either already left or is running late.

These decisions are ridiculous and as a result are leaving people and villages feeling isolated, cut off and abandoned. The situation is a complete mess.

Bus companies are being given huge subsidies from both the Council and the Welsh Assembly to provide a service and they are not doing it – it’s unacceptable.

If you or anyone you know has had difficulty with the buses then please write to me with the details so I Can put these to the bus companies.

Yours Sincerely,

A little late (after all, Christmas starts at nightfall), but nonetheless sincere, are my greetings and best wishes for the New Year.

As usual, I will not be holding a surgery on the last Saturday of the year, but hope to be available in Cadoxton Community Centre on 30th January 2010.

At this time of year, when money seems to disappear without trace, it is useful to know where you can get help. The Financial Services Authority has such a wide-ranging web-site http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/ They say, “When it comes to money, our impartial information and tools can help you work out what’s right for you. ”

The Office of Fair Trading, in conjunction with Local Authority Trading Standards Services, has produced a free leaflet “Scambuster: Your guide to beating the scammers” (available in various formats) to help potential victims of confidence tricksters. They advise not to send any money or give any personal details to anyone, until you’ve checked them and talked to a professional or family and friends.

The leaflet can be got by phoning 0800 389 3158, or you can obtain more general advice on 08454 040506 and www.consumerdirect.gov.uk.

The leader of the council has issued a statement following Wednesday night’s disastrous fire in Aberavon. I note that the official web-site does not report the statement made by Cllr Mike James, the cabinet member for environment and leisure, made in the emotional morning-after, when he implied that there would be a like-for-like rebuild. Perhaps there have been second thoughts.

I honestly sympathise with the regular users of the pool or other facilities at the Lido who are going to have difficulty finding an adequate substitute. However, in these straitened times, it behoves the council to cast a cold eye on financing a replacement and on budgeting for its maintenance. If rebuilding is covered by insurance, all well and good, but the county borough’s council tax payers cannot afford grandiose plans which go beyond that.

The council is promoting a scheme, which may even attract a grant of up to £250, for people who have an idea for a business or need advice on running an existing business.

More details from Glynis Howell at Sandfields Young Business Centre on 01639 765695 or email innov8@npt.gov.uk.

The recent media coverage of Copenhagen  reminds me of a planning circular issued in the summer, which I apologise for not publicising earlier.

As from September of this year planning permission has not been required for solar panels, provided they don’t stick out too much. That is, they should not overtop the roof (excluding any chimneys) or protrude more than 20cm from the plane of the roof. Greater restrictions apply in Conservation Areas.

Local Liberal Democrats want to go further in encouraging installation of solar panels and/or microgeneration by householders. We are looking at the possibility of council tax holidays or similar subsidies, and hope to submit a motion to the party’s 2010 spring conference in Swansea.

I’m still working on the other outstanding items down to me.

Regards,
Frank Little
Secretary

* .

There is an interesting discussion on the blog of Peter Black AM.

S4C’s “Pawb a’i Farn” will be coming from Neath Sports Centre on Thursday 10th December. The audience needs to be in the Centre by 19:00 for the live broadcast between 20:25 and 21:25.

The panel will comprise Gwenda Thomas AM, Bethan Jenkins AM, Geraint Talfan Davies and Rod Richards.

To join the audience (Welsh learners are welcome) you will need to register by phoning 01352 754212 or emailing jane@momentwm.com.

Our thoughts go out to the people of Cumbria, and of Dumfries and Galloway, who have been flooded out of their houses and businesses. There must be special sympathy for the family and colleagues of Bill Barker, the long-serving policeman who appears to have lost his life in saving others’.

Tim Farron, the MP for the worst affected area, on BBC News this morning, was quick to praise the emergency services for their speed and efficiency. However, he regretted that more had not been done in the past to improve flood defences and the Victorian drainage system which was no longer up to the job. He identified a housing estate which had been a flooding trouble spot in the past under normal conditions, but had had flood defences installed and had actually escaped the current exceptional floods.

These supposedly once-in-a-millennium events are clearly increasing in frequency. There is a warning here for the council and Welsh Water to act with urgency to sort out the problems of Neath’s legacy of unmaintained sewers and drains. It only needed last night’s storm to track slightly further south for Cadoxton to resemble Cockermouth or Kendal.

In the last twelve months, it has been Neath Port Talbot’s turn to come under the scrutiny of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales. Their draft proposal for changes in ward boundaries in the county borough was published last month.  It appears that the Commission has rated the need to even out the number of voters per councillor and to eliminate single-member wards above geographical logic and local accountability.

For instance, Cadoxton would become part of a super-ward also including Aberdulais (that part is sensible), Bryncoch North (why not Bryncoch South?) and Tonna, separated from the rest by a four-lane highway, the river and two canals. Even more peculiar is the plan to merge Pelenna with Glynneath rather than Cimla.

The Commission invites comments from all interested parties, including members of the public. The County Borough is to hold a special cabinet scrutiny meeting, and has brought forward the December council meeting, in order to discuss the proposals and send its response before the closing date of 22nd December.

Local Liberal Democrats are also thrashing out an agreed statement of position, which will be summarised on our web-site. The emphasis will be on democratic accountability.

The seminar on Monday morning on the subject of the canals of the county borough (Swansea, Tennant & Neath), referred to in my previous posting, duly took place. The keynote speaker was Andrew Stumpf of British Waterways, who illustrated his talk on the merits of inland waterways with examples largely from Scotland. It has to be admitted that, from a lower base than in Wales, BW in Scotland, with assistance from public authorities, has achieved some remarkable successes, including some engineering world firsts. I was most taken by the greening of Maryhill (”Taggart” territory) in Glasgow which I remember as, though not the worst area in Glasgow, not one would choose to enjoy a canal-side walk in. Judging by Andrew’s photos, that has certainly changed.

There is now a navigable canal from the Clyde in the west to the east coast of Scotland, with a spur to Edinburgh. Andrew made the point that, although relatively few people used the canal end-to-end, the fact of the connectedness of the canal was enough to encourage more to use it. Those short journeys are overwhelmingly made on foot or by bike. British Waterways calculate that 90% of inland waterways’ use is land-based, and 90% of the visitor spend depends on these uses.

In a short session, Andrew couldn’t cover all the bases in detail, so only touched on canals’ benefits as nature reserves in their own right, and as connections between otherwise isolated green areas. I can vouch for the Neath Canal being home to the water vole, which is reckoned to be a threatened species in the UK overall.

A few other statistics: British Waterways is the third largest owner of listed buildings in the UK, and the most important custodian of industrial heritage. Towpaths in many parts of England are used for fibre-optic cables for broadband connections. Properties which abut onto inland waterways sell for between 1.5% and 35% more than equivalents, the average uplift being 18%. £22m was spent on the Liverpool Link, connecting the waterfront to the Liverpool-Leeds canal, resulting in an annual increase of 200,000 visitors to the waterfront.

In the discussion which followed, there was cross-party agreement on the importance of the canals to Neath Port Talbot.  John Flower, head of engineering and transport, confirmed that improvements to the potential network had been protected in the UDP.

Yesterday, Council heard a presentation from Steve Thomas of the Welsh Local Government Association on the probable Welsh Assembly Government settlement for 2009/10 and the prospects for future years. He described it as a horror story, but also said that the current settlement was “as good as it gets”. The WLGA press release gives the gist of his message.

Whatever shade of government appears in Westminster next year, there are bound to be cuts. It seems to me that, in this respect, the split between socialists, conservatives, liberal democrats and nationalists is less important than that between Westminster, Cardiff and local authorities. It has been shown that local government is more efficient than central government, yet it is virtually certain that town hall will be called upon to make greater cuts than Whitehall. I like to think that Liberal Democrats, because of our important local government base and our emphasis on governing at the lowest level necessary, would be more discriminating when in power, but there is the Westminster group-think of the civil service to overcome.

The silver lining locally is that Neath Port Talbot is among the best-prepared of local authorities to cope with the restrictions. The former council leader and former chief executive, together with director of finance Derek Davies, anticipated the fall in WAG settlements and planned accordingly. Even so, their figures for 2011/12 & later may be optimistic, and the effect of the Icelandic bank failure has yet to be worked out.

Update: the record of the draft budget debate in the Welsh Assembly is online. Go to http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-chamber/bus-chamber-third-assembly-rop.htm?act=dis&id=152972&ds=11/2009 and search for (F3 key or ctrl/f) “The Draft Budget”.

British Waterways have arranged a seminar for Neath Port Talbot councillors for next Monday on the subject of the Swansea, Neath and Tennant canals. One trusts that the Port Tennant Navigation Company will be represented, so that we can learn what the company’s intentions for the future of the Tennant Canal are.

If any constituent has an interest in the canal, and wants information they cannot get from other sources, or has a matter they wish to raise, please let me know by Sunday evening.

In the annual round of bids for works to be carried out by the County Borough in the next financial year, I have stressed the importance of speed reduction measures on Cwmbach Road. I pointed out that these had been scheduled and withdrawn twice in the last ten years, and that Cadoxton was alone among similar-sized wards in not having any physical traffic-calming measures.

I also asked for the parking restrictions in Bryn Catwg to be extended to cover the bend at the bottom, which is where they are most needed.

There will be a meeting covering the NEATH/DULAIS VALLEYS tomorrow, Tuesday 6th October, at Llangatwg Comprehensive, starting at 17:30. More details here.

The county borough is looking for people (other than its own staff) to put their web-site through its paces: http://www.neath-porttalbot.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=5443

Apologies by the way for a dearth of posts here over the last few weeks, caused by seasonal illness and then maintenance on the computer hosting “mycouncillor” sites.

I don’t normally post national issues here, but since Councillor Alun Llewelyn, my opponent at the next general election, challenged us Liberal Democrats with the phrase across the council chamber yesterday, I felt I had to respond here.

Whichever party forms the government after the general election, “savage cuts” is going to be the headline this time next year, even in The Sun. (I am assuming that the recovery is clearly under way by then; we agree with Labour that a recession is no time to be cutting public expenditure. We await the Conservative approach, at their upcoming conference. So far, it looks as if they would cut regardless.)  The difference between us and the government (which Plaid supports in the Welsh Assembly) is that Nick Clegg and Vince Cable call cuts what they are; New Labour prefers to use words like “challenges”, “hard choices” and “difficult decisions”. But it comes to the same thing in the end.

Someone is going to have to pay for the bill which Gordon Brown is set to bequeath taxpayers. Twelve years of lax financial controls contributing* to  a financial crash, in turn resulting in heroic public borrowing to finance “trickle-down” through the banks, will leave us with much more national debt than inherited by Labour when it came to power in 1997.

There is also a danger that Britain’s relatively strong standing in sovereign debt markets over recent years could suffer. As the FT puts it: “The risk is that the UK will slip back to its 1970s and early 1980s pariah-status in government bond markets, leaving the next government struggling to fund huge levels of borrowing”. The gnomes of Zürich will have to be appeased by timely repayment of debt or by evidence of a serious attack on the public sector.

*Brown and Darling claim that the UK was swept along on a financial tide over which they had no control. However, in other contexts they are proud to acknowledge (rightly) the centrality of London as a financial centre. It should also be pointed out that one of the culpable banks, RBS was valued as the fourth largest in the world after its takeover of Dutch ABN-Amro before the crash. If the government had acted on the warning signs in 2005/6 by curbing irresponsible lending (and investing), the Americans, with the larger economy, might have taken notice and followed suit.

The Welsh Assembly seems to have consulted local councils on a Legislative Competence Order, relating to community councils, as an afterthought. Certainly, they did not allow for the fact that many community councils do not meet in the month of August. As it was, the request for comments came before us on Blaenhonddan Community Council three days after the closing date for submissions.

(A LCO sets out new areas in which the Assembly can make legislation. After approval by the Assembly, it has to go before the Welsh Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons and the Lords’ Constitution Committee. It has to be approved by Westminster before becoming law.)

