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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Council says it's ready for the snow

Look after your elderly

neighbours is the advice

Denbighshire County Council is gearing up for the snow predicted to affect the North Wales region later this week.

The Met Office has issued an amber warning of heavy snow and freezing temperatures, with the potential of disruption to the Denbighshire area and the council is advising people to keep an eye on the weather forecasts for up to date predictions and to take the necessary precautions.

The council says it is monitoring the situation closely, with the highways department geared up to deal with any potential problems on the county's roads when the snow arrives.  In the meantime, the council says it will continue to undertake precautionary salting.

The council currently has 7,000 tonnes of grit in stock, this compares with 4,500 tonnes of salt that is used in a normal winter.

Councillor David Smith, Cabinet Lead Member for Environment, said: "The council is fully prepared to deal with the wintry weather.

"As is the nature of weather, we cannot be precise about how badly our county will be affected. With prior warning we can ensure that we do as much as possible to be prepared and to inform people to take the necessary precautions, should the severe weather affect us as is predicted for Friday."

Meanwhile, the council is calling on people to keep an eye on the elderly and vulnerable, especially during the bad weather.

Councillor Bobby Feeley, Cabinet Lead Member for Social Care and Well-being, said: "It is vitally important that will freezing weather is forecast, people should keep an eye on their elderly friends, neighbours and relatives.

"Calling in to make sure they are warm enough, have enough food and are generally well is important and can be a lifeline to those who may not have people they can call upon living nearby."

Any information related to the weather will be published on the council's website: www.denbighshire.gov.uk, on the council's Facebook page or on Denbighshire's Twitter feed.

Concern voiced over Llan Pavilion's finances


* Llangollen Pavilion.

A Llangollen resident says Denbighshire County Council should consider changing the way it manages the town’s Pavilion arena and concert hall.
Alan Found has contacted llanblogger to say: “In April last year I made a Freedom of Information request in relation to the financial situation of The Pavilion. I thought it was about time I made these shocking numbers more widely known.
“The numbers are for the 11 months of the year when the facility is run by Denbighshire County Council. This does not include the one month a year when it is run extremely successfully by the Eisteddfod.
“In essence, from April 2011 to 2012 they projected a loss (or subsidy) of  £183,611 and for 2012 to 2013 a loss (or subsidy) of £159,611.
“Surely this facility should be a major contributor to the economy not a burden. We have the Town Hall for community usage – that is where subsidies should go.
“Every weekend of the year should see the Pavilion full and buzzing, providing jobs and making a major contribution to the Llangollen economy through hotel room, restaurant and shopping sales.
“The food festival is a fine example of what is possible - it made thousands of pounds for the town.
“How long will this scandal of such an expensive but underused asset be allowed to continue?
“It must be time for a fundamental change in how it is managed.”
Mr Found added: "This asset could undoubtedly be a major contributor to the local economy, and if the way DCC are managing the Pavilion isn't delivering this, they need to change their approach - no excuses."
Mr Found says the figures he obtained are:

Llangollen Pavilion Accounts
 
Budget
2011/12 £
Forecasted Outrun £
Forecasted Variance £
Budget
2012/13
Costs
 
 
 
 
Staff costs
132,580
128,430
4,150
130,156
Premises
95,939
92,661
3, 278
89,096
Travelling
1,090
606
484
526
Supplies
36,934
34,563
2,731
8,474
 
 
 
 
 
Income
82,932
72,649
10,283
68,641
 
 
 
 
 
Loss (or subsidy)
- 183,611
- 183,611
 
- 159,611

 A spokeswoman for Denbighshire County Council said: "The council subsidises the pavilion as they do many other important assets. The subsidy to the pavilion has been reduced for the last two years.

“The venue was in a precarious position two years ago, until our department intervened, and improved the performance significantly, turning around a significant deficit position.

“The council net subsidy, as highlighted in the table below, has reduced by almost 30K and will continue to reduce in 2013 /14 by a further 25k.

“The programme continues to grow and develop, and has done for the last two financial years under our management.”

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Row over overseas tourism cash

Of interest to people involved in the tourism in Llangollen will be the fact that the BBC news website is reporting on a row over the amount of Welsh Government cash spent to attract overseas visitors to Wales.

See the story at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-20989259

AM slams cuts in police starting pay

Plans to cut the starting pay of police constables in Wales have been condemned by Clywd South Assembly Member Ken Skates.
The Home Secretary has announced that the starting salary for PCs in England and Wales is to be cut by £4,000 to £19,000.
The move comes following the Winsor review last year which proposed changes to police pay, conditions and allowances.
 
Mr Skates said: "It is particularly disappointing that the starting salary of a police officer will be cut in Wales, but will not be cut in Scotland. This seems very unfair and may only serve to undermine morale of officers here in Wales.
“We are at an all time low in terms of police numbers and putting a further restraint on recruitment will only exacerbate the problem. My own force in North Wales is already facing a 20% cut in funding over the next couple of years and now they will have this on top.
“Trying to penny-pinch when it comes to crime and anti-social behaviour will go down very badly in communities across Wales. I’m worried that this move will impact on the diversity of people coming into the force and put people off joining the police.
“The worry is that this will be the start of a bigger suite of changes to police officers terms and conditions. Plans are already circulating about allowing forces to make officers redundant.
“This not the time to be cutting back on police officers and the essential work that they do. These changes represent a false economy because figures released only last week show the number of young police officers in England and Wales had fallen by nearly 50% in two years.

Major NHS reform goes ahead elsewhere in Wales

Welsh Conservatives have condemned a decision to push ahead with major NHS reform in mid and west Wales.
 
