Squeezed: the connection between Ynys Môn farm incomes and wind turbines

This post is intended as a short addition to my last post, a critique Ynys Môn's Energy Island strategy. In it I mentioned that a squeeze in farm profitability was pushing farmers towards various farm diversification schemes, including — controversially — the erection of wind turbines. Figures just released by Aberystwyth University's annual Farm Business Wales Survey show just how steeply farm incomes (with the exception of dairy, of which there is relatively little on Ynys Môn) have dropped over the past 12 months:

"Upland cattle and sheep farms recorded a decrease in the value of outputs of almost 1 per cent between 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, while inputs rose by 7 per cent – resulting in an income decrease of 18 per cent. 

"The value of outputs on lowland cattle and sheep farms in the identical sample rose by 3 per cent, while inputs increased by just over 12 per cent, leading to a similar 18 per cent fall back."

After a difficult decade including the Foot and Mouth disaster and continued government dithering over tackling Bovine TB, and now with such a considerable reduction in farm profitability due to the rising outgoing costs of feed and fertiliser, there is little wonder that additional income from the currently massively over-generous Feed In Tarifs are becoming so attractive.

The pressure on farmers is unlikely to ease up anytime soon. The Eurozone crisis adds huge amounts of uncertainty as both livestock prices and CAP payments are very sensitive to the Sterling-Euro exchange rate. CAP reform will see income support payments reduced whilst also requiring farmers to be be "greener", meaning they will need to protect "habitat" and take land out of production further squeezing income. Furthermore farmers in Less Favoured Areas (LFAs; roughly half of Ynys Môn is classified as LFA) will no longer receive higher levels of support. The list goes on and on.

Accordingly, with all this going on and its controversial side-effects on our landscape, it is both ironic and inexplicable that the Welsh Government decided to do away with a Rural Affairs Minister at cabinet level and downgrade and split its rural affairs department.

For those interested, the relevant sections comparing upland and lowland farm incomes over the past twelve months are below. Farm Survey

You won't see this on Fferm Ffactor...

How many Glastir points does that get you?

Ynys Môn in 2011

Croeso i 2011

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i chi gyd! Happy New Year to you all!

Making predictions is a perilous business -- however in order to understand what problems potentially lie ahead and to plan effectively to counter them we need to have a view of what to look out for over the year ahead. Accordingly I'm happy to stick my neck out and share with you what I think 2011 has in store for Ynys Môn:

Anglesey County Council

Wales's highest paid civil servant, David Bowles - the Assembly Government appointed Interim MD to IoACC - will certainly leave the council this year. His two year contract will end in September -- though he may very well leave even earlier in order to save costs. There will be no direct replacement; instead in all likelihood Gwynedd's Chief Executive Harry Thomas will take over the running of both Anglesey and Gwynedd with an Anglesey-based Deputy appointed from within IoACC. There will no doubt be a pruning of heads of departments as several functions are shared between Gwynedd and Anglesey.

Politically 2011 will be an unpredictable year for the Council. The departure of David Bowles will no doubt have a large impact on Councillors and it will be interesting to see if the contentious Terms of Engagement will survive him -- or whether Harry Thomas will be as keen to enforce them. It is also likely that 2011 will see the two Councillors reported to the Ombudsman have their day before Adjudication Panel for Wales -- leading to untold consequences inside the council chamber whatever the judgement.

The ruling Alliance, made up of Plaid Cymru, Labour, and two groups of Independents, is already suffering from a number of stress-fractures and it is difficult to see it surviving the year -- particularly considering that in addition to the changes outlined above it will also be forced to push through unpopular cuts. The local council elections in 2012 will begin to weigh ever heavier on Councillors minds as the year unfolds.

The Island Economy

2011 will be a very difficult year for the UK as the government begins to implement policies designed to reduce the national deficit, forcing us to come to terms with the systematic overspending of the past decade. Despite its status as the poorest place in the UK, Ynys Môn will not be immune to this process and will be affected by the VAT and fuel duty rises, changes to welfare payments, and reduced council services amongst others.