Our clerk, Mavis Hewitt, was directed to write to the National Assembly protesting at the short time allowed for comments but not making any other observations at this time. It is probably as well that we did not discuss the proposal, because, I sensed, there was a clear division between those of us who would welcome a necessary devolution of power to Cardiff and (mostly Labour) councillors who are happy to see Westminster continuing to dictate how community councils in Wales should be run. I admit to having a little pop at the expensive and ludicrous LCO procedure devised by Labour Welsh Office ministers, but none of the Labour members rose to the bait.

Blaenhonddan tonight took advantage of the advent of new co-optees (E. Riby & Mrs P.Phillips from Bryncoch South, J Topper from Aberdulais, Mrs D.Richards from Cilfrew and A.Harvey & M.Davies from Bryncoch North) to expand the Open Spaces committee. Messrs Riby & Harvey are to join, though Mike Teague felt he had to step down.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday in Caewern when the long-awaited playground inspection reports will be discussed. First glance suggests that our worst fears have not been realised, but there are enough warnings to concern us.

It’s good to see the Crown & Sceptre in the Good Beer Guide 2010. The CAMRA guide states: “the popular local has an excellent reputation for its ale and freshly cooked food. As well as the à la carte menus, there is a wide range of bar meals on offer. Thai chicken and fillet steak pie are among the favourites.”

Don’t forget the PACT meeting at 18:30 in Llangatwg School tomorrow night. Details are at http://www.ourbobby.com/EN/PACT/Meetings.aspx?n1=1&n2=10&n3=121&n4=191&n5=1893&id=165.

This is a reminder that a single non-emergency telephone number came into force throughout Wales last spring, following a successful pilot in Cardiff. This was a joint enterprise by Cardiff City Council and South Wales Police.

As major beneficiaries of reducing the strain on the regular emergency number, the police forces of Wales are sponsoring a major PR campaign throughout the nation to make the facility better-known.

The Finance Meeting scheduled for 14 September 2009 has been cancelled and will now be held on Monday 5 October 2009.

It’s good to see the county borough council extending its WWW presence. Too many people outside the borough believe that it is totally industrial, whereas residents know that the truth is the opposite.
The new web site has the identifier http://www.visitnpt.co.uk/. Walking is well covered, with a booklet of routes in the county borough being downloadable from the site. In case readers of this blog don’t know, there are also pocket guides of local walks produced by Blaenhonddan Community Council and the Friends of Craig Gwladus. Copies should be available in Neath & Port Talbot civic centres, some of the Blaenhonddan community centres and at the Aberdulais Falls visitor centre.

Belated congratulations on an award in the Queen’s Birthday Honours this year which I was not aware of, until it was announced by the mayor at yesterday’s meeting of Neath Port Talbot council:
Peter Ricketts, Chairman, Neath and Tennant Canals Trust. MBE. For services to heritage conservation in Wales.

Both I and Bryncoch South councillor Tony Wyn Jones have expressed our concern to the council about the prolonged closure of the access from the Tennant canal footpath to Neath town centre via Bridge Street. Although the old bridge is actually situated in Bryncoch South, many residents of Cadoxton like to walk into Neath via the canal.

We have now been told that work to repair the bridge structure, the damage to which by hooligans was the cause of the closure, will be carried out.

Contrary to my understanding, and no doubt that of many residents, the bridge is neither a registered right of way nor owned by the council. It is part of trunk road land and managed by the South Wales Trunk Road Agency, who delegate the maintenance under contract to Neath Port Talbot CBC. A complication is that it is a listed structure, and CADW has to approve work carried out on it.

If you have been accosted in Neath town centre by someone asking this question, you should be aware that the person approaching you has broken the law. The Ministry of Justice and/or Neath Port Talbot trading standards are interested to hear of any such breaches.

It is perfectly legal (provided no by-laws are being broken) to set up a stand and offer your legal services if you are approached, but not to importune passers-by.

With the first phase of the switch to digital TV from the Kilvey Hill, when the existing BBC-2 service will be switched off, only a week away, it is important not to be taken in by con-merchants. If you haven’t already purchased a digital-ready TV, you will need at least to acquire a “set-top box” to convert the signal. These are relatively cheap, and people in certain categories can have the necessary equipment provided free of charge. The public protection unit of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council is up to speed on this, as they reported to our scrutiny committee yesterday. Age Concern, as well as other voluntary organisations, can also provide assistance without obligation.

There is a useful leaflet available in various outlets, including council offices, and from trading standards. For specific questions about the switchover, phone 08456 50 50 50 or visit digitaluk.co.uk.

If you feel you have been misled, contact Consumer Direct Wales on 08454 04 05 06 or visit www.consumerdirect.gov.uk.

The local branch of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is organising a walk along the Neath Canal tomorrow morning. It starts from Resolven, meeting in the car park by the canal (postcode SA11 4DW), at 10 a.m. Beginners and new members are welcome, though weatherproof clothing and good sound footwear are recommended. No dogs, please.

More details at www.rspb.org.uk/groups/westglamorgan/events/.

Council yesterday appointed Steven Phillips, currently a corporate director with Cardiff City Council, to replace Ken Sawyers when he retires in October. Steve is from Llanelli. He has a wide range of experience in public service and is clearly going to provide a safe pair of hands.

There was a reminder of the floods of five years ago last Saturday. Thankfully, the rain eased overnight, or Cadoxton might again have been impassable.

The council refuses to clear the grids along Cadoxton Terrace and Caegroes Terrace on the grounds that the roads behind the terraces are unadopted, which seems bizarre. Rather more likely is the informal suggestion that they don’t clean them out because they fill up again too quickly.

My excuse for publishing this picture of boys and girls from all over South Wales enjoying Kwik Cricket during the lunch interval of the second day of the test match against the Australians in Cardiff is that there are probably one or two children from Catwg Primary in there somewhere.

The community council is sent a copy of the annual report of the West Glamorgan county archivist. I was lucky enough to be first in the queue to see the 2008-9 report, and fascinating reading it is too.

Most of the features are Swansea-orientated, since that is where the HQ is based, but the Neath Antiquarian Society and the Neath access point (in the Mechanics Institute) get their fair share of coverage. Visitor numbers have increased across West Glamorgan (Port Talbot 22%, Neath 29%, Swansea 32%) in the last year to a new record of 11,080.

An exciting development is West Glamorgan’s trialling in Wales of a software package, ParseCat. This should enable the creation of an online archive down to item level, eventually linked to the all-Wales collection level catalogue.

Other items which caught my eye were the opening up of the Neath Abbey Ironworks archive, the documentation of Neath’s awarding the freedom of the borough to Liberal PM David Lloyd George in 1918, and the acquisition of historic records of Neath Borough Council, Neath Rural District Council and of Dwr-y-Felin school going back to the 1890s. The archive has also been given the vouchers and correspondence of the Vale of Neath Dinas Fire Brick and Cement Company, 1886-1919. I would be interested in any further information on the latter, previously unknown to me.

When I was first elected to the county borough council last year, one of the first things I did was to make noises about the amount of money which was to be spent on refurbishing Victoria Gardens. Certainly the bandstand needs restoring to its original splendour, but surely the bill for that would be less than a quarter of the million-pound-plus sum quoted. Don’t worry, I was told, the funding from Europe and the lottery is assured, and none of the cost will fall on the council taxpayer.

Now it appears from this story in the Neath Guardian that the funding is not so certain after all.

In another development, local disabled activists claim that the bus stands, remodelled only a few years ago, do not comply with current Disability Discrimination  Acts.

On the latter point, I would like to see the buses moved alongside the rail station, forming a disabled-friendly integrated public transport interchange.

When members on the Planning & Development Committee forget about party & group loyalties and concentrate on the merits of each application, as the law requires, then there are usually satisfactory outcomes.

Yesterday, we saved a bio-diverse tree-covered mound in Waunceirch from being flattened. There was also a vote against an application by Prenergy to vary a condition in the approval for their proposed woodchip-burning power-station in Port Talbot which would involve, members felt, some significant “creep” in terms of proximity and noise.

There was even some joy for those who object to any privileges for councillors: there were no biscuits in the members’ room kitchenette yesterday!

Council endorsed two papers - on the strategy for older people, and on open space policy - and heard that ex-leader, Derek Vaughan, will take his seat in the European Parliament on 14th July.

There was nothing to object to in the strategy papers, but Cllr John Warman (Liberal Democrat, Cimla) took the opportunity of his response to draw attention to the continuing ageism on the part of employers, even though it was against the law. He also begged the medical profession and NHS administrators to cease compartmentalising patients by age, but instead to use purely medical criteria for treating people.

On the subject of open spaces, John recalled the pioneering legislation of the post-war Attlee (our greatest prime minister) government. Alun Llewelyn (Plaid Cymru, Ystalyfera) put in a word for the work done by community councils - then spoiled the pitch by complaining about the state of footpaths in his area. Ystalyfera CC needs to visit Cadoxton and other Blaenhonddan villages to see what can be done when a community council takes the initiative in this area.

In his summing-up, council leader Ali Thomas alluded to the difficulties created by private owners of land crossed by footpaths and bridle-ways. There is no doubt that some individuals are trying to put footpaths out of use, and the council needs to be perpetually vigilant,  but I would like him to have balanced this negative with the positive attitude of companies like Tennant Navigation.

It would have been good to hear how Councillor Vaughan intends to look after his Neath North constituents from Brussels and Strasbourg. It is a large ward, and, while there is no doubting the capabilities of Manny Loaring, Derek Vaughan’s Labour co-councillor, it will mean that one councillor will have to do the work of two for the foreseeable future.

In a press release, the new MEP stated that he would resign from the County Borough Council when the next general election is called in order, he said, to save the cost of a separate by-election. Well, a press release does not the same status as a formal statement to his fellow council members and we still don’t officially know Cllr. Vaughan’s intentions. Besides, releasing information to the media in advance of, or even instead of, reporting to council is at variance with the standards at Westminster which the new Speaker seeks to establish.

No voter has called for an election to fill the vacancies left by the resignation of six Plaid Cymru members a month ago. Accordingly, the council has resolved to co-opt people to bring the council up to strength. The clerk has advertised the vacancies in the community, calling for volunteers to put their names forward before mid-day on Friday, 10th July.

Members must have lived within the community or 3 miles of its boundaries for the last twelve months. There is no requirement for co-opted members to come from the wards which have been vacated. There are also work and land ownership qualifications*.

The current state of the parties on Blaenhonddan CC is Labour 8, Plaid Cymru 3, Liberal Democrat 1. There are no independents.

[Later] I have now seen the advertisement. It emphasises that applicants must be prepared to stay on for the full three years which the council has left to run.

*A person is qualified to be a Councillor if he or she is a British subject, a Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Irish Republic; if on the relevant day is 21 years of age or over; has during the whole 12 months preceding that day occupied as owner or tenant any land or other premises in the parish, or his principal or only place of work during those 12 months has been in the parish; or during the whole of these 12 months has resided in the parish or within three miles of it. (This is my understanding of the law and should not be taken as definitive - if in doubt, consult the clerk.)

There was a brief ceremony at the Neath Civic Centre to initiate Armed Forces Week locally. The week culminates in a service in St Mary’s church in Swansea.

Party colleagues Des Sparkes and Keith Davies could not attend for personal reasons, but it was good to see John Warman and neighbouring councillors Doreen Jones (Labour, Aberdulais) and Tony Wyn Jones (Plaid, Bryncoch South) there.

I couldn’t resist linking to this vintage Pathé 1945 general election short, even though it has no local interest (apart from the Welsh dragon flag in the background!). It is of Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberal leader in 1945, reminding the voters of the progressive policies which the Liberal Party had introduced - the secret ballot, health & unemployment insurance and free education, for instance. Labour did a lot between 1945 and 1949, but it is easy to forget how the foundations had been laid by Liberal governments, and by Liberal thinkers like Keynes and Beveridge.

