Some Wrexham schools closed tomorrow

Ahead of tomorrow's predicted heavy snow, Wrexham Council has announced three of its schools - which may be attended by pupils from this area - will be either closed or partially closed tomorrow (Friday):

Ysgol Rhiwabon High School, Ruabon - Partially Closed

The school is closed for the following reason(s):

• Insufficient staff cover
• Complications as a result of inclement weather

Further Information: The school will be closed on Friday January 18th 2013 to all students and staff due to the risk of severe weather and the potential travel disruption. This decision has been taken under advice from the Met office and travel organisations and is to ensure the safety of our students and staff, many of whom travel some distance. The school will be open for those students who have an external English Literature and Maths exam. tomorrow. The school anticipates being open on Monday as normal but please check the Wrexham Council and school website for further updates over the weekend. Thank you all for your assistance and support Alun Harding Headteacher

Last Updated: 03:32PM 17/01/13

St Christopher's School, Wrexham - Closed

Further Information: In view of the high possibility that the weather tomorrow will be extremely poor I have no alternative than on Health and Safety grounds to close St Christopher’s. As you are aware many of our students and staff live along way from school. I can not guarantee tomorrow that taxies, buses etc will be able to get to school safely. As it has already started to snow this afternoon I have no alternative than to close the school tomorrow. I am extremely sorry to have to close the school but the weather predictions for tomorrow are grave for this area. Yours sincerely Maxine Pittaway Head Teacher

Last Updated: 03:09PM 17/01/13

St Josephs Catholic & Anglican High Sch, Wrexham - Closed

The school is closed for the following reason(s):

• Complications as a result of inclement weather

Further Information: The school is closed fully tomorrow, Friday 18th January. Our decision is based on the Met.Office forecast of adverse weather, including blizzard conditions. Our school’s priority is young people’s safety. The school is fully closed and so no pupil should attempt to travel to school, even if their individual journey seems straightforward. We have sent all parents and carers a letter and advised each Year Group about work they can undertake, and we thank you for your support in this. Please refer to our letter home for details about how you can further monitor the situation over the weekend. Thank you so much for your support and understanding as Parents and Carers

Last Updated: 03:48PM 17/01/13

Currently, 31 Wrexham schools are set to open tomorrow.

For more information, see the Wrexham Council website at http://www.wrexham.gov.uk/english/education/school_status.cfm

Snow - the opening event ...

* The canal towpath was already under a light covering of snow this afternoon (Thursday).

The heavy stuff isn't officially due to get here until the early hours of tomorrow (Friday) morning, but light snow has been falling on Llangollen for most of the today.

This left a number of places with a light covering, including the canal towpath.

The Met Office has issued a severe weather warning and emergency services and other agencies are warning people to take care especially when travelling on the roads. 

Visitors get their teeth into new campaign

 

* Food, glorious food ... Carole Startin (right) with Tansy Rogerson.
 

The Hamper Llangollen food festival and a host of award-winning Denbighshire producers are to star in a campaign to transform North Wales into a foodie heaven for visitors.

 

The aim is to give tourists a taste for the area so they have an appetite to come back again - and again.

 

It's all part of the drive by Tourism Partnership North Wales to make the region a top five UK destination for visitors.

 

The renown of Welsh lamb has already travelled far and wide with the likes of American President Barack Obama and the Pope tucking in.

 

But organisers say the Food North Wales campaign is about more than just lamb, beef and pork.

 

Apart from the award-winning butchers there are bakers and brewers, buffalo herders and bee-keepers, fudge, paté and cheesemakers, and even a purveyor of garlic products.

 

They will be showcased on the new Food North Wales website that's being hailed as a gateway to gastronomic delight.

 

The campaign was launched at the Bodnant Welsh Food Centre in the Conwy Valley.

 

Carole Startin, Marketing and Events Executive with Tourism Partnership North Wales, explained: "Food North Wales is all about bringing together for the consumer under one umbrella.

 

"We have wonderful food and drink that’s produced locally. As well as our marvellous meat, there are our fantastic vegetables and heavenly bread, exquisite liqueurs and fine ales - they are part of the wonderful taste of North Wales.

 

"The website will also include information about where to eat and drink and the latest news stories about the fine food available in North Wales.

 

"We are what we eat and food is an integral part of our identity, it helps embed our unique sense of place.

 

"It therefore makes perfect sense for the food sector and the tourism industry to work more closely together than ever to make it easier for the tourist to find some quality food and drink while they’re here on holiday in Wales - and also help with their research before they come."

 

"As a perfect complement to our fine produce and truly exceptional restaurants, we have some fantastic food festivals across North Wales such as Conwy Feast, Mold Food and Drink Festival, Hamper Llangollen and the 700-year-old Conwy Honey Fair.

 

"We also have the newly established Clwydian Range Food Trail and we'd like to see more trails like this developed."

 

It was a sentiment echoed by Tansy Rogerson, the Marketing Manager of the £6.5 million Bodnant Welsh Food Centre that was officially opened by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall last summer.