Fortunately there should be some light on the 'horizon' for the Island. Following the coalition government's quick action to both approve Wylfa as a 'preferred' nuclear location and introduce measures to ensure the profitability of low-carbon energy sources such as nuclear, 2011 should be the year when Horizon officially indicates it will proceed to build Wylfa B. This will provide a huge boost to Ynys Môn's ailing economy by providing in the short-term huge numbers of construction jobs -- hopefully coming in time to take the strain caused by job losses elsewhere. The construction phase will take several years and bring with it a large influx of workers which will boost Anglesey's retail and housing sectors in addition to other small businesses.

The other major employers on the Island -- the port of Holyhead and RAF Valley -- will hopefully not see any major changes in 2011. The Search and Rescue function will certainly be retained at Valley, whilst announcements regarding the future of the T Mk 1 Hawks are not expected until 2012. With regards to Holyhead, with traffic through the port anyway down since the collapse of building boom in Ireland, people who I have spoken to at the port don't believe that passenger numbers will be further affected by the current economic turmoil in Ireland -- which is cautiously good news.

However, in the long term, the most important sector for the Island economy in 2011 will be its small and medium sized indigenous businesses. In addition to the benefits they will accrue from the construction of Wylfa B, they will also be helped by the reduction in April 2011 of corporation tax for small businesses from 21% to 20% and the ongoing National Insurance holiday for new qualifying businesses outside of the South East. Unfortunately they will receive little help from the Welsh Assembly Government itself. Small businesses in Wales already pay higher business rates than anywhere else in the UK (in this context it should be noted that the Welsh Conservatives pledge to remove all small businesses with a rateable value below £10,000 out of business rates altogether -- benefitting approx. 19,000 North Wales small firms) and Ieuan Wyn Jones's misdirected Economic Renewal Programme has removed any support from Anglesey's small businesses through halving the total budget and then limiting all economic support to certain sectors only. Furthermore Ieuan Wyn Jones recent calls to delay income tax bills for small firms would do nothing but modify cash flow -- instead of an overall reduction in outflow, like a business rate reduction would do. We need to find ways of reducing bills for small businesses not simply moving the problem until later.

Môn Mam Cymru

Proportionately more people are employed in fields related to farming and agriculture on Anglesey than anywhere else in North Wales. Accordingly we need a healthy and profitable farming industry -- however Anglesey's farms will begin to come under great pressure towards the end of 2011. Single Farm Payments, worth around £10 million per annum to Ynys Môn, are denominated in Euros (at an exchange rate set on 30th September each year) and are therefore vulnerable to the current Euro crisis being played out on the continent. Should other Eurozone countries join Greece and Ireland then it is possible that the sterling value of Single Farm Payments scheduled for December 2011 will be much reduced. On top of this WAG's new agri-environment scheme 'Glastir'  -- which will eventually replace the existing four schemes (Tir Mynydd, Tir Cynnal, Tir Gofal, and the Organic Farming Scheme) -- has been lambasted by farmers for offering too little financial incentive compared to the amount of work required to qualify. So few farmers have applied that WAG has been forced to U-turn on its proposals to begin phasing out Tir Mynydd payments (received by 420 Anglesey farms) this year. However without major changes to Glastir in 2011 farmers will see their incomes further reduced in coming years.

Tourism

Tourism brings in approx. £215m per annum for Ynys Môn and has become increasingly more and more important to the Island economy. The Royal Wedding and presence on Anglesey of William and Kate in 2011 will provide us with an unrivalled window of opportunity to boost tourism for a generation -- but only if we make the right decisions early in 2011. The council needs to recognise this opportunity and implement a short-term tourism strategy designed to 'sell' the island globally over the next 12 months. Furthermore council plans to offload the various tourist attractions it currently runs should be suspended until 2012 at least unless suitable and stable partners can be found with the means and desire to run them well. My recommendations in full are here.

Island House Prices

According to the latest Halifax Country House Price survey the average house price in Anglesey in 2010 fell from £164,300 to £145,147 -- the equivalent of a 11.7% drop. As far as I am concerned this is good news for the Island as it brings the house price to earnings ratio marginally down from 6.7x to 5.6x.

The media is suggesting that the presence of William and Kate will make property on the island attractive to certain second home hunters thus pushing up prices in 2011. The probable beginning of an influx of workers for Wylfa B will also lead to house price inflation -- making it absolutely imperative that the joint LDP between Anglesey and Gwynedd frees up enough land for the building of new houses to keep prices stable. The whole issue of Affordable Homes on Ynys Môn is something I intend to return to shortly.