Sinclair lost his seat of Caithness & Sutherland in that Labour landslide. Perhaps he didn’t campaign too hard locally, relying on a “promise by Sinclair’s Conservative opponent to resign his seat in Sinclair’s favour if he won. Needless to say, the promise went unfulfilled” (Liberal Democrat History Group biography). The beneficiary (if that’s the correct word) as leader of the Liberal Party was Clement Davies, member for Montgomery, now held by Lembit Öpik.

Alcohol abuse is the next “task-and-finish” project to be tackled by Neath Port Talbot’s Social Services Health and Housing Scrutiny Committee. A reminder of this comes from a report in today’s Daily Post (the equivalent of the Western Mail in North Wales) that there has been a large rise in the number of mid-teens girls being found drunk and disorderly.

Locally, there has been some discussion about the designation of alcohol-free zones (AFZs). Children’s playgrounds and other open spaces would be prime candidates. One has already been established in Skewen (in Coedffranc community) at the suggestion of the police, who were obviously confident of supervising it. This is the sticking point: these zones work only if the police are able and willing to patrol them. So far, we don’t know the attitude of the police to AFZs in Cadoxton, or in Blaenhonddan generally.

If people feel there is a case for a local defined area to be designated an AFZ, the next PACT meeting (July 14th at Llangatwg School) would be a good time to raise the matter with the police.

The first monthly meeting since chairman Dick Matthews’ “mission statement” was held tonight. There will be a full press release which, hopefully, will be replicated on the council’s official web-site.

There was an above-average turnout for the European Parliamentary elections from Cadoxton, which is gratifying. Back-of-the-envelope calculations at the verification at Cwrt Herbert last night suggest that wards which return Labour councillors had lower turnouts, implying that the Labour vote was well down. Well, we shall all know on Sunday night when the count finally takes place, roughly synchronously with the rest of Europe.

I was unable to attend the session earlier today, when the official turnout figures for both Aberavon & Neath were announced. I was in the Cardiff Justice Centre attending a hearing in which our council was able to extend a court order preventing the release to the public of certain papers from an earlier child custody case. Judge Sais Llewelyn’s summing-up suggested to me that some documents concerning the principle of the case (without mentioning names)  may be revealed, but I am not a lawyer and will be guided by senior colleagues who are legally advised. Any further developments will be published on the local party web-site.

(With apologies to those who have already done so, in person or by post.)

As the Oberver puts it in last Sunday’s leader: “The worst possible consequence would be mass abstention. Failure to vote this Thursday risks ceding the field to a tiny minority of well-mobilised zealots - the racist BNP and scarcely less fanatical Ukip.”

Of course, while I hope that most people will cast their ballot based on European issues, there will be a large number who will use it to pass judgment on the Gordon Brown’s government, and the greed of MPs in both the major parties. In the absence of an overdue general election, that would be a valid decision, in my opinion.

The writer concludes: “it is the expenses scandal that will decide how most Britons vote on Thursday. While MPs from all parties are tainted, the parties themselves are not equally guilty. A credible record of support for transparency and for constitutional reform reflects well on Nick Clegg’s team.”

I would only add that this goes for Liberal Democrat MEPs as well as the Westminster party.

Economic Recovery

Sharon Bowles’ (South East) work is primarily on financial regulation, company law and intellectual property rights - but she has also ranged out to issues including mobile phone roaming and sport. During the financial crisis she has championed economic recovery and banking safety, which affects everyone now feeling the effects of the recession.

Fairer Fishing

Elspeth Attwooll (Scotland) is a spokesperson on fisheries and a vice-chair of the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee. Over the years, she has worked hard for more regional input and control over fisheries management, arguing for a Common Fisheries Policy in which local fishermen are fully engaged.

An Efficient and Democratic Europe

Andrew Duff (East of England, & leader of the LibDem MEPs) has led the Liberals in the battles to strengthen the European Union. He is a key figure in the campaign for a more modern, efficient and democratic Europe. Andrew also works to build up the security and defence dimension of the EU.

Avoiding Climate Chaos

Graham Watson (South West) has been leader of the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) Group since 2002, speaking up for European trade that is free but fair, migration that is productive but coordinated, and anti-climate change measures that are tough but achievable.

Improving Access to Justice

Diana Wallis (Yorkshire & the Humber) is a Vice President of the European Parliament. In that role, she has pressed for a greater transparency of Members’ expenses. Diana has also played a key part in increasing awareness of climate change in the Arctic.

Tackling Cross-Border Crime

Bill Newton Dunn (East Midlands) is campaigning to address cross border crime, including smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants, through allocating power and budgets for a limited number of police to take on the international gangs.

Championing Human Rights

Emma Nicholson (South East) has fought for human rights across the Middle East and in Afghanistan, and has bravely championed the rights of women and children. Emma was chosen to lead the Parliament’s delegation to Iraq.

Curbing Pollution

Chris Davies (North West) has played a major role in toughening legislation to curb pollution, and in improving the safety of potentially toxic chemicals. He also played a key role in introducing multi-billion euro support for developing techonology to reduce emissions of global warming gases.

Promoting Renewable Energy

Fiona Hall (North East) has fought hard for more energy efficiency and renewable energy in order to reduce carbon emissions, improve energy security and create green jobs. She was the Liberal group’s negotiator on the Renewable Energy Directive, under which 15% of the UK’s energy is set to come from renewable sources by 2020.

It has been remarked that our official European Election Communication for the South Wales West region is too negative and parochial. Therefore, in these last few days before the election next Thursday, I shall post a brief description of what our existing MEPs have done and hopefully will be re-elected to continue to do. Their work would be reinforced by the election of one or two Liberal Democrats from Wales.

Tackling Discrimination

Liz Lynne (West Midlands) has worked to secure new measures to outlaw discrimination in areas from existing law. Liz has worked on employment legislation. As Agriculture spokesperson, Liz is active in helping the farming community, most recently over sheep tagging.

Stopping Torture and Rendition

Sarah Ludford (London) is spokeswoman on justice and human rights. She instigated and served as vice-chair of the European Parliament’s inquiry into EU governments’ complicity in CIA “rendition” and torture. She strongly backs European co-operation to tackle crime, terrorism and illegal immigration.

Since posting the item about replacement of bus shelters last year, I have found that the maintenance has improved such that the brick shelters are now consistently clean, no further pressure to speed their replacement has been put on me and, indeed, one constituent has prevailed upon me to reverse the decision.

I have spoken to the street care people at the Quays and have agreed with them that the money set aside for replacing the facilities by Stanley Place would be better applied to doing something about the rusting bus shelters near the Crown & Sceptre. So one or both of these will be replaced by more up-to-date structures.

In a way it is reassuring that nobody came to the “double-header” councillor surgery this morning. It suggests that there are (a) few problems in the ward (apart from the speeding in Cwmbach Road and the antisocial behaviour near the Lidl supermarket, which people know I have taken on board); (b) constituents who haven’t already voted by post don’t need any more information about the European Parliament before voting next Thursday.

The weather was beautiful and it is understandable that people should want to take advantage of a long overdue fine weekend.

My councillor surgery this coming Saturday (10 a.m. to noon, small hall, Cadoxton community centre) will be the last before the European elections on 4th June. Nick Tregoning, who is on the Liberal Democrats European list, has offered to make himself available for at least part of the session.

So I am happy to take queries on Europe as well as the usual ward business on 30th May.

Ed Davey has written to UKIP leader Nigel Farage to seek an explanation for his party election broadcast’s cavalier way with figures.

The party has issued this rebuttal:

UKIP MYTH OVER UK’s EU BUDGET CONTRIBUTION

UKIP claims that EU membership costs the UK £40m per day. This is nonsense.

 The UK does make a net contribution to the EU, which varies year on year, but this year amounts to around £4bn.  In reality, each person in the UK contributes £67 a year, or £1.29 per week, or 18p a day to the EU budget.

 The EU budget supports agriculture, the environment, research and development,  and infrastructure in poor regions and in countries that until recently were communist dictatorships.

 Liberal Democrats believe that it is right that Britain pays its fair share to invest in the EU single market and in other programmes that benefit Britain and Europe. We believe that reforms to the EU budget and growing prosperity in poorer countries and regions will over time lessen the UK’s budget contributions.

 Britain pays similar amounts into the budget as do other countries of Britain’s size and wealth. It is only right that Britain makes a budget contribution, as we take all the benefits of EU membership, such as the 3 million British jobs linked to trade with other EU countries.[1]

 Government Spending and net EU budget contributions:

 Government spending 2008-09: £623bn, net EU contribution: £3bn[2]
Government spending 2009/10: £671bn[3], net EU contribution: £4.1bn[4] (i.e. 0.6% of total government spending)

[2] Chart 1.1, ‘Pre-Budget Report 2008′ http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/prebud_pbr08_repindex.htm

[3] Chart 1.1, (page 12) ‘Budget 2009: Building Britain’s Future’ http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/Budget2009/bud09_completereport_2520.pdf

[4] Footnote 3 of Table C9 (page 238) ) ‘Budget 2009: Building Britain’s Future’ http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/Budget2009/bud09_completereport_2520.pdf

Lancashire councillor Richard Baum raises an important matter on his blog. When does a prospective employer’s right to know about ones fitness for the job stray into an invasion of ones privacy? A Guardian contributor has taken up the issue of enhanced CRB forms, but it has not otherwise made much of an impact in the national media.

I would be interested to know (in confidence, of course) if anybody here has felt compromised by having to fill in one of these forms.

This is a summary of decisions taken at the Liberal Democrat federal executive committee last Monday:

1. There will be a code of conduct binding on Liberal Democrat parliamentarians and candidates.
2. All Liberal Democrat MPs will support the proposals from Sir Christopher Kelly’s review of MPs’ expenses. There will be no picking and choosing of which of his recommendations to support.
3. Our leader and Chief Whip in the House of Lords will undertake a thorough review of expenses and allowances in the House of Lords.
4. We will end the self-regulation of Parliament.
5. Any Liberal Democrat MP found to have committed serious wrongdoing will have the whip withdrawn and be referred by the party to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

On June 4th, the two polling stations to be used in the ward will be in the Community Centre in Church Road, and in Llangatwg Comprehensive School.

If any Cadoxton elector has not had a poll card from the county borough council notifying him or her of which polling station to visit to cast their vote, please contact me (contact details in the column alongside) or the Electoral Registration office on  (01639) 763180, or see http://www.npt.gov.uk/voting

Verification of the ballot papers will take place immediately following the close of poll. However, because other European nations will be balloted on other days of the week, the count of votes cast in the Neath Port Talbot area will take place on the evening of Sunday, 7th June in common with those other countries.

The overall count for the region of Wales is being coordinated from Haverfordwest.

Please contact me if you have any other queries (but don’t expect me to know by heart the d’Hondt system of distributing votes!).

The vacancy in the cabinet caused by the resignation of Cllr Vaughan and subsequent elevation of Cllr Woolcock has been filled by Cllr Mrs Sandra Miller (Neath East). She assumes the Streetcare and Highways Services portfolio.

Tony Taylor (SDP, Aberavon) takes up the leadership of the council independents group relinquished by Lella James on becoming deputy mayor. His deputy is Bill Walters (Tonna).

I am deputy to Cllr Keith Davies (Coedffranc North) leading the Liberal Democrat group.

There have been some wild public statements about the forthcoming vote on stock transfer, but the Post’s headline today “JUST 11 HOMES FIT TO LIVE IN” must be the most disputable so far. There have been some good ones, from one side trying to frighten tenants with the need for 300% rent rises if they don’t vote “yes”, to claims on the other that the council could retain its housing stock and meet the Welsh Housing Quality Standard without any impact on council finance, ignoring the virtually certain withdrawal by the Welsh Assembly Government of housing grants and assistance on a “no” vote.