 

Ms Rogerson said: "We’ve got so many fantastic artisan producers on our doorstep as well as nationally in Wales that we need to shout about them.

 

"The purpose of this campaign is to tell people outside Wales about the fantastic food on offer and to signpost them to where they can find it.

 

"Increasingly people want to know where their food comes from and we have 100 per cent traceability with our meat.

 

"By supporting local producers, we are keeping the economy going as well as keeping and creating jobs in rural North Wales."

 

Dewi Davies, the Regional Strategy Director of Tourism Partnership North Wales, is a passionate advocate of the economic benefits of promoting the food sector.

 

He said: "Our vision is to make North Wales a top five UK visitor destination and our strategy is geared up to achieve this goal.

 

"To be successful we have to provide brilliant visitor experiences and food is a central part of these experiences.

 

"There were already a number of good food initiatives in different corners of North Wales but we felt it was important to have an all-encompassing campaign highlighting all the great food stories that we have across the whole of the region.

 

"We have some fantastic producers - like Llaeth y Llan Village Dairy, Snowdonia Cheese, Patchwork Paté and Halen Môn - and we need to make information about them available in an interesting way to our visitors.

 

"As part of the campaign, we will identify those places where you can actually buy all this wonderful food - whether it is the Blas ar Fwyd delicatessen in Llanrwst, Edwards the butcher in Conwy, the Bison Grill at the Rhug estate, Hawarden Farm Shop or indeed Bodnant Welsh Food where the launch is taking place.

 

"All this fantastic food gives people another reason to come to North Wales, another reason to dwell - and another reason to make a return visit."

 

For more information go to www.foodnorthwales.co.uk

AM calls for Welsh Government statement on health shake-up

Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called for a Welsh Government statement on the consultation on controversial NHS shake-up plans for North Wales following accusations from campaigners that it is flawed and that petitions have been ignored.

 

Betsi Cadwaldr University Health Board has been consulting on plans to close minor injuries units along with some community hospitals - including Llangollen - while specialist care for very ill newborn babies could be moved from Denbighshire's Glan Clwyd Hospital to Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral.

The board is due to discuss the proposals at its meeting this Friday, which is open to the public.

* Mark Isherwood AM. 

Mr Isherwood has been contacted by campaigners throughout North Wales who claim that interpretation by independent analysts of the data generated during the public consultation does not reflect the true feelings of people in the region.

Llangollen campaigners have expressed fury that the analysis seems to dismiss those thousands who signed petitions out of their own free will.

 

In this week’s Business Statement Mr Isherwood asked the Welsh Government to respond to the concerns and for an Assembly debate on these in Government time.

He said: “Widespread concern has been expressed by campaigners throughout the region regarding Opinion Research Services, which carried out the consultation on behalf of the Health Board, with one constituent quoted as saying that “it strains all sense of credulity in its blatant manipulation of numbers in order to arrive at the result that it sets out to achieve.

 

“There has been widespread concern from Flint, Prestatyn, Llangollen and across north Wales about the fact that thousands of signatures on petitions have been ignored.

 

"Also, the largest responses, which came from the wider consultation, have been completely ignored; the majority of people were opposed, but you would not know that from the consultation report. We therefore need a statement, hopefully before this goes to the board on Friday, and we certainly need time in this Assembly to debate the concerns now being raised.”

The Minister for Finance and Leader of the House, Jane Hutt, told Mr Isherwood his request for a statement “is premature because it pre-empts the report and response from Betsi Cadwaladr University Local Health Board, which are forthcoming.”

Vehicles stopped in safety clampdown

Over 100 vehicles were stopped as part of an operation to ensure the safety of schoolchildren in Denbighshire and Flintshire.
 

On Tuesday, 15^th January officers from North Wales Police, Denbighshire and Flintshire County Councils and VOSA worked in partnership on Operation Coachman – a national operation aimed at checking the roadworthiness of vehicles used to transport children to and from school.
 

The vehicles stopped included taxis, minibuses, coaches, buses as well as ordinary vehicles belonging to members of the public.
 

During the operation whereby a total of 106 vehicles were stopped, two immediate suspensions, six deferred warning notices, four immediate prohibitions and one delayed prohibition were given. These were for a variety of offences including the general maintenance of the vehicles, health and safety requirements, fuel leak, defective tyres and a hazardous step on a double-decker bus.
 

Fixed Penalty Notices were also given regarding mobile phone and seatbelt offences and ten bylaw offences for vehicle general maintenance matters.
 

Sergeant Emlyn Hughes said: “It is disappointing that drivers with the responsibility for transporting children don’t spend their time checking their vehicles are roadworthy before use.
 

“We want to ensure that children have a safe journey to and from school and I would urge all drivers to carry out simple checks ahead of their journey, such as checks on lights, brakes and tyres.”
 

Further checks across the region’s counties will continue.


Watch the video with this story:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-wDqmo9E54&feature=player_embedded

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.”

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