My! The Welsh Class - the subset of Welsh culture that sees it as their God-given right to force everyone to speak Welsh, is really out in force these past couple of weeks.
A certain Professor Sioned Davies has warned that only by putting Welsh on an equal footing with English - Welsh is currently classed as a 'second language' - can the aim of reversing the decline in Welsh speakers be realised.
Now, I'm all for debate on this, and I hope the Welsh Class, or the Welsh Elite, if you prefer, also have the confidence and decency to listen to others' views. But I doubt that they have.
First of all, Prof. Davies is an academic and Chair of Welsh at Cardiff University. She lists a number of published works along the theme of the Mabinogion, and how you might translate those folk stories.
So you might be forgiven for thinking she has a certain view on speaking Welsh. Her partners on the body appointed by the Welsh Government to 'look into' all this business also seem to have what one might call a predictable view on the subject they were charged with examining.
After all, if we asked a bunch of scientists whether science should be handed more funding, you'd sort-of expect them to conclude that, yes, it does!
Somehow, Prof. Davies report has gotten the ear of the Education Minister in Cardiff, Huw whatshiname - Lewis - that's it - who, according to Cymdeithas Yr Iaith Gymraeg - now thinks every kid should be forced to speak Welsh within five years, and learn school subjects through Welsh, even in those schools who are English medium. The Welsh Government spin machine claims Lewis's statements do not amount to this, and to say they do is "misleading." We'll see, won't we?
This, rather unsurprisingly, has shocked many parents, mindful that English medium schools within Wales tend to be busy because numerous parents choose to have their kids educated in an useful, and not useless language.
That wholly odd organisation, Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg, states in a paper report reproduced online that:
“Indeed, we are pleased that he intends to abolish Welsh as a second
language and instead ensure that more and more subjects in
English-medium schools are taught through Welsh,”
That isn't a pleasure that will be shared by many parents across Wales, and it does of course plainly reveal the frankly ludicrous and regressive attitude towards the modern world that this group - and many who quietly support them - holds.
Even though the Welsh Government has its seat of power within an area of Wales where only a tiny proportion of the population speak Welsh, and even fewer speak coherent, proper Welsh, the State is beginning to turn the language screws ever tighter. The small minority elite who bring about the pressure and mechanisms for these changes are very powerful, because they ride on a self-serving conveyor belt of public sector jobs for life. Quickly realising that promotion depends on strongly supporting the 'Welsh Must' line, they all fall into line, bleating like so many Welsh hill sheep as they go.
If it's true that Welsh is to be force-fed to kids in school, I hope that parents remember that it is their legal duty that a "suitable and sufficient" education is given to their children. It is, to my mind, very doubtful anyone can claim that more and more Welsh, with less and less English, is a means of satisfying that obligation. I say it is a terrible indication that the Welsh Elite have struck back in panic at what is, to them, an unacceptable and offensive decline in speaking this useless language, and are hell-bent on changing things.
A great way to strike back would be to tell your kids to sit there,
looking out the window and fail all their Welsh tests and exams. After
all, you don't have to be bothered about not having a Welsh
qualification of no practical use, do you?
To all those who justify their Welshy-ism on the claim that it's to "prepare children for further education and the workplace", I say: where are all the Welsh-only speaking jobs, and point out that almost all univerisites in the UK do not need Welsh, thank you very much.
The final word really has to go to an anonymous school governor - and who can blame him for hiding -who rightly comments:
“I think there is an inherent view in the Welsh Establishment that
everyone in Wales should have Welsh as their first language, and this is
part of that. It’s an attempt at social engineering which I don’t think
has any chance of success.”
Quite.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Llanddeusant Community Council - Bleating Where Action is Needed.
Good old Anglesey councillors!
This time, poor old Melin Llynnon - Wales' last working windmill and a vital tourist attraction - is up for grabs. Anglesey Council simply can't make it pay, so off it goes. It could even be sold privately.
Now, it was quite a long time ago that Anglesey Council invited interested parties to submit their ideas for ways of keeping several sites across the island open, whilst taking them off the accounts. Everybody had heard of the plans. They were in the papers, online, people talking about them in the street.
Everybody, that is, apart from Llanddeusant Community Council, who have complained in the last few days that they would have found it "nice" had Llangefni contact them "directly."