You don’t have to be a Labour councillor to realise that the general quality of council housing in Neath Port Talbot is something the county borough can be proud of.  The WHQS is a high one, set some way above mere fitness for habitation, and includes specifications for, e.g., kitchens which go beyond the basics. So council homes can be fit to live in for years to come, given adequate maintenance, without meeting the 21st century WHQS.

There was an interesting presentation to council members last week by Dome, who are the independent consultants preparing the presentation to tenants. Patrick Harkness of Dome stressed that they had no particular commitment to stock transfer; indeed, they were advising Carmarthenshire County Council on a stock retention strategy.

Mr Harkness was closely questioned and I, at least, was reassured that Dome was acting in good faith. He guaranteed that both sides of the argument would be presented fairly, and that unsubstantiated statements, whichever side they came from, would not be included. Also, the Welsh Tenants Federation holds a watching brief.

He also stated that the assured tenancy agreement which was being proposed would comprise the same safeguards as the existing secured tenancy with some additional rights.

There are no families in Cadoxton affected by the upcoming vote. However, if there are any Neath Port Talbot tenants in other wards reading this, my advice would be: don’t believe what you read in the press, nor rely on what even council officers or councillors tell you, but trust the Independent Tenants Advisor.

Councillors John Bryant, Cled Griffin, Martyn Peters, Kay Reed, Linda Ware and Cilla Herdman walked out of the AGM yesterday evening shortly after proceedings had begun. They each handed in letters to the Clerk before leaving. We are yet to be informed of the contents of those letters.

Of the remaining Plaid Cymru councillors, Tony Wyn Jones and Gareth Morgan stayed for the AGM and the monthly meeting which followed, and Janice Dudley was absent,  recuperating after illness.

Cllr Dick Matthews was elected chairman for the year 2009/10, with Cllr Celia Thomas as vice-chairman.

In the spirit of the agreement made by council members in March,  I will not put my gloss on the decisions reached last night but await the agreed media release drawn up by the chairman and clerk.

I will say, though, that the staged walk-out by a group of elected councillors was  disappointing. At the very least, their electors were deprived of representation at a critical point in the council year, when committee members were appointed and other strategic decisions made.

[Later]   The BBC has this, based on a Plaid media release presumably.

The Daily Telegraph reports that “British pensioners” pictured on current BNP electoral leaflets are actually Italian models. Italian photographer Luca Di Filippo confirmed that the elderly couple in the photo captioned ‘we’ve seen how this country has declined’ were actually his parents, who had only ever visited this country as tourists and do not share the views of the BNP.

The Spitfire pictured on the front of the leaflet has been identified as one assigned to the squadron of brave Poles who came over to this country to help defend us against the Nazis.

To complete a trio of mis-firing attributions, UKIP call in aid Winston Churchill on their leaflet. This is the same Winston Churchill who said to an audience in Zürich: “[…] re-create the European Family, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.

More extracts from the Churchill speech are here.

[Update, 2009-5-20] Yet another fake by BNP, using a purloined picture of an ex-guardsmen and putting words into his mouth which he rejects. Liberal Democrat Voice and the Sun’s web-site have the story.

Ali Goldsworthy writes on Freedom Central:

“The 19th May is the last chance for people to get on the electoral register to vote in the European Elections on June 4th.

“The Electoral Commission has an excellent website, explaining how to get on the register in clear, easy to understand steps - but you need to make sure your registration form reaches your local council by the 19th May.

“Getting more people on the electoral register is something people from all parties support.
“Remember if you aren’t on the register you don’t get to have your say - so head along to www.aboutmyvote.co.uk to make sure you aren’t left out.”

If you need a postal vote, contact me or the Electoral Office at Port Talbot Civic Centre.

Apathy and abstention are the friends of the extremists.

The hustings at the Environment Centre in Swansea went well. Having been organised by the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition Cymru, an umbrella organisation representing almost 70 environment organisations and charities, the session concentrated on “green” issues.The opening remarks by the chairman, Phil MacDonald of the Swansea Environment Forum, suggested that feelings might run high, as he looked meaningfully at some members of the audience he obviously knew to be combative. Fears of an Owain Glyndwr-style stooshie were soon eased, though.

Lisa Stevens (Labour) and Evan Price (Conservative) were on the back foot with this audience from the start. Ms Stevens in particular, having to answer for Gordon Brown over the Heathrow expansion and MPs expenses, among other things, was defending the indefensible. Mr Price was articulate, as befits a lawyer; he advanced his arguments clearly and without trimming, but it was a hard line he was promoting.

Our lead candidate, Alan Butt Philip clearly knew his stuff and representing a party long associated with the green agenda had a head-start on all but Plaid’s representative. He was also able to rebut a question citing Kirklees council as better than Liberal Democrat authorities because it was run by Greens, by pointing out that he knew that Kirklees was run by a Liberal Democrat/Green coalition because the leader was a friend of his! I must confess that Jill Evans of Plaid Cymru probably shaded the decision if points were being awarded on the night, if only by virtue of being the only sitting member and thus able to point to green initiatives she had been able to take in the European Parliament.

Thanks to Peter Jones (RSPB) for organising the event.

This was the third hustings in the current Welsh Euro campaign. The pace now picks up, and there will be virtually one hustings event per day.

The next chance locally to meet the candidates will be at Swansea Guildhall next Tuesday, 19th May, at 19:00, in an event organised by the  Committee of the European Movement. There is also a session next week at the Hay Festival.

That Q&A session has been confirmed for next week. From the Stop Climate Chaos web-site:

Stop Climate Chaos Cymru invites you to a question and answer session with some of the candidates for the European Union Parliament elections.

Tuesday 12 May at 7.30pm
The Environment Centre, Pier Street, Swansea (near the Marina)

Speakers:

• Evan Price (Conservative)
• Lisa Stevens (Labour)
• Alan Butt Philip (Lib-Dem)
• Jill Evans, MEP (Plaid Cymru)

Chair:
Phil McDonnell, former Environment Centre Manager and now independent environment consultant.

All are welcome, tea and coffee will be available.

Organiser: Peter K Jones 02920 353 013 (peter.jones@rspb.org.uk)

The next “In the Pink” waterway walk in aid of breast cancer research will be on Sunday 10th May. Details here or at Clinton Cards in Neath.

The elections for the European parliament are less than a calendar month away. (That’s for the UK; we are holding our Euro elections on Thursday, which is traditional here. Other nations will use different days of the week. If your connection is fast enough, you can interrogate a map here.)  I have added a link in the left-hand column.

There are positive reasons for voting Liberal Democrat on June 4th. Wales currently has no Liberal Democrat MEP, yet the Liberal grouping in Europe is the third largest in the European Parliament. I believe it is important that there is a Welsh voice in this influential group.

Liberal Democrat MEPs have already made their mark with campaigns in the European Parliament. Some have been successful, and I hope to detail these between now and June 4th. However, others have failed: reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, the misuse of MEPs’ expenses and the wasteful duplication of parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg come to mind. More Liberal Democrat MEPs would give a boost to these campaigns.

Then there is the big negative reason for making sure you vote for a progressive party. As a fellow Liberal Democrat councillor in Lancashire, Richard Baum, puts it: “the European elections and their different system of voting to normal gives fringe parties like the BNP much more of a chance of winning a seat and a voice than local and general elections. If for no other reason, we should use our votes to stop racist extremists like them from gaining undue exposure.”

Peter Hain, Neil Kinnock, John Prescott and other Labour MPs have similarly warned of these dangers. There are those, for instance Jonathan Calder and Peter Black, who see this purely as a move to frighten their core voters into the polling booth. It is a mathematical impossibility for BNP to win a Welsh seat, Peter reckons. Well, nobody knows how far the Labour vote is going to fall on June 4th. If there is a catastrophic fall for Labour, then BNP could well step into the breach. Moreover, there is a considerable racist element to the Labour vote: witness the constituency which Borders and Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas, was appealing to in his statement against the Gurkhas last month.That vote, disappointed by New Labour’s economic performance, could well switch to BNP. We are fighting the BNP and apathy.

On a more positive note: there will be a chance to see candidates from all four main parties next week in Swansea. According to yesterday’s Evening Post, there will be a debate at 19:30 on May12th at the Environment Centre in Swansea. The Post reports that the debate is being organised by Stop Climate Chaos Cymru, but at the time of writing there is no confirmation on their web-site.

It was good to see people from all parties at yesterday’s celebration of the life of Sir Samuel Evans on his 150th anniversary. Liberal Democrats, as successors in Sir Samuel’s Liberal lineage, were naturally well to the fore. There was a chance to see Kirsty again, for  the first time for me after her election as leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. However, there were present also other parties’ parliamentarians, both from Cardiff and Westminster.

The first part of the celebration was in the parish church which Sir Samuel, as a non-conformist, probably didn’t attend until he was buried in its yard, and the second afterwards for tea and cakes in the school which he certainly did attend. It is now Neath Abbey school, but was then known as the Quaker School. Coincidentally, it was also the first school of David Melding, with whom I had crossed swords in the Vale of Glamorgan in the first Welsh Assembly elections. (Of the four main candidates in the Vale that year, three got into the Assembly and are still there: Jane Hutt, Chris Franks and David Melding.)

It was good to see Mr Melding again and have the first conversation since the Vale declaration. We were joined by Robert King, local historian and genealogist. Talk soon turned from Sir Samuel in particular to heritage in general. There was cross-party agreement that not enough was being done in South Wales in general to preserve and promote our Victorian and industrial heritage. 

In Neath Port Talbot, there has been no replacement for Clive Reed as museums officer. Nobody officially tours the schools, as he once did, explaining the part which this area of the country played in the Industrial Revolution. Not only industrial sites, but also remains going back to Roman times, are neglected.

Apologies for the delay in presenting the news from the special council meeting yesterday. When I reached home after the meeting, I heard the news of the success of Nick Clegg’s motion in the Commons on justice for the Gurkhas, and the resulting flurry of emails and blogs rather side-tracked me.

As expected, Cllr Pam Thomas (Sandfields West) will step up from deputy mayor to mayor of the county borough next month.  Her deputy will be Cllr Lella James (Sandfields East). This has to be the first occasion in the history of the county borough, and probably of the boroughs before it, when both the mayor and deputy are women.

There were emotional moments as tributes were paid to Cllr Derek Vaughan (stepping down as leader because of the Euro elections) and Colin Preece (retiring as head of social services), and both made moving speeches.

Chief Executive Ken Sawyers took the opportunity to announce that he would also be retiring in September.

Another surprise was a contested vote on the uprating of members’ special responsibility and other allowances by around 2.5% as recommended by the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales. However, Cllr Tony Taylor (SDP, Aberavon) failed to move the majority of councillors in spite of a heartfelt plea to have regard to the cold economic climate outside the walls of the council chamber. 32 voted for the uprating, 16 of us were against and there was 1 absention.

Finally, away from the grim business of politics, the mayor had pleasure in congratulating Steffan Morris, a 17-year-old cellist from Neath, on winning Texaco Young Musician of Wales 2009.

On Wednesday, the council will decide on the mayor and deputy mayor of the county borough for 2009/10. The Mayor will be inaugurated at the Princess Royal Theatre in Port Talbot on Friday 15th May.

St John the Baptist Church, Neath Abbey, will welcome the great and good of Wales next Sunday, 3rd May* at 14:30, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Sir Samuel Thomas Evans, a great lawyer, important politician and freeman of Neath. More details from Cllr Keith Davies (kdaviesnpt@hotmail.com). (By the way, we are still interested in finding any descendants, direct or collateral, of Sir Samuel.)

Friday, 9th May, sees the start of the 8-day Neath Festival. A brochure of events is already available from council offices and the festival should feature on the council’s website nearer the day.