They say that in a Hywel Dda health board meeting today (Tuesday), proposals to downgrade services, cut bed numbers, close minor injury units and make significant changes to paediatrics were rubber-stamped.
 
The decisions follow significant opposition to the plans in a statutory consultation and previous assurances from the Health Minister that no hospital would be downgraded.
 
On Friday, members of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board will consider plans for a major shake-up of services in north Wales - including the closure of Llangollen Cottage Hospital and its replacenment with a new haelth centre in the town.
 
Meanwhile, the public engagement process on health changes in the Hywel Dda area has been questioned by Welsh Conservatives.
 
Shadow Minister for Health, Darren Millar AM, said: “These unwanted plans have been steamrollered through despite strong opposition across the region.
 
“An axe has fallen on community services and beds, patients will be forced to travel further for treatment, and the health minister’s promises on hospital downgrading now stand shamefully broken.
 
“I urge her to condemn these decisions and face up to the fact that Labour’s record-breaking budget cuts have forced this reform agenda.

“The consultation – which included deep-seated disagreement with these plans – appears to have been disregarded by NHS management and the entire public engagement process called into question.”
 
Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire Assembly Member Angela Burns said: “Following many months of constant worry, the worst fears of thousands have come true.
 
“The consultation has been thrown to the dogs and one final chance to use some common sense has been ignored."

Pam's gripping talk on Victorian crime


* Pam Hughes-Williams spoke about Victorian crime to church members.

A fascinating talk on crime in the Victorian era was given to members of Llangollen English Methodist Church’s This and That group on Monday evening.
It was delivered by local resident Pam Williams-Hughes, who was featured by llanblogger  last summer when at the age of 69 she gained a 2:1 BA Honours in History at Glyndwr University after battling against a brain tumour and lifelong dyslexia.
Victorian crime has become her specialist area and during her 90-minute talk she kept audience members spellbound with her vivid descriptions of wrong-doing in London, north Wales’s possible links with the infamous Jack the Ripper, one of Llangollen’s first resident policemen, a drunken 19th century Chester PC, the criminal justice system and what happened to children caught up in it.
After owning up to the fact that one of her own London ancestors was a criminal hanged at Tyburn, she gave the audience a start when she donned a hat and shawl to present a colourful portrayal of a Victorian “lady of the night”.
She did this to illustrate the fact that Mary Nicholls, one of Jack the Ripper’s prostitute victims, was charging clients just four old pence each simply to earn money for an overnight stay at a common lodging house.
Pam then related how her researches had suggested that the Ripper himself, who was never caught after his horrific crimes, may have come to live in the Anglesey village of Aberffraw where he later committed suicide and is now buried in the local cemetery.
In Llangollen, she said the 1841 census had revealed that one of the town’s first police officers, Richard Edwards, was at that time living in Church Street, aged 35, with his wife and children.
Later, the first police officer to “live over the shop” at the town’s new police station was a man with the memorable name of Humphrey Humphrey.
Another local connection with the law and crime was that Llangollen was at that time home to a large number of solicitors and barristers.
Pam then turned her attention to Chester where her researches had thrown up the intriguing character of John Hughes, who kept his job as a local bobby despite committing a lengthy catalogue of minor crimes during the 1850s and 1860s – following the 21st of which he was quietly allowed to resign.
Though not strictly a crime, Pam recounted how in the summer of 1870 the Berwyn hills near Llangollen were “alive with the sound of a serpent hunt”.
A reputedly monster-sized snake had been reported in that area and search parties were sent out to try and catch it.
As an aside, Pam suggested: “If our tourist trade ever drops off maybe we could start a monster hunt too.”
She then spoke of Llangollen’s link with an infamous murder – four-year-old Francis Saville Kent, whose body was found with the throat cut at his family’s home on the Somerset/Wiltshire border in 1860.
The boy's nursemaid was initially arrested for the crime but was released.

Five years later the victim's 16-year old half-sister, Constance Kent, confessed to the killing and was convicted and sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to life in prison.

The scandal forced his family to leave the area and move to Llangollen, where both the dead boy's parents are buried in the local churchyard.
The case has gained publicity recently due to Kate Summerscale's prize-winning book, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, which was also made into a TV drama.

However, after her own researches, Pam said she believes Constance was innocent and that, in fact, her brother was the murderer.

Pam also aired her suspicions about the case of Abraham Thomas, a young man originally from Henllan, near Denbigh, who was hanged in Manchester at the age of 24 after being found guilty of the murder of his employer’s housekeeper in 1883.

Pam is so firmly convinced of his innocence that she is now seeking to obtain a posthumous pardon for Abraham.

Anyone convicted of a crime in Victorian times faced a very grim fate, either a date with the hangman’s noose – in public until the 1860s – for a wide variety of offences, or a term in prison, where they were forced to remain silent, exercise in a hood from which they could only look at the ground and work on tarred ship’s rope to earn their keep.    

Penalties for convicted criminals were also harsh – including children, as Pam illustrated, by giving details of a 14-year-old boy who was handed a sentence of three days hard labour and a whipping for stealing two pairs of boots.

Pam was thanked warmly for her talk by This and That group members.

Jordan takes band's young player honour


* Jordan Biggs with the Young Player of the Year shield.
 
Sixteen-year-old Jordan Biggs from Halton in Chirk has won Llangollen Silver Band’s Young Player of the Year Shield for 2012.
 
Jordan, who is a Year 11 pupil at Ysgol Dinas Bran in Llangollen, has been a trombonist in both the Youth and Senior Band at Llangollen for five years.
 
He is also a keen keyboard and bass guitar player.
 
Jordan says music is his main hobby and interest, but he also has a keen interest in transportation vehicles and their drive units and hopes to further his education by qualifying in HGV mechanical engineering after finishing school.