It won't do, apparently, for Llanddeusant Community Council to be included, by definition, in Anglesey Council's invitation to "any interested party" to come forward. Maybe this newfangled democracy stuff isn't to their liking?
That's right, not only are they so slow as to apparently not be like everybody else in knowing about the Great Sell-Off, they want it done in a way that pleases them! I know the average age of Anglesey councillors is very high, but, come on!
I note that Llanddeusant doesn't mention any good ideas that it might have of its own. It simply seems content to be moaning about protocol.
But there you go, that's Anglesey for you. How very useful!
This time, poor old Melin Llynnon - Wales' last working windmill and a vital tourist attraction - is up for grabs. Anglesey Council simply can't make it pay, so off it goes. It could even be sold privately.
 |
| No more cash to fill the sails... (Image(C) this blog) |
Now, it was quite a long time ago that Anglesey Council invited interested parties to submit their ideas for ways of keeping several sites across the island open, whilst taking them off the accounts. Everybody had heard of the plans. They were in the papers, online, people talking about them in the street.
Everybody, that is, apart from Llanddeusant Community Council, who have complained in the last few days that they would have found it "nice" had Llangefni contact them "directly."
It won't do, apparently, for Llanddeusant Community Council to be included, by definition, in Anglesey Council's invitation to "any interested party" to come forward. Maybe this newfangled democracy stuff isn't to their liking?
That's right, not only are they so slow as to apparently not be like everybody else in knowing about the Great Sell-Off, they want it done in a way that pleases them! I know the average age of Anglesey councillors is very high, but, come on!
I note that Llanddeusant doesn't mention any good ideas that it might have of its own. It simply seems content to be moaning about protocol.
But there you go, that's Anglesey for you. How very useful!
Friday, October 9, 2015
More Diktats from the Welsh Class.
Recently, I came across this superb piece of writing, that cuts through all the bull about a foreseen Golden Dawn for Wales.
Amongst the text, which is in fact balanced and considered, we find this remarkable cut to the chase:
"...Wales has the UK’s worst child poverty. In this context, Welsh nationalism is the old man in his shed busy with a hobby only he can appreciate whilst his family starves at the dinner table. Language advocates are not responsible for Welsh poverty, but they do not help as they persist with myths that the language has instrumental value to learners. It doesn’t.
If you are an objective witness to politics and simply everyday life in Wales, that quote really does get to the heart of what is going on, and has been for decades. A narrow, powerful and well-paid elite of public servants, with absolute security of employment through peer promotion and support, are continuing to dictate to others, who live a much more precarious life, how they should conduct and express themselves - in Welsh.
Or, as Radio 4 once put it "what is Welsh for? It is to support an elite." With rapidly-declining numbers of Welsh speakers, and my experience of Wales over an entire lifetime, and however much it may offend your sensibilities - this is the simple truth about Wales and the role of a language utterly without purpose in the modern, wider world.
Indeed, Welsh has made the Welsh Class elite so blind to any other agenda that now, in the face of panic about declining numbers of speakers, Councils are once again promoting Welsh Academies. I'm not quite sure who appointed LEA chiefs and councillors as dictators of which language the people of Wales express themselves in. But it's clear that it's a role they have taken enthusiastically upon themselves, and are hell-bent on spending your tax money in order to prop up their agenda.
And what of languages that really do confer economic and social advantages to our children? What place for Spanish, German, Russian, Mandarin? Tour any school within Wales and you will be hard pressed to find much mention of these.
The Welsh elite, generally simply Welsh-English bilingual, see no purpose or benefit to them in hardline promotion of 'modern' languages. As a result, the number of kids leaving school with a useful second language - as opposed to a useless one like Welsh - has halved in just a few years. Politicians and teachers say it's all about time and money pressures. The real source of the problem, of course, is themselves - the very ones who have been pushing through their 'Welsh Everwhere, Every Time' policy, to the exclusion of all else.
And, like the 'case continues' legal qualification at the end of Court proceedings reports, I am obliged to say - because this is what I believe - that I have nothing against the Welsh language, and certainly not the Welsh people - for I am one of them. No, what I am against - and what the Welsh Class elite don't want you to hear - is the creating and continuation of that Welsh Elite who, through their own privilege and power, want you to live the way they have created for you. That you may not want it - or that it will limit your child's future - is never a consideration - you will have it, come hell or high water. That, normally, is a prompt for mutiny.