Finally, Asthma UK starts nine days of green-themed fundraising on Friday. I’m delighted to see that the brilliant Cerys Matthews is adding her support to the campaign with the words: “It’s not hard to imagine how very frightening it is to be unable to breathe. For younger children the feeling must be even more scary as it’s hard to understand why you can’t breathe and panic can exacerbate the situation so it’s a vicious circle. I am supporting Asthma UK’s Putting Asthma in the Limelight campaign to encourage children who suffer from asthma to get to know how best to deal with their illness and hopefully to help them avoid having attacks in the future.”

*Note corrected date for the anniversary service.

It’s now official: Cllr Vaughan will give up the leadership of Neath Port Talbot County Borough while he is fighting the Euro election as lead candidate on the Labour list. I have paid tribute elsewhere to Cllr Vaughan’s qualities in driving our council, but you don’t have to take my word for it. His election by his fellows as leader of the Welsh Local Government Association, and holding on to the deputy leadership after the change in political balance of the WLGA last year, say it all.

There is no clear successor on the Labour benches. Indeed, the Neath Guardian names seven possible candidates.

Hopefully, Derek Vaughan will be accepted back as leader after Labour is soundly beaten in June’s elections.

The “comments wall” is up and running on the county borough’s web-site.

I’m pleased to see that among the comments registered after the Neath Valley consultation are: “More needs to be done to ‘market’ the area.” and: “An improved Canal network may improve tourism throughout the valley.” To that I would add that a footpath network would do the same. There were suggestions that the borough should capitalise on its historical sites, not only relating to ancient history, but also to industrial history, to which Neath Abbey made a unique contribution.

Traditionally, it’s off to the seaside with our buckets and spades for party conferences, but this weekend we are spending in Cardiff. Judging by tonight’s party political broadcast, and this foretaste of Kirsty’s speech, it should be an aggressive start to our European election campaign.

The most important debate to my mind will be that on alcohol abuse, though no doubt the media will concentrate on those in which will most embarrass the Plaid/Labour coalition government, particularly on tuition fees. Mainstream TV is ignoring the conference (for some strange reason the broadcasters think that some skirmishes on the rugby field or the green baize will be more interesting than a load of politicians making speeches in the Angel Hotel), but there is coverage on S4C of the morning session.

However, I understand there will be plenty of tweets from the conference (whatever they are).

I have mixed feelings about rallying through Welsh forests, but if the story on Freedom Central is true, that the Welsh Assembly Government is one-sidedly breaking a contract by withdrawing financial support from Wales GB Rally, then WAG has acted irresponsibly and thoughtlessly.

Following its success in Cardiff, the 101 facility has been rolled out throughout Wales. The Labour government having withdrawn central funding, the police authorities are bearing the cost, but it is to be hoped that a more equitable funding arrangement can be arrived at. After all, it is not only police time which will be saved by 101 Cymru.

The BBC’s take is here.

It’s always worth checking the council’s official site. Today features something close to my own personal interests: a request for data on urban bats.

“The Bat Conservation Trust with support from Neath Port Talbot Council and Neath Port Talbot Biodiversity Forum are running an urban bat survey this summer.  It is hoped that the survey will form part of one of the biggest surveys of urban bats in S. Wales undertaken to date.  It will identify hot-spots for bat activity, which in turn could help with their conservation as all 17 species of UK bat are threatened.

“The project aims to get as many people as possible involved in simple bat surveying techniques to collect vital information about our threatened town bats by involving local members of the community.

“People will be asked to:

• come to a training session in April and perhaps again in May, 
• choose/ adopt a 1km²  convenient for them to survey,
• undertake 3 evening surveys from June to September in their chosen 1km^2.”

I hope someone from Cadoxton with more time to spare than I have will take up the challenge. I know there are bats in the area, though I must confess I would have difficulty identifying the species.

“Costing the Earth: A Burning Solution” on Radio 4 tonight (repeated Thursday lunch-time) looks at the sustainability of wood-burning. Among the examples examined is the biomass power station to be built in Port Talbot.

To see the implications of the Labour government’s proposals, have a look at this spoof web-site.

With the Euro elections fast approaching, David Peter has a relevant comment here.

As foreshadowed in an earlier posting, the county borough’s social care, health and housing scrutiny committee repaired to Ysbryd y Mor on Aberavon seafront yesterday to quiz invited witnesses about their experiences and views on the future of community health councils (CHCs). The exercise was prompted by proposals from Edwina Hart(pdf), WAG’s health minister.

Considering this was a new experience for many of us (including myself), I thought we acquitted ourselves pretty well. We elicited a good body of evidence which Neil, one of our scrutiny officers, is thrashing into shape as the basis of our report to cabinet. It would be inappropriate to comment in detail until that report is published as part of council papers, so I’ll restrict myself to two comments. First, that we did not have any really hostile witnesses yesterday, so we didn’t have to work too hard. With that introduction behind us, I would expect our questioning to be more incisive when necessary in future investigations. Secondly, it was a rewarding day, but deceptively draining. I slept easily last night!

The computer to which these Liberal Democrat councillor blogs have been transferred has behaved impeccably so far (unlike its predecessor, which was overloaded and tended to switch itself off gratuitously), so I am seriously applying myself to writing up the backlog of items to be noted here.

“Catching up” was an apt description of what I was doing at Catwg school recently. Under a new initiative, governors are ‘linked’ to particular responsibilities or subject areas. The linked governor takes an interest in and gains more detailed knowledge of their area, getting the body of governors more involved in the school without all of us having to know everything about every subject. When subjects were being allocated, IT was a natural for me as it has been my speciality for most of my working life. (It also avoided me having to take on a subject in which my formal education had finished over a generation ago!) However, I was aware that my own specialisation had become narrower and narrower, and that the world of information technology had moved on since my last proper programming course.

So it was with some trepidation that I went to the school last week to be briefed by Mrs Maunder, the school’s information technology specialist. I need not have worried, as Mrs Maunder gave me a very clear and thorough exposition of the application of IT in the school. The first thing to be remarked on was the way that IT was integrated virtually seamlessly into every other subject, and taken on board by the other teachers.

However, there was one constant from twenty years ago: LOGO. Those of us who bought Amstrad PCWs with their green screens and 3″ exchangeable disks all those years ago, mainly to do basic word-processing,  will remember the bonus of a simple programming language which moved a “turtle” round the screen. As an introduction to the concept of programming, it has proved very hardy, especially when married to a real object to be manoeuvred round its little corral. I could even remember some of the instructions after all this time!

Gerard Morgan-Grenville died last Wednesday. There is a BBC obituary.

Just a short note to say that Thursday afternoon’s Audit Committee was able to satisfy itself that the dire predictions in some quarters that 90% of councils’ deposits in Icelandic banks was lost were a long way from reality. It does look as if all Neath Port Talbot’s investment in one of the banks is recoverable, and probably most of the rest. More anon.

The Welsh Assembly Government Health Minister, Edwina Hart, has put forward proposals to “strengthen” the CHCs. Basically, the idea is to reduce the number in line with the reduction in the number of Local Health Boards. The detailed proposals, and request for individual comments, are here.

Neath Port Talbot council has also been requested to make comments. The Social Care, Health and Housing scrutiny committee has decided to investigate the implications and make recommendations to the cabinet. As part of the investigation, we will be inviting representatives of a number of bodies affected to give evidence to us on 8th April in Aberavon. The Patients Association is one of those corporate bodies to be invited to send a rep., but if any individual feels that they have a significant contribution to make, for instance as a result of their experiences with the  existing CHC or Local Health Board, please let me or the chair of the committee, Cllr Sheila Penry, know.

Last Thursday, I joined chairman of the school governors, Bryn John, and a group of parents for an ITC-related evening at Catwg school. PC Mark Harris, schools liaison officer, gave a talk, illustrated by a DVD from CEOP about the dangers of sexual predators on the Internet and other ways in which children could be at risk. The scenarios in the DVD, and some of Mark’s anecdotes, were frightening. There were two messages I brought back from his presentation: parents should get more involved, and that however deeply children were drawn in, it was never to late to tell.

Afterwards, we saw how computers were being used to help children’s learning and spoke to teachers about this. The interactive whiteboards were very impressive.

Coincidentally, Liberal Democrat News next morning reported on a visit by party leader Nick Clegg to Google UK to discuss internet safety.

Update 2009-3-24: Gary Lewis of Maesteg passed on the following items:

Yet again, web safety has hit our TV screens following a situation involving a 12 yr old girl on a chat page.  She was chatting with what she understood initially to be a 13yr old lad, but following the way the chat was going she mentioned it to her teacher at school as they were discussing web safety in school.  The teacher became suspicious and reported it to the police who have now traced it to Holland and believe it may be an older person doing some grooming.

Following this I thought a number of you might have children or grandchildren that could be at risk and hence I believe in making people aware of the situation and hopefully point you to some useful sites.

One mentioned on TV this morning was www.missdorothy.com and the safety page is -
http://www.missdorothy.com/more/safety_tips.php
The above site is more geared to girls but the “rules” are basically unisex, and if anyone finds any other useful sites, if they let me know I will always forward them to others. 

Web safety is paramount.

Another useful site is http://www.getsafeonline.org/ and is well worth a visit if you have any doubts whatsoever.

I hope you found this information helpful, and please feel free to pass it on accordingly.  If you do “forward” the email then please remove any email address that appears on your copy.

Also, when sending an email to several people, it’s better to ‘Bcc:’ the emails rather than send ‘To:’ as then it doesn’t broadcast everyone’s email address to all and sundry.  This preserves each individual’s anonymity and protects their ID from possible spam emails in the future.

It appears that the Westminster government is prepared to remove the Secretary of State’s veto power from the measure which is currently going through parliament. The veto was described as “illegal” by Peter Black AM and caused the Senedd’s presiding officer to journey to London to speak in a Lords debate later today.

I have long had respect for Dr Hywel Francis, Labour MP for Aberavon. This was increased two years ago when he replied personally when I wrote as an ordinary citizen to seek his support for the non-party Sustainable Communities Bill then going through parliament, indicating his enthusiasm for the aims of the Bill (now enacted).

Today in the Commons he asked a question of the Prime Minister: “Many of our six million carers in this country have benefited significantly from the government’s new National Carers Strategy and we should welcome that. However, the carer’s allowance has not been improved. Would my right honourable friend the prime minister agree to meet carers’ organisations, and the all-party carers group, to discuss ways of improving carers’ benefits, as recommended by the work and pensions select committee report last year?”

There were warm words from Gordon Brown in reply. Let us hope that the meeting has a positive result.

On Thursday 12th March there was a working party meeting comprising the whole council which met in camera in order to reach decisions without the possibility of distraction from members of the public. These decisions were brought to the open meeting of the council last night for confirmation.

One of those resolutions was that individual members of the council should refrain from briefing the press, or publishing their views of council decisions on the Web. The chairman and clerk were to produce an official summary of council decisions for media release.

Hopefully, these statements will also appear on the council’s web-site.

Any residents who saw me in the back seat of a police car this morning may rest assured that I was not in custody. Sally, one of our PCSOs, had arranged a lift for me to attend the South Wales Police Monday morning briefing at Neath Police Station.

Video links between Neath, Pontardawe and Port Talbot enable the Chief Inspector to review the work of the police over the division during the previous 24 hours and plan the activities of the day. Monday morning’s session covers the weekend, so it was a good opportunity to get a feel for the range of concerns which the police have. I am grateful for the chance to see the effort that goes in to keeping criminality in Neath Port Talbot in check, and wish to thank all the officers concerned for their friendliness and openness at this morning’s meeting.

I shall shortly be discussing the grass-cutting schedule with the council’s neighbourhood people. I assume last year’s service was satisfactory, because I had no complaints about it.

However, please contact me within the next six days, via the panel on the left, or by phone, if you want to raise any matters concerning grass-cutting in Cadoxton.

Just before Christmas, David Heath - the Lib Dem MP for Somerton and Frome - came second in the ballot for Private Members’ Bills. That means that he has a fighting chance of getting a new Act of Parliament on to the statute book.