Elections and Referendums

There will the two referendums held in 2011: the vote on extra powers for the Welsh Assembly will be won, the nationwide poll on changing the first-past-the-post election system to AV will be lost. The Welsh Assembly election in May on Ynys Môn will be very, very close. I will do everything I can to provide a local, Welsh, energetic alternative to a tired Ieuan Wyn Jones. Whatever the result, I promise to make sure that the issues of jobs and the Island economy will be at the very top of the agenda -- ensuring that whoever succeeds at the polls, Ynys Môn will be the winner.

I would be very interested in hearing your predictions for 2011...

Helping Holyhead and Ynys Môn to create jobs

According to figures compiled by the GMB Union, Holyhead has the most jobseekers per vacancy in Wales. This month there are 781 unemployed claimants in Holyhead chasing just 105 unfilled job vacancies -- a ratio of 7.4 potential applicants per job. Bangor, Caernarfon and Llangefni are in 17th place, with 2,138 unemployed claimants chasing 1,077 job vacancies -- a ratio of 2 applicants per job.

Holyhead in particular was severely hit by the recession -- two of its largest employers, both of which had been operating in Holyhead for well over 35 years -- closed within three months of each other at the end of 2009:

• Anglesey Aluminium started smelting in 1971 and continued production all the way through the 80s and 90s, only closing with a loss of 450 jobs in September 2009
• The Eaton Electric plant in Holyhead opened in 1960 under the name Midland Electric Manufacturing Company, it operated all through the 80s and 90s and closed in December 2009 with a loss of 250 jobs

Between them they directly accounted for 700 jobs, not including all the other jobs in small suppliers, support industries, and shops which depended on their trade.

Large companies like Anglesey Aluminium and Eaton Electric cannot be replaced overnight, and it is for that reason that the economic wellbeing of Holyhead and Anglesey must rest with its indigenous small businesses -- a point explicitly addressed in the People's Manifesto:

"the Council needs to recognise that the Island’s economic future rests on promoting and supporting multitudes of small businesses - not just one or two large employers. Accordingly the Council must: (a) avoid supporting developments which merely contribute to the cannibalisation of sales from existing small businesses and shops; (b) prioritise reducing the bureaucracy and costs involved in running small businesses on the Island; (c) provide meaningful and high-quality support to encourage both the growth of existing small businesses and the establishment of new ventures."

Not only does this make good common-sense, it is also backed up by research: for example studies show that nearly two-thirds of all net new jobs in the United States in 2007 were created by companies less than five years old. Therefore it is clear that a country such as Wales which suffers from an under-developed private sector should strategically focus on providing support to its small businesses as a way of growing the number of private sector jobs.

Unfortunately the economic development policies currently being pursued by the Welsh Assembly Government -- Ieuan Wyn Jones's "Economic Renewal Programme" -- do the exact opposite: i.e. they support a few large employers in Wales at the expense of the multitudes of small businesses. It has done this by limiting the amount of economic support available and then restricted it only to companies operating in six "key sectors":

• Creative industries
• Information Communication Technologies
• Energy and Environment
• Advanced material and manufacturing
• Life Sciences
• Financial and Professional services

How were these sectors chosen? Nobody knows. The majority of companies operating in these sectors are not small companies. And most importantly to us, none of them (with the possible exception of energy companies) are well represented on Ynys Môn as is clear from the following breakdown of workplace employment sectors in Anglesey and North Wales:

In case you can't read the key: the sectors (left to right) are: Public Administration, education,
health and other services; Agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing; Production; Construction;
Distribution, transport and communication; Finance and business services. (Source: WAG)

As you can see: Anglesey has a large distribution and transport sector thanks to Holyhead port, fair sized construction and production industries (although this data was collated before the closure of AAM and Eaton, etc.), and the largest proportion of people in North Wales working in areas related to agriculture and food production. None of these sectors are supported by the Economic Renewal Programme and therefore do not qualify for any support. Financial services are supported but, as you can see, Anglesey has the lowest proportion of these companies in the whole of North Wales.