What struck me in thinking of all this were two thoughts:
(1) That those who live and breathe Welsh, and within themselves are nothing other than believers in being the purest Virgin Welsh, are not motivated primarily by the language they think they are defending. No, they are primarily motivated by the elitism - i.e. status and money - that speaking pure Welsh brings them. In other words, the Welsh Class are a pretence: they would quickly turn to something else as a propper-up of their positions if it were threatened. They are so wedded to the Welsh ideology that I am certain few, if any, realise this; their firm reality is entirely built upon the flaky Welsh myth.
(2) If the Welsh Class take their project so far as many seem already to be doing, then they will destroy that which sustains them. If more and more Welsh Academies are swept in, and panic initiates more force-feeding of Welsh, then there will, inevitably, be more kids emerging from education with a very good ability in Welsh. This will create a bigger pool of qualified competitors for jobs and resources in a tank that can only ever be so big in Wales. In other words, the current Traditional Taffia families will find themselves under pressure from those outside those familial groups and, without further dictatorial controls to exclude them (always possible in Wales), will be farmed off pretty smartish. Of course, with a net cast wider like this, you could easily end up with a body of highly capable, fluent Welsh speakers who do not share the Taffia's ideology, and move to oust it. I'm not sure the Taffia appreciate this problem, but if they do, there will be an idea lurking in their minds that they old the levers of power, and will move the goalposts to maintain their position. It's probably worthwhile to look for evidence of feigned anger and robust measures to turn the language around, whilst in fact, there wasn't a lot of energy put into the success of the language project, so as to ensure the Traditional Taffia are never usurped. Has this happened along the lines of Pakistan and its 'we'll kick the Taliban, but only so much', so as to ensure the US keep handing out military aid that quickly finds its way into that nation's elite?
If you like some theory 'cod' with your social 'chips', then this text is a very worthwhile and insightful read. If you are part of the Welsh Class, of course, you will leave it very angry and offended. Such are the sensibilities of the Taffia.
Amongst the text, which is in fact balanced and considered, we find this remarkable cut to the chase:
"...Wales has the UK’s worst child poverty. In this context, Welsh nationalism is the old man in his shed busy with a hobby only he can appreciate whilst his family starves at the dinner table. Language advocates are not responsible for Welsh poverty, but they do not help as they persist with myths that the language has instrumental value to learners. It doesn’t.
Williams, in 1989, the period leading up to the Welsh Language Act,
wrote:
'Thus we are faced with a generation of
bilingual school-leavers who have been socialised into believing that their
bilingualism is prized by society, which on examination turns out to be a
rather narrowly constructed, middle-class public sector society, which rewards
its own purveyors of information and knowledge. There are clear class
implications in the development of an administrative bureaucracy, which is both
the principal agency for change and the principal net beneficiary of change.'"
If you are an objective witness to politics and simply everyday life in Wales, that quote really does get to the heart of what is going on, and has been for decades. A narrow, powerful and well-paid elite of public servants, with absolute security of employment through peer promotion and support, are continuing to dictate to others, who live a much more precarious life, how they should conduct and express themselves - in Welsh.
Or, as Radio 4 once put it "what is Welsh for? It is to support an elite." With rapidly-declining numbers of Welsh speakers, and my experience of Wales over an entire lifetime, and however much it may offend your sensibilities - this is the simple truth about Wales and the role of a language utterly without purpose in the modern, wider world.
Indeed, Welsh has made the Welsh Class elite so blind to any other agenda that now, in the face of panic about declining numbers of speakers, Councils are once again promoting Welsh Academies. I'm not quite sure who appointed LEA chiefs and councillors as dictators of which language the people of Wales express themselves in. But it's clear that it's a role they have taken enthusiastically upon themselves, and are hell-bent on spending your tax money in order to prop up their agenda.
And what of languages that really do confer economic and social advantages to our children? What place for Spanish, German, Russian, Mandarin? Tour any school within Wales and you will be hard pressed to find much mention of these.
The Welsh elite, generally simply Welsh-English bilingual, see no purpose or benefit to them in hardline promotion of 'modern' languages. As a result, the number of kids leaving school with a useful second language - as opposed to a useless one like Welsh - has halved in just a few years. Politicians and teachers say it's all about time and money pressures. The real source of the problem, of course, is themselves - the very ones who have been pushing through their 'Welsh Everwhere, Every Time' policy, to the exclusion of all else.