On Friday 20 March his chosen measure, the Fuel Poverty Bill, has its second reading in the Commons. You can read more about the thinking behind the bill on the Liberal Democrats website and the Consumer Focus website.

In order for the bill to make progress next Friday, a hundred MPs must take part in the vote following the second reading debate.

So it would help David if you could write to Peter Hain and ask him to turn up and vote for the bill.David’s Bill, if it becomes law, will redress an injustice. Diana Maddock sponsored a previous Private Member’s Bill which, it was hoped, would prevent needless deaths among older people. The Warm Homes & Energy Conservation Act placed a duty on the Government to eradicate all fuel poverty in England by 2016 and among vulnerable groups by 2010.  But a recent High Court judgment ruled that this duty was in effect discretionary, not absolute.  This was a bitter blow – not least to the 4.5 million older people who (as the Association for the Conservation of Energy reports) planned to live in one room this winter to save on fuel bills.

I’m grateful to Jonathan Calder (Liberal England) for the reminder.

Update: Government whips and absentee Tories made  sure that there were insufficient members present to progress the Bill. See Steve Webb’s blog for more information and responses.

There was a useful seminar on the subject of drug abuse, which also touched on alcohol abuse, in the council chamber today. Frustratingly, there was not enough time to cover the complex subjects of harm reduction, needle exchange, health maintenance and the twelve-step programme, even by cutting the subject of alcohol to the minimum. As Cllr Steve Hunt (Seven Sisters) pointed out, alcohol is a much more present danger and deserved a seminar on its own, a call I would support.

Another unfortunate aspect was the scheduling. Morning seminars are always difficult for working councillors to get to, and this one also clashed with other committees on which some members were represented. There were only around a dozen members present at the close of the session. I would hope that we can have a repeat of the exercise at some more convenient time.

to the Federal spring conference in Harrogate is here.

There is a website which displays current and historic pollution data from several sites in the county borough. The industrial hot-spots are well covered, though one wonders whether there ought to be a monitoring station in one of the Neath districts, if only for the purposes of comparison.

Members of the main community council, and a member of the public, were excluded from observing tonight’s finance committee meeting on grounds of confidentiality before a single item had been discussed. Even the Neath Ferret was turfed out and would not even speculate as to the reason for the proceedings being held in camera.

I have my suspicions, but may be totally wrong, so shall not express them before next full council meeting, when we should have a report back from the finance committee.

Assisted by Neil and Stacy, the county borough’s scrutiny officers, and Martin Hamilton, visiting from Cardiff City, the Social Services Health and Housing Scrutiny Committee decided today to go forward with a more pre-emptive form of scrutiny.

Up until now, we have tended to react to papers about to be presented to cabinet, usually to question, occasionally to object, but not being able to make a positive contribution. In future, we will have the option of taking an area of our own choosing and draw up recommendations. Sometimes this will be a subject which we know is due to be considered by cabinet, sometimes one which we feel is due more attention from officers and cabinet. As I understand it, we will still fulfil our duty of scrutinising cabinet reports, but one hopes that, being involved at an earlier stage in policy-making, the scrutiny committee will be presented with fewer of these (and shorter).

We will use a mixture of formal and informal meetings (to both of which, contributors from outside the council may be invited) . Cardiff also has a system of what they call “task-and-finish” groups, where a smaller subset of their committees, typically two or three councillors, takes on an investigation and presents its recommendations to the full scrutiny committee. I had the sense at today’s meeting that members of the ruling group will take some convincing to go down this road, feeling that the whole committee should be involved in all investigations. This apart, there was remarkable cross-party agreement which bodes well for the future.

Our first investigation will be into the implications for Neath Port Talbot of the proposed termination of community health councils in September and the  reduction in number of local health boards. Since we have just over a month to come to a conclusion, we will have to move fast on this one. We plan to hold no more than two meetings and question just a few key stakeholders in camera. However, that doesn’t prevent anyone with a point of view which they feel they need to express contacting the committee. The membership is listed on the county borough’s web pages.

The second investigation will be into alcohol misuse. This has become topical, with the Scottish Parliament’s decision to attempt to price  heavy drinkers out of the market. We should be able to devote more time to this and involve as many interested parties as possible. (Although some fellow committee members say that this is a particular problem for Neath Port Talbot, I note that a motion on the subject has been submitted to the Welsh Liberal Democrat spring conference next month, so we are clearly not unique.)

The outcomes from these two will dictate where we go afterwards. Although we have the examples of Cardiff and Carmarthenshire to look at, there is no substitute for learning from practical experience. The months ahead should be at least interesting, maybe even exciting.

updated with spelling corrections 2009-3-10

Labour unity: http://peterblack.blogspot.com/2009/03/peter-hain-raises-stakes-for-brown.html

Plaid unity: http://peterblack.blogspot.com/2009/03/plaid-cymru-capitulate.html

We don’t claim to be a disciplined party, but Liberal Democrats must surely be in more agreement about key issues.

The county borough director of finance has published the amounts of council tax payable per community. The sums for Blaenhonddan, including the community council precept and the police levy, are as follows:

Band A: £863.09;  B: £1,006.94; C: 1,150.79; D: £1,294.64; E: £1,582.34; F: £1,870.04; G: 2,157.73; H: £2,589.28; I: £3,020.83.

Some comparisons at Band D (the standard basis): Dyffryn Clydach, £1,297.23; Coedffranc, £1,359.20; Tonna, £1,287.43; and the unparished parts of the county borough (mainly the old Port Talbot district): £1,256.94 .

I hold no brief for Plaid Cymru, certainly not on the national scene. Their performance, in coalition with Labour, in the Welsh Assembly Government more than ever convinces me that my party had a lucky escape in not joining them and the Conservatives after the last Assembly elections. However, I admire some of their local members for their tenacity in seeking to improve local government, efforts which transcend mere party politics.

Such is Linda Ware, a councillor in Cilfrew, chairman of Blaenhonddan’s finance committee. This was set up in the teeth of opposition from Labour and my own doubts, seeing where the suggestion was coming from. However, there is little doubt (except from some diehard Labour quarters - witness Cllr Mike Richards’ blizzard of letters in the local press) that the committee has teased out facts and figures which show where improvements could be made to financial performance and accountability. An article in the Neath Guardian, though regrettably concentrating on the most dramatic conclusions of the finance committee, sets out in black-and-white the background to the economic decisions the community council has had to take, and the probable way forward.

There are comparisons with other community councils. None of the figures are made up; they are all in the public domain; and they are attested by the council clerks. The councils are not all that similar, but examining performance in key areas is enlightening. I would like to think that the article would put past arguments to rest, but there are too many whose attitude is: my mind is made up, please don’t confuse me with the facts.

It’s easy to dwell on the negative (Cllr Ware is particularly concerned that every day that Caewern centre is open, or that some of our below-par children’s playgrounds are in use, the risk increases of an accident which could see us corporately guilty of negligence), but I would like to look forward, too. The community has some excellent halls and centres which could be made more use of. Playgrounds are in good settings, and can be made both safer and more attractive. We need more “marketing” of the former and a rolling programme of improvements for the latter. This is not something which can be done all at once, and there is not enough money for planned improvements in 2009/10, but at least we can set in train for 2010/11 and subsequent years.

I am grateful to Cllr John Warman’s “In Touch” column in the current Neath Guardian for this anecdote: “I remember when I was mayor that a resident living in Bombay that used to visit Neath every year to coincide with the fair, such was the atmosphere and the attraction.”

This is prompted by the announcement by the county borough that there is a new website  for residents, visitors and traders at the fair.

Peter calls for political parties to work together, and not use the Deputy Minister for Social Services’ statement last Tuesday as a basis for point-scoring. Full story here.

Labour council leader Derek Vaughan yesterday revealed publicly that Afan Lido is to be upgraded. We on the Liberal Democrat benches have long known of deficiencies in the Lido complex but, as long as the expenditure was contained within the arms-length company, Celtic Leisure, we saw no reason to raise alarm among Neath council tax payers.

There now appears to be a desire to compete with Swansea’s LC2. We will be looking closely at what is proposed, and its impact on council tax. Maintaining the building in a safe condition is one thing, but spending money on a prestige project is something else.

Council agreed the Labour budget yesterday. Given the pressures on councils, it is an amazing achievement to restrict the rise to less than 5%. Even after discussions with Liberal Democrat colleagues, it is difficult to see where the savings are coming from.

Some money is coming from that earmarked for reserves, but only as an emergency to meet a last minute increase in local government workers’ pay just agreed with ACAS (the arbitration service). As council leader Derek Vaughan said yesterday, it would be “economic and financial madness” to spend more from reserves now, given the poor settlements from the Wales Assembly Government foreshadowed for the next five years and that we don’t know what’s coming round the corner in these uncertain times. There is a lesson here for those who want to play party politics and allocate community council reserves to revive superfluous facilities which we have already decided to rid ourselves of.

I personally applaud the Neath Port Talbot cabinet’s determination to withstand pressure from the Plaid/Labour Welsh Assembly Government to make cuts in school provision where it makes no educational sense.

There will be no compulsory redundancies, but implicit in the continuing Job Evaluation exercise are job cuts, which clearly can only be achieved by a mix of early retirements and restrictions on recruiting. I sympathise with the reluctance to fire people in these difficult times. However, I believe it behoves the council to make optimum use of staff time. One hears tales of “Spanish practices” (none of the many council people in this ward are guilty of these, surely?), which must be stamped out for the sake of taxpayers, council clients and those honest workers who have to take up the slack.

Last month, in another place, I suggested that the BNP took advantage of troubled times to stir up race hatred. At the time, I didn’t have the benefit of seeing the literature which the party brought into Neath town centre and assumed that they blamed the Jews and Muslims. The Liberal Democrat party site was deluged with emails protesting that BNP was not anti-Jewish, and indeed had several Jewish members.

I now have sight of the two leaflets which were put out, and it seems I was half-right. The BNP no longer blames Ikey Mo for our troubles, as it, and its predecessor groups, once did. However, the  headline in the “South Wales Patriot” (”The New Plaid. Is THIS What YOU Voted For? Muslim Plaid AM leads march through Newport to a Mosque in an old chapel”) is clearly slanted against Islam, or at least the practice of Islam in Wales.

Race and religious hatred is not less serious because it is directed against Islam rather than Christianity or Judaism.

The BNP thrive on their most outrageous claims being ignored and taking that as tacit acceptance. So here are my comments on the most objectionable parts of their leaflets “South Wales Patriot” and “Where We Stand”:

“Our major industrial giants like Rover and British Steel and our call centres have been sold off cheap to China, India and former communist countries” BMW almost certainly paid over the odds for Rover, a decision which caused a board-room revolt in Munich. There was competition for Corus; Tata of India outbid a Brazilian company, an outcome which has benefited South Wales. Perhaps the fact that “several top Tata Steel executives were trained at the former British Steel and admire the UK approach to business” (Financial Times) helped the decision to keep most Corus plants either working or on a care-and-maintenance basis, waiting for the upturn. Under the BNP, would those Indian trainees have been allowed to enter the country?

As to the call centres, perhaps the BNP can explain how they are going to turn back the tide of international competition. It will not be through intolerance of non-English people. Where Britons are able to offer unique qualities (good speaking voice, education, sympathy etc.) they are not only retaining call centre jobs but even attracting overseas investors.

“Our gold reserves have been sold to fund a criminal immigration policy”: Gordon Brown’s decision to sell a substantial amount of our gold reserves at the bottom of the market between 1999 and 2002 (an average return of just $275 an ounce; current price $950+) has still not been fully explained, and there should be an inquiry into it. However, since the gold was converted into reserves of other currencies, the sale cannot be said to have funded anything.

Immigration probably makes a profit for the exchequer, and for the black economy, not that either should be a justification for the haphazard way in which government rules are applied.