As Anglesey has the highest proportion of people working in Agriculture sector in North Wales it is also important to note that there are severe problems here also. Single Farm payments are denominated in Euros, whose value is falling against sterling because of economic turmoil in Europe. Furthermore the current existing WAG agri-environmental schemes (Tir Gofal, Tir Mynydd, Tir Cynnal, and the Organic farming Scheme) are in the process of being phased out and replaced by the over complicated and widely derided Glastir scheme.  Indeed at a meeting I recently attended of the Anglesey Grassland Society, out of approximately 40 farmers present, only one said he was applying for Glastir. There is trouble ahead.

So what can be done to help the situation in Holyhead and the rest of Ynys Môn?

• WAG needs to change its focus to supporting our small indigenous Welsh businesses. It can do this by reviewing the focus of the Economic Renewal Programme and also by reviewing Business Rates -- which are currently higher in Wales than anywhere else in the UK. (the Welsh Conservatives plan to take all small companies with a rateable value of less than £12,000 out of paying business rates all together).
• More needs to be done to ensure that European funds like JEREMIE (of which Anglesey firms have so far only received 0.1% of the funds available in Wales) are better advertised and taken up by Anglesey companies.
• Closer to home, Anglesey County Council needs to recognise the dangerous effect which expanding the number of pay and display car parks will have on struggling town centre businesses. Gwynedd Council has made all car parks free during the Xmas period to help their small businesses -- why can't we do the same here? I will be pushing the Council to reconsider parking charges entirely.
• Noting the importance of Agricultural and food-based businesses in particular to Anglesey, WAG needs to consider the effectiveness of Glastir. Closer to home we need to look at how we can promote Anglesey produce better.
• Tourism will become more and more important to the Island. I have already discussed here what can be done to help the industry on Anglesey.
• And finally, Planning policies on the island needs to become more business friendly. Present policies are based on the adopted Ynys Môn Local Plan (1996) and the stopped Unitary Development Plan (2005) -- both of these documents are seriously outdated in all areas. Accordingly we need to ensure there is sufficient consultation into the new Local Development Plan (currently being jointly produced with Gwynedd Council) to make sure that planning represents Anglesey's modern needs.

If you have any more ideas or suggestions, please do let me know.

Protecting Anglesey's 'Môn Mam Cymru' status

© Sir Kyffin Williams, R.A. (1918-2006)

Tucked away in the 'Farm & Country' section of today's Daily Post is a very significant report about a plan to renovate Anglesey Country Council's tenant farms. It is a little known fact that Anglesey Council owns the second largest smallholdings estate in Wales, however the sad fact is that many of these farms have over time become considerably dilapidated. With little or no money set aside to repair them, rents well below the market average, and an attitude that they are sacrosanct and should not be sold, these smallholdings have over time crumbled into even worse states of disrepair -- in fact, according to the Daily Post, only a very small portion even have central heating.

It is refreshing therefore to discover that at a meeting of the Executive this week, the decision was finally made to take action and sell a small portion of these smallholdings, and parcels of bare land, in order to fund much needed estate management, such as repairs and modernisation for the remaining smallholdings over the next five years. Furthermore, going beyond just improving the quality of the estate, plans have also been put in place to create a clear succession framework to ensure that the modernised smallholdings are then available to help young farmers (with Agricultural College backgrounds) get a 'step-up' into the farming business.

This decision by the Council is entirely to be welcomed -- and in fact exactly such a policy was advocated in the People's Manifesto for Ynys Môn:

- Anglesey County Council’s tenant farms are a valuable public asset and provide an opportunity for much needed younger farmers to learn the ropes and become independent with minimal capital outlay. However, many of the council's tenant farms are currently in poor states of disrepair. Resources allowing, the council should endeavour to renovate them so that they will continue to serve the island.

- In order to generate money to renovate the majority of the council’s tenant farms, it may be necessary to value and sell off a small proportion of such to tenant farmers, or even offer part ownerships of smallholdings.

Therefore all credit to the new portfolio holder for Property, Smallholdings and Asset Management, Cllr H. Eifion Jones, for having the foresight to grasp this particular nettle and also for managing to build cross-party support within the council for this intervention. Some other councils with similarly large numbers of smallholdings, such as Somerset, have decided to sell their entire estates -- however, considering agriculture is so important to both Anglesey's past ("Môn Mam Cymru") and it's future, the Druid completely supports the plans to create, in Cllr Eifion Jones's words, "a vibrant smallholdings estate which will help young farmers enter the agricultural industry".