And, like the 'case continues' legal qualification at the end of Court proceedings reports, I am obliged to say - because this is what I believe - that I have nothing against the Welsh language, and certainly not the Welsh people - for I am one of them. No, what I am against - and what the Welsh Class elite don't want you to hear - is the creating and continuation of that Welsh Elite who, through their own privilege and power, want you to live the way they have created for you. That you may not want it - or that it will limit your child's future - is never a consideration - you will have it, come hell or high water. That, normally, is a prompt for mutiny.
What struck me in thinking of all this were two thoughts:
(1) That those who live and breathe Welsh, and within themselves are nothing other than believers in being the purest Virgin Welsh, are not motivated primarily by the language they think they are defending. No, they are primarily motivated by the elitism - i.e. status and money - that speaking pure Welsh brings them. In other words, the Welsh Class are a pretence: they would quickly turn to something else as a propper-up of their positions if it were threatened. They are so wedded to the Welsh ideology that I am certain few, if any, realise this; their firm reality is entirely built upon the flaky Welsh myth.
(2) If the Welsh Class take their project so far as many seem already to be doing, then they will destroy that which sustains them. If more and more Welsh Academies are swept in, and panic initiates more force-feeding of Welsh, then there will, inevitably, be more kids emerging from education with a very good ability in Welsh. This will create a bigger pool of qualified competitors for jobs and resources in a tank that can only ever be so big in Wales. In other words, the current Traditional Taffia families will find themselves under pressure from those outside those familial groups and, without further dictatorial controls to exclude them (always possible in Wales), will be farmed off pretty smartish. Of course, with a net cast wider like this, you could easily end up with a body of highly capable, fluent Welsh speakers who do not share the Taffia's ideology, and move to oust it. I'm not sure the Taffia appreciate this problem, but if they do, there will be an idea lurking in their minds that they old the levers of power, and will move the goalposts to maintain their position. It's probably worthwhile to look for evidence of feigned anger and robust measures to turn the language around, whilst in fact, there wasn't a lot of energy put into the success of the language project, so as to ensure the Traditional Taffia are never usurped. Has this happened along the lines of Pakistan and its 'we'll kick the Taliban, but only so much', so as to ensure the US keep handing out military aid that quickly finds its way into that nation's elite?
If you like some theory 'cod' with your social 'chips', then this text is a very worthwhile and insightful read. If you are part of the Welsh Class, of course, you will leave it very angry and offended. Such are the sensibilities of the Taffia.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Anglesey Council Fails to Get its House in Order.
Like many folk on Anglesey, I've been on the receiving end of some very strange happenings relating to the people dealing with information requests at Anglesey Council.
Dubbed a "basket case council" by Private Eye during its darker times some years ago, Anglesey has struggled to keep up with the times relating to data protection. So much so that, sixteen years after its introduction, the Data Protection Act still isn't being properly respected at the Council.
The current ramp-up to an ICO Enforcement Notice began in 2011, but the problems go back much, much further than that. One of the biggest problems was said to be councillors waltzing-in to departmental offices and demanding to see data about people they had no right to see. This is to be set against a background where, according to a Freedom of Information Act request in 2011, the majority of councillors hadn't even thought about registering as Data Controllers, even though they were obliged to. A letter to all councillors from the Authority seemed not to have stirred too many into correcting this unacceptable state of affairs.
By now, the Council has attracted the ire of the Commissioner, leading to an Enforcement Notice and three months to get its house in order.
The Council's press office say they were "surprised" to receive the Notice, even though a simple search online shows they were given a Preliminary Notice as recently as August 2015. Nothing like a bit of feigned indignation, eh boys?
 |
| Back again... |
Dubbed a "basket case council" by Private Eye during its darker times some years ago, Anglesey has struggled to keep up with the times relating to data protection. So much so that, sixteen years after its introduction, the Data Protection Act still isn't being properly respected at the Council.
The current ramp-up to an ICO Enforcement Notice began in 2011, but the problems go back much, much further than that. One of the biggest problems was said to be councillors waltzing-in to departmental offices and demanding to see data about people they had no right to see. This is to be set against a background where, according to a Freedom of Information Act request in 2011, the majority of councillors hadn't even thought about registering as Data Controllers, even though they were obliged to. A letter to all councillors from the Authority seemed not to have stirred too many into correcting this unacceptable state of affairs.