“we are still pouring millions into the third world countries that have benefited from our bad government”: I wish that either statement were true. There was a flicker of altruism in the early days of NewLabour when overseas aid ceased to be tied to contracts with UK commerce, but aid money seems no longer to go where it is most needed. See this review of ex-ambassador Craig Murray’s revelations, and Private Eye’s occasional exposes of the agencies which channel our aid money.

We benefited hugely from our colonial past. There is a moral duty to share at least some of that wealth (we are still in the top ten of rich nations) with those who are at present much worse off. Even from the point of view of self-interest, raising the standard of living of poorer people abroad reduces their desire to emigrate and their nations’ indebtedness to the international banking system. A little hard currency goes a long way in the Third World.

“Peter Hain is guilty of ’serious’ failures over donations for his deputy leadership campaign. […] We call for him to be sacked.”:  Given that Peter Hain has not been found guilty of a crime which would put him in gaol for over a year, the only people, rightly, who can sack him are the electors of Neath constituency. Personally, I question whether failure to declare donations in purely internal party elections should have been made a crime against the state. It became clear after the campaign that there was a strong reason for the source of donations not to be declared: the fact that one of them came from the director of a company that specialised in sub-prime lending. This would have disturbed the average Labour Party member, like the revelation that one of Peter Hain’s earlier backers was a man who had also contributed to the apartheid regime of the National Party in South Africa, but did not affect the outcome of a national election. As electors, we can form a view of a political party which does not make its election processes transparent to its members.

“Mr Hains basic salary is £63,000 per year. His claim for expenses 2006/07 amounted to £142,012″:  The BNP (wilfully?) makes the mistake of lumping in the cost of secretarial and administrative assistance with his personal reimbursement. His claim for staffing, £86842, does not go into his own pocket and is not even high by Westminster standards - see “They Work For You” web-site. The party would be on firmer ground if they pointed to the first entry in the table on that web page: “Additional Costs Allowance £22,110 (joint 1st)”

“Vote British National Party and you will get none of the above (a series of tendentious representations of Welsh Nationalist and Labour policies which I will leave to any members of those parties who read this blog to rebut). We will endeavour to leave the EU;” to the detriment of businesses who thrive on open markets, at a time when the US is showing signs of protectionism, and of the working conditions of British workers. In fact, there would be no need for “endeavour”; if BNP comes to power in UK, the rest of the EU will almost certainly kick us out.

“We will reopen the mines.” Uneconomic or massively polluting.

“See what chaos there is with Russian gas being cut off;” The UK is not as exposed as some other European nations to Gazprom’s bullying, and we have a third source of natural gas by way of LNG imports through Milford Haven - incidentally providing much-needed work in that quarter of Wales.

“We will send home all economic migrants from Europe so our people can be better off” Free movement of labour within Europe works both ways. We benefit from our people being able to work on the continent and in the Republic of Ireland. When working here, incomers pay our taxes.

“We will not allow foreigners to stand for Assembly and Council seats” Legally, this is already so; one suspects that the BNP is using “foreigners” to stand for language that they are banned from using under anti-discrimination legislation.

“We will ban migrants taking money out of the country” See above about taxes, movement of labour and “a little hard currency going a long way”.

“Aids, TB and other fatal diseases are almost exclusive to immigrants” Some TB has been brought in by people coming from the Indian sub-continent, but this is only one reason for the disease making a come-back. Heterosexually-acquired HIV is higher by a couple of percent among immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa than in the UK population as a whole - but we are talking about no more than 3% among the most at-risk group. There is a good argument for strong border controls if there is a health emergency, but they would have to be even-handed; it is certainly not a reason for a blanket ban on immigrants.

What valid criticisms of the Conservative-Labour-Plaid continuum there are in the leaflets are no reason to vote BNP.  Liberal Democrats are a constructive alternative to the economic policies which have led us into the current state.

Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Kirsty Williams has urged the First Minister to come clean about the discussions he has had with the banks, the UK and the EU over the availability of credit to help Welsh businesses deal with the financial crisis in Wales. An earlier curt reply on the subject from Rhodri Morgan’s office prompted Kirsty to question if the First Minister has made any representations to these institutions, and questioned the capability of the Labour-Plaid government to bring Wales out of this recession.

Details are on the revamped Welsh Liberal Democrat web-site, Freedom Central.

Written in haste, just before yet another meeting (this time of full council) timetabled for early afternoon.

This week’s BBC-2 “Horizon” programme revealed yet another reason for council meetings at 14:30 (in addition to militating against the participation of working people): the human brain/body is programmed to snooze or micro-sleep at that time. Anything can be pushed through a somnolent council.

Peter Black alerts us to a report of another example of how the Plaid Cymru crachach is increasingly divorced from the people who put them into power. There is more on Freedom Central.

There was a useful presentation to members of the county borough council by Charlotte Morgan, Neath Port Talbot’s Health and Safety Officer. The council leads in obtaining independent certification for its H&S policy.

Ms Morgan confirmed that not only council employees, but also contractors working on behalf of the council, were bound by NPTCBC’s health and safety requirements. She encouraged any employee who saw a contractor cutting corners to “blow the whistle” on them.

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, won two awards at the annual Channel 4 Political Awards ceremony  on St Valentines Day. Not only did his peers elect him as opposition politician of the year, but Channel 4 News viewers voted him the award for the person “whose effect on politics has inspired or impressed” them over the previous twelve months.

As Rory Bremner said when awarding him the first award: “He’s the kind of man who gives politicians a good name. If there was a bonus system for politicians, unlike many Vince Cable would be entitled to one, and, unlike many, he would decline it”.

Vince’s reply was: “Thanks, Rory. This is clearly the year of the economy and it’s been an opportunity for the boring economic anoraks to emerge from the shadows, and when I discovered that Robert Peston was not eligible for this award, I saw the road to victory opening up.

“My year got off to a wonderful start. I discovered that I was getting through to parts of the media that no Liberal Democrat had previously reached and it reached its climax with a big feature in a magazine called ‘Hair Salon Weekly’. I think I finally got there, because the ambition I’ve had for many years is to write for a progressive left-wing newspaper on a regular basis and, as some of you may have seen, my wish finally came true this weekend when I launched my column in the Mail on Sunday.

“We enjoy the laughter here, but this is a sombre time. Many people in this country will suffer great hardship in the next few years and I think our job, as politicians and communicators, is to try to understand and relate to them and to expose the complacency and the immorality that’s going on [daily] , and that is what I shall continue to do. Thank you!”

Here is a more recent example of his wisdom.To the many people in other parties and none who have come up to me and said how much they admire Vince Cable, I would say: join us, and help to make sure that Vince is installed as a Liberal Democrat chancellor of the exchequer before the country goes completely down the pan. And to those who say that he should replace Nick Clegg as leader, I would reply that it is unusual to make your star striker the club captain.

There will be a social on 24th February at St Catwg’s church. There is a charge of £4 to cover refreshments etc.

The closing date for Caewern community centre has been deferred from the end of March to an indefinite date, depending on negotiations with the county borough council. This was in spite of a determined request from the clerk to give her a positive steer: she proposed a three-month deferment, there were others (including myself) who favoured something shorter, while still giving time for legal requirements to be fulfilled. In the end, it was decided to leave it to an extraordinary council meeting to be held when firmer information was available. To my mind that puts no pressure on the county borough to conclude negotiations expeditiously, although one of the Labour councillors implied that the CB could force the community council to carry out all the work required to keep the centre usable (including the fire safety upgrades and keeping the building heated) even if it were closed to the public.

I should like to put an end to one story that is being spread. The figures on which the decision to close the centre was based were factual, or based on best estimates, as confirmed by the clerk at the meeting on Monday night. Another suggestion is that we can well afford to keep the centre open. At first sight, this may be true, but it would mean depleting the money which should go into reserves. The council has auditor’s advice that the council should hold the equivalent of one year’s precept (projected to be £155,731 for 2008/9) in reserve. The brought-forward balance from 2007/8 is £153,130 and keeping Caewern open would require £15,000 to be taken from reserves.

Neath Port Talbot council yesterday appointed Tony Clements to take over from Colin Preece, who will be retiring shortly. There will be those who would criticise an internal promotion. I have done the same in the past, but on this occasion I can assure constituents that the appointment was a sound one. Although the council met in camera, I don’t think I am breaking confidence unduly by saying that, although there was strong competition from an external candidate, Tony won on the merit of his overall performance on the day.

In my short time on the scrutiny committee, I have been impressed by his enthusiasm, attention to detail and clarity of presentation. We on the opposition benches have identified a number of areas where improvements need to be made. I am confident that Tony Clements is the man to carry them out.

Peter Hain, MP for Neath, has attacked the Electoral Commission as incompetent, disfunctional,  unworldly and politically naive.

The view of  Peter Black AM is here. My response is that the agency is only trying to operate the law which New Labour has enacted. If the government had not insisted on legislating in fine detail on political parties’ internal management, the Hain campaign for the deputy leadership of his party would not have got itself into the mess which led to severe censure by, and an apology to, the House of Commons.

Public money has been spent on recruiting staff whose work ultimately has proved wasted. In the mean time, the scandal of unchecked off-shore money and trade union funds being used for party campaigns in key constituencies has not been addressed.

It’s up to individual AMs, judging by this letter in the Western Mail.

Catwg Primary School’s contribution to Health Challenge Wales has been running for some five years now, but I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t learn about it until I became LEA governor at the school. By picking up a bag-full of freshly picked organically-grown vegetables on a Thursday for less than the price of two pints of beer, I feel not only healthier, but have also reduced my carbon footprint a little.

Derek Simpson (general secretary of Unite) is correct: what British workers need is a level playing-field. The Lindsey and Pembroke situations should not be used as an excuse for xenophobia or narrow nationalism. As a Welsh electrician stated on Radio Wales’s “Eye on Wales” tonight, British workers have benefited from the opening of the labour market across Europe. (I should declare an interest here: many of my colleagues in the information technology field contract their services on the continent, and, if I were ten years younger, I would be competing for the same work.)

An EU directive, known as the Posted Workers Directive, is meant to ensure that incomers do not compete unfairly with native labour. They must be employed under the same terms and conditions. Two European Court rulings, known as the Viking and Laval judgments,  have however introduced a loophole. Agreements between unions and management on working conditions, even if agreed nationally on both sides, are ineffective unless enshrined in law.

The answer, as Labour MEP Richard Corbett makes clear, is for our government to legislate in this area, and for the Prime Minister to press the case for consistency with the European Council of Ministers. The situation has been known about since June of last year, but this New Labour government has done nothing. This is not the first time that Gordon Brown’s detachment from the European Union has worked against British interests.

Tony Blair, when he was PM, boasted that  the United Kingdom had the most repressive trade union legislation in the developed world and practically nothing has changed since Gordon Brown came to power. It is hypocritical of Peter Hain to cry “foul” over the importing of contract Italian labour, when he had the power, as secretary of state for work and pensions, to propose legal measures which would have prevented it.

There was a consultative seminar on the subject of “scrutiny” in the council chamber yesterday. There was a small, but select, band of members providing food for thought for the council’s new full-time scrutiny officers, Neil and Stacey. Though there were disagreements on many points, all members were agreed on the difficulty of wading through the reports and briefing papers which come before committees.

There are too many incomprehensible graphs and tables, and especially too much jargon. We should be thankful that Neath Port Talbot officers don’t go quite this far (a translation of the beginning of the Book of Genesis into PR jargon):

1. At the outset, God’s agenda was to basically focus on his core deliverables, namely two leading-edge products, (a) heaven and (b) earth.
2. However, the earth lacked an overall concept, and had a low profile in terms of its key audiences. Obviously the Spirit of God had to step back and benchmark the existing waters before his game plan could get the green light.
3. And God’s key message was that light was a strategic objective, and it was covered-off.
4. And God’s perception of the light was that it was fit for purpose. However, his desired goal was that light and darkness should be differentiated in the marketplace.
5. So God branded the light ‘Day’, and the darkness he branded ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Light’. And the evening session and morning session made up Day One.
6. Then God set out with the object of factoring-in a firmament to interface with the existing generic waters, to bring to the party two segmented brands.
7. So God tasked himself with the job of rolling-out a firmament, to supply a proactive vehicle for launching his two distinct waters products, and it was up and running.
8. And God branded the firmament ‘heaven’. And at close of play, the prioritised actions for Day Two were ticked off.