Readers might also be interested to learn that Prof. Elan Closs Stephens, chair of the Recovery Board, has taken to strolling through the council building and sitting in on various meetings. This week she decided to attend the above meeting and declared herself delighted with both the proactive policy itself and the constructive nature of the meeting.

Could this be a sign that the Council is beginning to consider the challenges it faces in a mature manner and is trying to turn itself around?

NFU/FUW Hustings Update

          

By all accounts last night's NFU/FUW Agricultural hustings was a rough and rowdy affair featuring some fiery exchanges between the candidates. Here's what I have been able to glean from a number of attendees:

• The venue was changed at the last moment from The Bull Hotel to the adjacent Llangefni Town Hall. Attendees were told that this was because a larger than expected number of people had turned up - however, as the Welsh Christian Party candidate, David Owen was also present could the real reason be because he had declined to attend a debate in a pub? After all he has been in the press objecting to the use of a pub in Llanfachtraeth as a polling station…
• Plaid's Dylan Rees was apparently surprisingly knowledgeable about matters agricultural, even pointing out in his opening address that he was "aware of the importance of farming to rural areas" - Really? Who'd have though it.
• All candidates rightly paid tribute to Albert Owen's private members bill to set up a Supermarket Ombudsman ("Oftrolley"), however Albert Owen himself candidly admitted that his party was not behind him (indeed the bill failed to go through before Parliament was recently suspended because the Labour government failed to provide time for the necessary debates and procedures). All candidates also said that if elected they would pledge to put similar legislation in place.
• The biggest bust up of the night came in exchanges between Albert Owen and the Conservative candidate, Anthony Ridge-Newman. Owen once again objected to Ridge-Newman saying that Anglesey is the poorest county in the UK by complaining that the Office of National Statistic's GVA figures only breaks Wales down into eight regions whilst there are 22 counties in Wales. Therefore should those eight regions be subdivided into counties, some places in South Wales would have even lower GVA figures then Anglesey. A clearly angry Ridge-Newman was cut off mid response by a member of the audience loudly demanding "how many counties are there in Wales?". Either the man was able to immediately follow Albert's torturous sophistry or was a frustrated geography teacher - whichever way, Ridge-Newman replied that he didn't know, but nor does he know how many counties there are in England or Scotland either. Cue a very smug expression on Albert Owen's face. For the sake of balance I should point out that the frustrated geography teacher later apparently also attacked Plaid's Dylan Rees and former MP, Keith Best, for only being "dynamic in applying for BT shares" so perhaps he wasn't entirely apolitical. 
• In exchanges about Wylfa B, Albert Owen revealed that Energy Secretary Ed Milliband had told him the day before that in the event of a hung parliament Labour would never compromise their pro-nuclear energy policy for the sake of clinging onto power in a coalition government. Dylan Rees was taken to task by the audience for Plaid Cymru's mixed messages on nuclear (Rees is personally pro-Wylfa B whilst his party, and his manifesto is strongly against it). This point was taken up by Peter Rogers who also pointed out that Plaid's Elfyn Llwyd was campaigning against low flying RAF jets in Wales, whilst Rees is pro-RAF valley. "At least we have a manifesto" retorted Rees - "whats the point of having one if you don't follow the policies in it?" came back Peter Roger's reply. At which point angry farmers complained to the Chairman that they had come to the meeting to discuss agricultural matters, not energy policy.
• A dairy farmer said that thanks to the fall of the pound against the euro, he was now doing very well indeed and therefore could any of the candidates tell him why he should vote for anyone other than Labour? The Druid is not sure if the farmer in question actually thought it was official Labour policy to wreck the UK economy and thus devalue sterling or not.
• Other questions from the floor covered the lack of new farmers coming in to the profession, damaging EU legislation, why French farmers got more benefits than UK farmers, and badger culls.
• The Welsh Christian Party's David Owen was apparently surprisingly jocular, coming out with some of the only gags of the evening. Whilst patting his quite large stomach he told the audience that he was glad to attend the agricultural hustings because he "likes his food". He also later revealed that there are "badgers on every street corner in South Wales". You heard it here first.
• The Lib Dem Matt Wood apparently had a poor night of it. With a small voice and arms waving around uncontrollably like those of a string puppet, he was rarely allowed to finish his points before the Chairman briskly moved on to the next question. The UKIP candidate, Elaine Gill, didn't turn up.