By now, the Council has attracted the ire of the Commissioner, leading to an Enforcement Notice and three months to get its house in order.
The Council's press office say they were "surprised" to receive the Notice, even though a simple search online shows they were given a Preliminary Notice as recently as August 2015. Nothing like a bit of feigned indignation, eh boys?
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Able Pupils and the Absent Policies.
A long time ago - about ten to be more-or-less exact, the Welsh Government supported the concept of Able Pupils policies within schools.
So won over by the argument for supporting clever kids was Cardiff that it went so far as to call this a 'National Priority.'
Then we had the financial crash and a bit of a downturn, to say the least. The able pupils were left to their own devices, with schools, almost to a man, failing to implement them.
Without money to back them up, APPs were never going to make much of an impact in a school system already strapped for cash and producing little by way of successful results.
That said, all the research shows that, if you properly embrace APPs, the whole school - and not just the brightest - improves in outcomes.
But, with the usual militant lefty antagonism towards anything that smacks of preferential treatment, many headteachers, if not most, were also highly resistant to concentrating on able pupils. Most often, such pupils were clever, and would be just fine without any further attention, so the story went. There was a whole body of kids with no ability that the schools did get awarded for getting them to write their own names - just - by the age of 11.
And that is where the effort of schools goes - into ticking the boxes and collecting the credits.
I've been involved in trying to have APPs applied to our kids for something like four years by now. In our first school, the headteacher took to lying about the operation of an APP at her school. We asked for a copy of the APP. She said she had one but no copy was made available. We asked to see the names of our kids on the register she claimed they were on. We were met with lead-booted foot dragging.
It took that first school about 18 months to produce the most poorly-written APP anyone could have put together. It was triumphantly handed to me in person before Easter holidays, which was surprising, given the headteacher claimed she'd had one all along. There was then the usual crap about school statistics, and how this supported the headteacher's view that 'tracking' (how they love that word!) and outcomes showed all pupils were being catered for.
Except, the level of achievement stopped at level 6 (I think it was.) I asked: have you ever looked if anyone might actually be capable of attaining level 7 - or more? I posited the view that, from the information provided by the school, it strongly appeared that nobody was actually looking to see if anyone was that clever.
Well, they wouldn't, would they? The only thing schools are expected - and consequently are - doing, is meeting the bare-minimum achievement scores set by government. There's a whole industry out there ranging from seminars to, if some stories are to be believed, diktats from LEA chiefs to 'not be too hard on pupils' when marking national tests.
I had, incidentally, also asked the LEA for statistics on able pupils across their authority area. Surprisingly, and even sinisterly, they said they couldn't access that data and that I had to ask my school - which they named. But that wasn't the request I'd put in. I hadn't said which school my kids attended. They'd actually become so irritated by a simple question that they went out of their way to try and match my name up with where my kids went to school! After a lot of foot dragging, they accepted they did, after all, have that data.
When it became clear that the heateacher and the LEA that propped her up with malicious and false allegations against parents had no interest in hearing reason and tangled themselves up in a ludicrous web of lies, we moved school. Two years later, we're much closer to where we would like to be, a huge improvement, not least because the school actively listens to reasonably-put arguments. I was also relieved and delighted - when I really ought not to have been - that our new school, without prompting - said that nobody was really looking at how well able pupils could do, because the whole system was geared towards something else. You can take a lot of reassurance from honesty like that.
The fight for properly-implemented APPs will reappear at secondary level, no doubt, but that is for another day.
So, the story of Wales' Able Pupils Policies which - you will recall - are meant to be a matter of 'National Priority' - have fallen well and truly by the wayside. Make no mistake that if you, as an interested or concerned parent, want to make sure your kids are suitably stretched, then it's definitely down to you and you alone to have a meeting with the school to make sure it happens, and that you are subsequently and routinely shown evidence from time to time that it really is happening. If your school doesn't like parents being involved to that degree, it's time to look around for an alternative.
So won over by the argument for supporting clever kids was Cardiff that it went so far as to call this a 'National Priority.'
Then we had the financial crash and a bit of a downturn, to say the least. The able pupils were left to their own devices, with schools, almost to a man, failing to implement them.