(From Simon Titley’s essay, ‘Let’s run this up the flagpole and see who salutes’).

Labour councillor Anthony Taylor describes the fiery last full council meeting from a Labour perspective. I had to miss it, but my Liberal Democrat colleague Keith Davies tells a different story. Keith has been on the council many years, and describes Andrew Tutton as a mild-mannered man, seldom vociferous in council. It takes a lot to fire him up.

As I understand it, he had two main points. Firstly, that Plaid Cymru AM Chris Franks was justified in his complaints about the poor response from our council to Freedom of Information requests. Keith tells me that the newspaper quote was not so much inaccurate as partial and out of context.

Secondly, that he and many of his colleagues have to work for a living, unlike Labour members who all have Special Responsibility Allowances in consequence of chairing or vice-chairing committees. (As far as I know, the only non-Labour chair is SDP’s J.Dinham, on Audit.)

Anthony Taylor does not mention Cllr Rees’s attempts to frighten council housing tenants into accepting a vote on transfer of stock, by telling them that their rents would go up threefold if they did not. That is not my recollection of the arithmetic as presented to us members of the various seminars, but, in any case, as Peter Black AM has confirmed, legislation would not permit such an increase.

Regular walkers will have observed that the footpath to the Tennant canal is no longer affected by running water. The County Borough has also had the overgrowth on the church wall cut back. The canal company has also worked on the towpath. Hopefully, with spring on its way, we can look forward to uninterrupted between the village, Neath and up and down the canal.

Should anybody have  further difficulty, please contact Neath Port Talbot’sEnvironment department direct or the Service First Helpline on 01639 686868.

Welsh LibDem leader Kirsty Williams will be in the Swansea Sound studio on Sunday morning, 25th January, between 9 and 10. I understand she will be taking calls from the public.

She led in a debate in the National Assembly today called by the Liberal  Democrats over the state of NHS assets in Wales.

I caught Peter Black’s posting about bureaucracy holding up funding from Europe shortly after reading the latest European Update bulletin distributed to members of Neath Port Talbot council. This included a reference to the same news item: The Assembly Government has admitted not a single penny was spent in the first year of Wales’ current £1.5bn top-level European aid programme.None of the European Commission Convergence funding was used in 2007 to improve prosperity in West Wales and the Valleys, a region officially classified as one of the poorest in Europe. [An] Assembly Government spokesman said: “Nearly £500m of the grant funding available for the new European Structural Fund programmes has already been committed to approved projects. And while it is inevitable that project spending will follow the commitment of funds, expenditure claims to date are in line with expectations for what is a nine-year programme”.

There is good news from the same bulletin (though how much of the money will trickle down to South Wales is another matter):

£650m more EU money for SMEs
Three high street banks have signed up to provide a total of £650 million of Brussels-backed loans to British small and medium-sized businesses. The European Investment Bank (EIB) has announced that Barclays, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) have each agreed deals to act as financial intermediaries to distribute its loans to small firms. The EIB said that RBS and HBOS will each distribute £250 million of its loans, while Barlcays will hand out £150 million. The money is part of a four-year, £24 billion EU-wide package to help firms facing financial difficulties finding finance due to the credit crunch.

Cllr. Anthony Taylor has already commented on the annual visit of the South Wales Police top brass. Ms Wilding’s announcement that she would retire shortly made a mockery of my prediction in another place that she could be in line for the top job at the Met. However, she is clearly still vigorous - 58 is no age these days - so, surely, she is not lost to public life.

There are one or two points from her presentation which I should like belatedly to add to Cllr Taylor’s report and the Evening Post article he links to.

She had taken a very rigorous approach to sick leave and other absences. South Wales Police’s monitoring system was better than that of the NHS or of any local authority in Wales. With respect to senior officers, it exceeded the Home Office standard. It was not quite there yet in respect of junior ranks, but improving.

 

Ms Wilding also reported that all her PCs were on the front-line, having moved 180 officers from back-office duties. South Wales Police was now up to strength.

 

However, she warned that the recession would see an increase in crime. The signs were already there. She was particularly worried about the predicted rise in domestic violence.

The points that Ms Wilding made about the improvements in technology were reinforced at the Cadoxton/Aberdulais PACT meeting on 14th January. The ourbobby web site had been improved

There was also publicity for the Skewen Neighbourhood Policing Team. Officers dedicated to Cadoxton, Cilfrew and Aberdulais are stationed at Skewen police station, and can be contacted on 01792 456999, extn. 68315.

The mobile phone numbers for our PCSOs are: Sally Thomas, 07805 301 534; and Darren Thomas, 07805 301 576.

Most of the complaints raised at the meeting related to Cilfrew and Aberdulais, but the failure of the council to respond to a request for an extension of the no-waiting zone in Bryn Catwg was mentioned. I shall be taking this up with The Quays.

The next PACT meeting will be on 24th March.

Independent councillor Steve Hunt (Seven Sisters) is about to start his own blog and threatens to make it the biggest and best in Neath.

More details when they are confirmed.

This last week, I missed Neath Port Talbot full council meeting for the first time. For various reasons, I had to choose between attending PACT and council. Since I missed the last PACT meeting, and the council agenda largely covered ground which I had previously visited with the Social Services Scrutiny Committee, I chose the former.

It seems I missed a stormy session. Once again, one of the Labour cabinet took the opportunity to comment on the absence of members from the Independent Group (formerly Ratepayers). On this occasion, their leader Andrew Tutton was present. He is normally slow to anger and loth to speak in Chamber,  but on Wednesday his patience snapped. He responded eloquently, pointing out that most of his members had day-time jobs in order to pay their mortgage. He contrasted his situation with that of the ruling Labour group, all of whom claimed special responsibility allowances as chairs or vice-chairs of committees. On top of their basic councillor allowance, this was more than a living wage.

Surprisingly, this heated interchange does not seem to have been picked up by our local dailies. I trust that next week’s Neath Guardian will give a full and fair account.

I hold no special brief for the ex-Ratepayers or for Plaid Cymru, but it has to be said that these groups suffer disproportionately from having councillors of working age who have to pick and choose which council meetings they can attend. It would make life so much easier, and perhaps attract the people in the prime of life who the council is short of, if meetings were held later in the day. This is the case with the voluntary sector liaison meetings, in order to fit in with the schedule of outside representatives. I haven’t noticed any particular difficulty here for council members or officers.

Senior party colleagues tell me that things were different before the Redwood reorganisation. The old Neath Borough Council had its meetings at 16:00, or, at the earliest, 14:30. There was a healthy attendance.

In a rather discursive meeting in Aberdulais tonight, Blaenhonddan council, meeting in special session, recommended a precept of £37.70 for the coming year. This has to be ratified by the January meeting of the council next Monday in Waunceirch. It would be a 2.03% increase over last year, producing an extra 75p per Band D household.

Other options were presented: we were invited to reverse our decision to close Caewern community centre, costing £2.41 extra per Band D house; at the other extreme, Cllr Richards proposed a zero increase in precept, which would have meant depleting reserves. After a year in which several exigencies occurred, including a probably contested by-election, it was felt that this last choice was too risky.

Monday should also see a resolution of the thorny question of the status of the chairman. The council has been aided by an opinion  from the Head of Legal Services of the County Borough, but that had best remain embargoed until the council meeting.

My first speech day as a pupil at Oldershaw Grammar School, Wallasey, was crowned by a speech by Lord Citrine. It was an appropriate choice. Walter Citrine was a Wallaseyan, though his secondary schooling - at St Georges, which my brother later attended - was too early for Oldershaw, founded in 1920. His peerage was also fairly fresh, having been awarded only six years previously, presumably for services to the labour movement.

It was a long speech, and he obviously extemporised extensively.  The theme, which has stayed with me, was that academic achievement was fine, but it needed to be wedded to real-world experience and observation. He knew whereof he spoke. Forced to leave school early, Citrine had to learn a trade fast (in his case, electrical) in order to make his way in the world. One illustration involved the use of industrial language, which was no doubt the occasion for the headmaster at assembly the next day to apologise for the choice of speaker, for which he was quick to pass the buck to the previous incumbent. (My dislike of that headmaster, which lasted for the rest of my school career, probably began then.)

Anyway, fast forward a few years until I, as a young civil servant, was drawn into the world of workplace trade unionism. As a new committee member, it was recommended that I mug up on “The ABC of Chairmanship”, by: Walter Citrine. Naturally, I borrowed a copy from the library at the earliest opportunity.  All my efforts at chairing meetings, whether TU, political or at work, since then, have been rooted in that fortnight’s reading of that small volume of distilled wisdom.

Recent proceedings at community council meetings have caused me to question whether I had got it right. Others were also concerned at the way that Blaenhonddan business had been conducted to the extent of passing a vote of no confiidence in the chair - see the Guardian report.

So, a check of the “bible” was required. I was delighted to find that “The ABC …” is now more popular than ever since its first appearance in 1939.  The 1982 fourth edition has been reprinted seven times, and Amazon was able to provide a copy with only a week’s delay.

And what does Citrine say about the chairman’s seeking to impose his or her views on a council?

Impartiality  Above all , the chairman must be impartial. Where there are differences of opinion, the chairman should give both sides an equal chance to express their views. There is a difficult balance to strike between being too firm and becoming almost dictatorial; and being too weak, which can lead to rulings from the chair being questioned. The chairman often has to exercise what may seem like an unnatural degree of tact and patience. The worst thing he can do is lose his temper - that way he loses everyone’s respect.

and:

Taking part in discussion   Although the chairman will usually have the same rights, in principle, as any other member to move, second or speak on motions, in practice he should intervene as little as possible in the discussion and should not usually express personal opinions. […] if the chairman does feel impelled to take part in a debate as a disputant, he should leave the chair and a temporary chairman should be elected until the discussion on that subject has been completed.

Chair of Blaenhonddan council, Doreen Jones, has clearly transgressed on both counts, especially with respect to the decision - originally taken on non-party grounds - to close Caewern community hut.

The no-confidence resolution may be ineffectual. Several bodies in England have seen their useless or unpopular chairs soldier on after a no-confidence vote, taking advantage of silence on the subject in their standing orders. The latter is also true of Blaenhonddan’s standing orders.

However, Citrine was in no doubt as to what should happen:

if things have got to the stage when the motion ‘That this meeting has no confidence in the chairman’ is carried by a two-thirds majority, then the chairman has no choice but to resign.

Thursday’s meeting in Aberdulais should be interesting.

Anthony Taylor, Labour member for Taibach on Neath Port Talbot council, started a blog in December. It is good to see a partisan blog which nevertheless is obviously written by an individual.

If Labour is to stand any chance of remaining a force in local government in the years to come, it is to younger members like Anthony Taylor and Scott Jones (Cymmer) that they must turn. So far, they are few and far between. It is clear that cynicism about politics, especially that of New Labour, which disappointed so many of the faithful, has proved a deterrent.

Having been all set to usher in the new year with a swingeing attack on Labour opponents, I find it is my melancholy duty to mourn the death, earlier this week, of a predecessor. Mr Hughes was the first councillor for Cadoxton on Neath Port Talbot CBC, between 1996 and 2000, and he is still remembered as a man who fixed many things for people in the ward. He was also a much-respected governor of Catwg Primary School.

In spite of political differences, Mr Hughes was gentlemanly in his dealings with Liberal Democrat councillors. He will be much missed, and my thoughts go out to his family at this sad time.