UPDATE: Another attendee calls to say that there was some unintended hilarity at the start of the hustings when the Chairman was forced to apologise that the fliers for the meeting incorrectly identifying Peter Rogers as the 'Conservative candidate'... ooh, touchy subject!
         

Quote of the Day 2 (Farmers v Police edition)

  
The Druid's report of the Treaddur Bay business hustings included the following section on Plaid's Dylan Rees:

"Dylan Rees told the assembled entrepreneurs that it was incorrect to say that he has no business experience. No, no, he said, as a Police Inspector he had to look after 40 officers, nine patrol cars, and deal with reams of paperwork - so it was just like running a company. The Druid begs to differ - there's a big difference between being a 'manager' and having the business acumen to develop products or services, find a market, take a financial risk, and make sales to meet a payroll."

This led to a discussion as to what 'business acumen' Peter Rogers has as a farmer. It was pointed out that a farm is actually a business, at which point a self-professed Plaid Cymru supporter then posted the below comment:

"Come on Druid, its clutching at straws to claim that a farm is a business and then claim that Dylan Rees has no business experience. The logical conclusion of that sort of analysis is that 'managing' 40 cows and 9 tractors is easier than 40 policemen and 9 police cars."

Leading to today's second Quote of the Day from Anonymous 09:35:

"I would say there is a massive difference between farming and policing - in policing there is no risk to your income, you have static or rising income, you invest none of your own money, you lose none of your own money, you make none of your own money, you follow orders and procedures rather than making your own decisions, there is an organisation responsible for your welfare and your retirement is taken care of."

Hear, hear.

Finally, the Agricultural Hustings will be held under the NFU and FUW's auspices in The Bull, Llangefni, this evening at 7pm. If you're interested in farming matters do attend, if not check back here later for the Druid's report.
  

Is North Wales's support for the Welsh Assembly warranted?

  

In yesterday's post on the BBC 'devolution' poll, the Druid noted how North Wales residents are the most unequivocal in their support for the Welsh Assembly, with more North Wales residents in favour of the assembly and less believing it should be abolished than any other region of Wales. However, does the Assembly's treatment of North Wales warrant its high level of support in the region?

To answer this question lets take a look at the North Wales economy. During the period 2000-2007, whilst the UK economy grew by 44% and Welsh economy grew by 38%, the North Wales economy only grew by 34% - a staggering 10 percentage points less than the total UK growth. As a consequence of this - even before the damage brought by the recent recession - North Wales was home to three of the poorest counties in the UK: Anglesey, Conwy and Denbighshire. Can this low growth in North Wales be blamed on the Assembly? The answer is 'partially, yes'.

• One of the arguments for devolution was that an Assembly in Cardiff would bring governance closer to the people of Wales and allow it to formulate and implement economic development policies which are 'custom-made' to tackle the issues facing the different regions of the Welsh economy. We now know that despite the Welsh Assembly spending more per head on economic development than any other region in the UK, Wales as a whole has the the lowest GVA and highest unemployment in Britain. We also know that this picture is even worse in North Wales. The Assembly's economic development policies have evidently failed both nationally and in North Wales.
• Furthermore, in 2000 the Assembly was in receipt of £1.2 billion in additional EU Objective 1 funds for regenerating the 'deprived areas' of Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy and Denbighshire. These funds, if cleverly used, could have been used to leave a lasting legacy of flourishing private businesses in the area - yet, as we have seen, growth in North Wales between 2000-2007 has lagged far behind that of South Wales and the recent recession has seen thousands of job losses throughout North Wales. There appears to be NO lasting economic legacy in North Wales of the Assembly Government's use of these Objective 1 funds - Ron Davies may indeed be right when he asserts that the Public Sector 'stole' it.
• Despite the recession some of the largest Council Tax rises in the UK this year will be in North Wales, with Conwy Council rising 5%, Anglesey at 4.5%, Gwynedd at 3.9% and Flintshire at 3.3%. In most cases these large rises are due to 'derisory' settlements to North Wales councils from the Welsh Assembly which distributes money based not on need but on on the size of the populations in each council area. As a consequence of this, two of the poorest counties in the UK, Anglesey and Conwy, received a settlement rise of just 1% from the Welsh Assembly Government compared to rises of 3.1% for Newport and 2.9% for Cardiff City in South Wales. Once again the Assembly's policies are not helping the poorest region of Wales: the North.
• If we concentrate just on the Druid's home of Anglesey - officially the poorest county in the UK with a GVA per head of just 53% of the UK's average - we see that the Assembly Government has NOT prioritised the area as it should have. For example at the very same time that Anglesey Aluminium was closing with a loss of 450 jobs, the Welsh Assembly announced plans to inject over £100 million of European funding into the much more prosperous area of Swansea - with a much higher GVA per head figure than Anglesey (7% above the all-Wales level but 19% below the UK average). This entirely defies logic and shows that the Assembly's priorities are in the more highly-populated, Labour voting regions of South Wales.
• The Assembly also has competence for Agriculture in Wales, so lets look at agriculture in North Wales. Remarkably farming in North Wales has fared even worse than the economy. During the period 1997 (admittedly prior to the formation of the Assembly) to 2007, the economic contribution of agriculture to the North Wales economy fell by a staggering 67% compared to an overall UK decline of just 7%. Furthermore, the Assembly has been unable to prevent damaging EU legislation - such as the EU EID sheep tagging rules - which will disproportionately effect North Wales.