Without money to back them up, APPs were never going to make much of an impact in a school system already strapped for cash and producing little by way of successful results.
That said, all the research shows that, if you properly embrace APPs, the whole school - and not just the brightest - improves in outcomes.
But, with the usual militant lefty antagonism towards anything that smacks of preferential treatment, many headteachers, if not most, were also highly resistant to concentrating on able pupils. Most often, such pupils were clever, and would be just fine without any further attention, so the story went. There was a whole body of kids with no ability that the schools did get awarded for getting them to write their own names - just - by the age of 11.
And that is where the effort of schools goes - into ticking the boxes and collecting the credits.
I've been involved in trying to have APPs applied to our kids for something like four years by now. In our first school, the headteacher took to lying about the operation of an APP at her school. We asked for a copy of the APP. She said she had one but no copy was made available. We asked to see the names of our kids on the register she claimed they were on. We were met with lead-booted foot dragging.
It took that first school about 18 months to produce the most poorly-written APP anyone could have put together. It was triumphantly handed to me in person before Easter holidays, which was surprising, given the headteacher claimed she'd had one all along. There was then the usual crap about school statistics, and how this supported the headteacher's view that 'tracking' (how they love that word!) and outcomes showed all pupils were being catered for.
Except, the level of achievement stopped at level 6 (I think it was.) I asked: have you ever looked if anyone might actually be capable of attaining level 7 - or more? I posited the view that, from the information provided by the school, it strongly appeared that nobody was actually looking to see if anyone was that clever.
Well, they wouldn't, would they? The only thing schools are expected - and consequently are - doing, is meeting the bare-minimum achievement scores set by government. There's a whole industry out there ranging from seminars to, if some stories are to be believed, diktats from LEA chiefs to 'not be too hard on pupils' when marking national tests.
I had, incidentally, also asked the LEA for statistics on able pupils across their authority area. Surprisingly, and even sinisterly, they said they couldn't access that data and that I had to ask my school - which they named. But that wasn't the request I'd put in. I hadn't said which school my kids attended. They'd actually become so irritated by a simple question that they went out of their way to try and match my name up with where my kids went to school! After a lot of foot dragging, they accepted they did, after all, have that data.
When it became clear that the heateacher and the LEA that propped her up with malicious and false allegations against parents had no interest in hearing reason and tangled themselves up in a ludicrous web of lies, we moved school. Two years later, we're much closer to where we would like to be, a huge improvement, not least because the school actively listens to reasonably-put arguments. I was also relieved and delighted - when I really ought not to have been - that our new school, without prompting - said that nobody was really looking at how well able pupils could do, because the whole system was geared towards something else. You can take a lot of reassurance from honesty like that.
The fight for properly-implemented APPs will reappear at secondary level, no doubt, but that is for another day.
So, the story of Wales' Able Pupils Policies which - you will recall - are meant to be a matter of 'National Priority' - have fallen well and truly by the wayside. Make no mistake that if you, as an interested or concerned parent, want to make sure your kids are suitably stretched, then it's definitely down to you and you alone to have a meeting with the school to make sure it happens, and that you are subsequently and routinely shown evidence from time to time that it really is happening. If your school doesn't like parents being involved to that degree, it's time to look around for an alternative.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Revealed: The Costs of Newborough Beach.
Figures released under a Freedom of Information Act request (FoIA) have today revealed the extent of wasted resources at key north Wales nature sites.
Natural Resources Wales took over the running of Newborough Forest and the Cefni forest areas about a year ago, following a revamp of authorities across Wales.
In 2013, NRW, against what I understand were clear warnings, constructed a timber boardwalk and viewing platform amongst the sand dunes at Newborough Beach.
Those who care about the area raised an eyebrow at the destruction of localised areas of the dunes, which are in a protected area. Nevertheless, once completed, the structures were very well received and popular.
A few months later, following winter storms, the viewing platform lay in ruins, washed away by rough seas and winds. Timbers from the site were apparently turning up at Aberffraw, where people were only too willing to use them for their own designs!
The platform was removed with remarkable rapidity that suggested not only a risk to the public safety, but also considerable embarrassment.
Whilst the boardwalk remains, it is steadily being smothered by this winter's wind borne sand, and it's clear it will become a natural part of the dunes in no time.
Those who understand sand dunes will not, of course, be surprised. What is surprising is that NRW pressed on, regardless.
In doing so, they spent a total to date of £153,643.44, where the larger part of that would seem to have been, from the materials and engineering involved, on the defunct viewing platform.
At the entrance, things haven't been much better. Folk pay to go in, at £3 a shot. Other pay £15 a year if they are local. Very local people get in for free. So expenditure on income generators is to be expected.
However, NRW spent £17,221 on a new 'hydrokerb' barrier in August 2013, only to abandon it when it proved unreliable a year later. To cover this problem, which apparently had no contractual fallback, NRW paid £13,280 to build a manned kiosk at the entrance. At £3 a car, it won't take too long to regain this lost money. But, it has to be asked why a brand new hydrokerb that didn't work could not have been the installer's liability, and not the public purse's. Why such a much larger, non income-generating amount was spent on something that almost immediately became driftwood, is less clear.
This isn't the only waste at Newborough. Whilst the figures weren't requested for this item, some glitzy timber banner frames and colourful fabric banners were put up in around 2012. These had already begun to fade after one summer, before being entirely ripped away by the winter gales. Nobody seemed to have thought about gales on Anglesey. The local council also had no record of planning permission for these structures, nor any idea whether planning was necessary. It seemed it was, and hadn't been sought.
Meanwhile, at the Cefni reservoir, £23,000 has been spent last summer on creating wildlife wetlands on a mini-scale, which involved the building of earthen-rimmed ponds. Again, surprisingly for a bunch of supposed environmental 'experts', the earth was washed away on at least one pond, prompting the NRW to temporarily abandon them.
When asked for evidence of applications and granting of consents for the diversion of watercourses to create these ponds, the FoIA release stated the information wasn't held. That means that the consents weren't sought. NRW says that they are "investigating the situation", which appears to mean consents weren't even considered.
Ah well. Now you know...
Update:
A NRW response to a FoIA request on the 'Mawndir Mon' project at the Cefni revealed expenditure of about £23,000 at this one site alone. NRW was the body approving and administering the money for this work which, it is very keen to point out, was actually carried out on the ground by none other than Anglesey County Council. The Council, wouldn't you know it, is the body responsible for approving abstraction consents from watercourses, but didn't bother for its own work.
Little wonder, then, that there was a clear scramble in mid-winter 2014/15 to remove all traces of the diversion engineering. The remaining earthworks and channels, however, are a bit of a giveaway, still...
Natural Resources Wales took over the running of Newborough Forest and the Cefni forest areas about a year ago, following a revamp of authorities across Wales.
In 2013, NRW, against what I understand were clear warnings, constructed a timber boardwalk and viewing platform amongst the sand dunes at Newborough Beach.
 |
| After the storm. £153,643 worth of platform lies in ruin after the 2014 storms. |
Those who care about the area raised an eyebrow at the destruction of localised areas of the dunes, which are in a protected area. Nevertheless, once completed, the structures were very well received and popular.
A few months later, following winter storms, the viewing platform lay in ruins, washed away by rough seas and winds. Timbers from the site were apparently turning up at Aberffraw, where people were only too willing to use them for their own designs!
The platform was removed with remarkable rapidity that suggested not only a risk to the public safety, but also considerable embarrassment.
Whilst the boardwalk remains, it is steadily being smothered by this winter's wind borne sand, and it's clear it will become a natural part of the dunes in no time.
Those who understand sand dunes will not, of course, be surprised. What is surprising is that NRW pressed on, regardless.
In doing so, they spent a total to date of £153,643.44, where the larger part of that would seem to have been, from the materials and engineering involved, on the defunct viewing platform.
At the entrance, things haven't been much better. Folk pay to go in, at £3 a shot. Other pay £15 a year if they are local. Very local people get in for free. So expenditure on income generators is to be expected.
However, NRW spent £17,221 on a new 'hydrokerb' barrier in August 2013, only to abandon it when it proved unreliable a year later. To cover this problem, which apparently had no contractual fallback, NRW paid £13,280 to build a manned kiosk at the entrance. At £3 a car, it won't take too long to regain this lost money. But, it has to be asked why a brand new hydrokerb that didn't work could not have been the installer's liability, and not the public purse's. Why such a much larger, non income-generating amount was spent on something that almost immediately became driftwood, is less clear.