Despite the fact that the Druid personally believes that governance should be devolved as close to the electorate as possible - and therefore supports the Welsh Assembly on principle - it is, however, difficult to conclude other than to say North Wales has so far been taken for a ride by the Welsh Assembly. 

Also, where is Ieuan Wyn Jones in all this? Despite being the Deputy First Minister for Wales why is he not fighting more for North Wales and his constituency of Anglesey - as Andrew Davies and Edwina Hart are obviously doing for Swansea? Is he just not up to it? Or is it possible that he is devoting too much of his time to the politics of leading Plaid Cymru rather than looking out for the people who elected him? He better watch out or IWJ may find himself more vulnerable at the next Assembly elections in 2011 than he thinks...
   

A birds eye view of Llangefni in the 1950s

  

click image to enlarge

The Druid has come across this 1950s photo of Llangefni taken from the air. This was back in a time when Llangefni was still a very wealthy Market Town with:

• 2 Livestock Auction Houses (one is visible on the bottom left of the photo, and the other is just above the centre on the right hand side)
• 8 pubs (The Red Lion, The Cross Keys, The Bull Hotel, The Market, The Ship, The Good Lion, The Foundry Vaults, and the Railway)
• A cinema (visible above the Auction House in the bottom left) 
• An electricity generating plant (top centre)
• 2 Elementary Schools (Ysgol Penrallt and Ysgol British)
• 1 High School ("County School")
• 4 Butchers
• 4 Banks
• 3 Iron Mongers
• 2 Tailors
• 2 Blacksmiths
• 3 Newsagents / booksellers
• 2 Undertakers

And all of this in a town which must have had only half of its current population. Neither of the Auction Houses exist anymore, four of the pubs served their last pints years ago, the cinema is long gone and the rest of the businesses decimated. Indeed a large portion of the stores now are boarded up or replaced with endless Charity Shops.

As Llangefni was built on the wealth of the surrounding farms and the regular livestock markets held there, its decline is directly connected to the decline of agriculture on the island. The admirable Dylan Jones-Evans has posted on the plight of agriculture in North Wales, noting:

• the economic contribution of agriculture in North Wales has declined by 67 per cent during the period 1997-2007 as compared to an overall UK decline of 7 per cent
• whilst agriculture accounted for 2.5 per cent of the North Wales economy in 1997, this had fallen to 0.6 per cent by 2007. Indeed, agriculture was producing £175 million for the North Wales economy in 1997 but this had plummeted to £57 million a decade later. Unbelievably, this decline accounts for 8 per cent of the total reduction in overall UK agricultural output during this period.
• worst of all, if the relative contribution of agriculture to the North Wales economy had been the same in 2007 as it had been in 1997, then the sector would have been generating an additional £187 million in output that year.

Its a very sad picture - and the effects of this rural malaise are writ large in today's Llangefni.


What will an ariel photo of Llangefni taken in 50 years time show? Will there be anything left?