This isn't the only waste at Newborough. Whilst the figures weren't requested for this item, some glitzy timber banner frames and colourful fabric banners were put up in around 2012. These had already begun to fade after one summer, before being entirely ripped away by the winter gales. Nobody seemed to have thought about gales on Anglesey. The local council also had no record of planning permission for these structures, nor any idea whether planning was necessary. It seemed it was, and hadn't been sought.
Meanwhile, at the Cefni reservoir, £23,000 has been spent last summer on creating wildlife wetlands on a mini-scale, which involved the building of earthen-rimmed ponds. Again, surprisingly for a bunch of supposed environmental 'experts', the earth was washed away on at least one pond, prompting the NRW to temporarily abandon them.
When asked for evidence of applications and granting of consents for the diversion of watercourses to create these ponds, the FoIA release stated the information wasn't held. That means that the consents weren't sought. NRW says that they are "investigating the situation", which appears to mean consents weren't even considered.
Ah well. Now you know...
Update:
A NRW response to a FoIA request on the 'Mawndir Mon' project at the Cefni revealed expenditure of about £23,000 at this one site alone. NRW was the body approving and administering the money for this work which, it is very keen to point out, was actually carried out on the ground by none other than Anglesey County Council. The Council, wouldn't you know it, is the body responsible for approving abstraction consents from watercourses, but didn't bother for its own work.
Little wonder, then, that there was a clear scramble in mid-winter 2014/15 to remove all traces of the diversion engineering. The remaining earthworks and channels, however, are a bit of a giveaway, still...
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Richard Parry Jones: Thank You, and Goodbye.
Anglesey Council's current Chief Executive, the bumbling and much older than PR images suggest, Richard Parry Jones, has decided the "time is right" to hang up his suit - and his £140,000 a year job (that's more money in a day than most get in a week.)
So, apart from his increasing bumblingness, what has prompted the retirement?
Well, it's about as clear as a crystal vase: his council is going to cease to exist, he's of an age where sensible people should let go, and why would he want the hassles of managing an authority merger?
Anglesey is one of the intransigent and donkey-like councils that doesn't want to save public money by amalgamating as Leighton Andrews is hell-bent on ensuring will happen.
Despite this, Parry Jones has been very busy, I gather from insiders, talking to Cardiff about how an amalgamation might proceed. In this, at least Parry Jones has the sense to see the writing on the wall. Not that the elected councillors will give up their £27,000 a year 'allowances' without a fight.
It's clear that Anglesey is going to be forced to merge with Gwynedd, come what may. Andrews is already flat out on extending his legal powers to prevent what he calls "negative behaviours" (i.e., obstinacy) on the part of senior council officers in trying to obstruct the merger process through contract deals, for example.
I would wish Parry Jones a happy retirement, except that, as soon as his massive pension is being paid in, he'll no doubt be off on lucrative committee memberships, directorships and so on. So, I'll bid the good luck to Leightnon Andrews, who needs all he can get in fighting the lead-weighted footdragging of Wales' local government parasites.
 |
| Richard Parry Jones. Getting out before the going gets hot! |
So, apart from his increasing bumblingness, what has prompted the retirement?
Well, it's about as clear as a crystal vase: his council is going to cease to exist, he's of an age where sensible people should let go, and why would he want the hassles of managing an authority merger?
Anglesey is one of the intransigent and donkey-like councils that doesn't want to save public money by amalgamating as Leighton Andrews is hell-bent on ensuring will happen.
Despite this, Parry Jones has been very busy, I gather from insiders, talking to Cardiff about how an amalgamation might proceed. In this, at least Parry Jones has the sense to see the writing on the wall. Not that the elected councillors will give up their £27,000 a year 'allowances' without a fight.
It's clear that Anglesey is going to be forced to merge with Gwynedd, come what may. Andrews is already flat out on extending his legal powers to prevent what he calls "negative behaviours" (i.e., obstinacy) on the part of senior council officers in trying to obstruct the merger process through contract deals, for example.
I would wish Parry Jones a happy retirement, except that, as soon as his massive pension is being paid in, he'll no doubt be off on lucrative committee memberships, directorships and so on. So, I'll bid the good luck to Leightnon Andrews, who needs all he can get in fighting the lead-weighted footdragging of Wales' local government parasites.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)