AM backs call to make fuel poverty key priority

North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood is supporting calls for fuel poverty to be made a central priority of the Welsh Government’s Tackling Poverty Strategy.

 

Raising the matter in the Assembly Chamber with the Finance Minister this week, Mr Isherwood, Chair of the Assembly Cross Party Group on Fuel Poverty and Shadow Minister for Communities and Housing, said:  “Given that the Welsh Government has decided to include fuel poverty within its Tackling Poverty Strategy in the Communities and Tackling Poverty portfolio, how do you respond to the statement in Consumer Futures’ draft work plan for 2014-15, that, ‘in Wales, we will seek to make sure fuel poverty is a central priority for the Welsh Government’s Tackling Poverty Strategy and commands sufficient resources to address the scale of the problem’?”

 

The Minister, Jane Hutt, said improving the energy efficiency of homes is the most direct way that Welsh Government can tackle fuel poverty and referred to the Welsh Government’s Arbed and NEST schemes.

 

However Mr Isherwood has stressed that these two schemes do not make a fuel strategy.

 

He said: “Uniquely amongst the UK nations, the Welsh Government  has scrapped its Fuel Poverty Advisory Group and rejected calls in the 2013 UK Fuel Poverty Monitor for its reinstatement.

 

Whereas the NEST and Arbed schemes are welcome, they alone do not make a fuel poverty strategy and I hope that the Welsh Government will heed Consumer Futures’ call.”

 

Pictures of groundworks going ahead at Cilmedw

Local man Simon Colllinge has let llanblogger have these panoramic pictures he has taken which clearly show a fleet of large earth-moving machines preparing the Climedw site off the A5 for the construction of a new factory for the Dobson & Crowther printworks.

Once the company has transferred its operations to the new building, work can begin on the Sainsbury's supermarket planned for Dobson & Crowther's current site adjacent to the river. 

 

 

 

Anti-speeding cop fined for car tax offence

Richard Brunstrom, the former North Wales police chief who led a controversial speeding campaign which saw scores of motorists fined during his term of office, has himself been fined for a car tax offence in New Zealand, according to a story in today's Mail Online.

See the full story at:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2545958/Traffic-Taliban-police-chief-fined-100-car-tax-date-Scourge-UK-drivers-nabbed-New-Zealand-sails-round-world-wife.html

Town council sheds light on Christmas display

At their meeting on Tuesday members of Llangollen Town Council discussed the hot issue of the town’s Christmas lights.

Last year’s display prompted a number of criticisms and, as a result, a number of people unhappy with the lights recently held discussions with town clerk Gareth Thomas.

Mr Thomas told councillors that it had been something of “a heated debate” with one of the criticisms being that Llangollen’s lights weren’t as good as those in neighbouring Chirk.

At the end of the meeting, two of the people who had been complaining had agreed to look at the possibility of doing their own fundraising for a better display next year, Mr Thomas said.

He suggested that the existing set of lights, which were currently on lease from a private company, could be bought by the council to form the basis of a better display next year paid for by the fundraising.

Councillors agreed to this as the best course of action.  

Skates highlights missed GP appointments

MORE than 300 hours of medical appointments were missed in just three months at GP surgeries across Clwyd South, Assembly Member Ken Skates has revealed.

Labour AM Ken Skates has established there were at least 1,903 ‘DNAs’ – instances where patients did not attend – at the practices in his constituency between October 1 and December 31.

He is now urging patients to either keep their allotted slots or cancel in good time to avoid wasting GPs’ time and costing the NHS money.

Mr Skates said: “Based on an average appointment being 10 minutes, these missed slots amount to more than 317 hours, which would mean that almost 40 eight-hour working days have been lost in just three months by patients not turning up or letting their surgery know that they won’t be coming.

“Those who fail to keep their appointments are simply adding to the strain on staff and NHS resources. They also prevent other people from getting medical attention when they don’t even inform the surgery they can’t make it and doctors’ and nurses’ valuable time goes begging.”

Llangollen Health Centre, which has branch surgeries in Acrefair and Glyn Ceiriog, has about 9,000 patients and recorded 628 DNAs.

Forge Road Surgery in Southsea, which has a branch surgery in Brymbo, has 6,500 patients and recorded 667 DNAs over the same period. Chirk Surgery had 222 missed slots, while Caritas Surgery – which has premises in Cefn Mawr and Coedpoeth – had 173.

The actual number of missed appointments is even higher than 1,903, as three surgeries did not supply their information. Some of those who responded also have appointment slots which are longer than 10 minutes, meaning the number of hours of DNAs will be even greater.

Mr Skates added: “Missed appointments cost the NHS tens of million pounds a year across Britain and its hard-working, dedicated staff are under enough pressure as it is without having their time wasted. I don’t think a simple, 30-second phone call is too much to ask.”

Shop front facelift grants agreed by town council

Llangollen town centre shops will soon be able to take advantage of a cash windfall to help them smarten up the front of their premises.

Denbighshire County Council has announced an allocation of £40,000 for shop front renovation grants.

The amount will be divided between the county’s eight main towns, giving £5,000 to each town council, including Llangollen.

The grant aims to provide 50% of the funding towards a facelift scheme up to a maximum of £1,000.

Applications are to be submitted to the town council which will either approve or reject them.

Where there is over-subscription of the scheme, the town council will use a scoring process giving priority for a grant to those shops it feels are best placed to receive funding.

Deadline for applications, which was originally set at December 20, has been moved to March 20.

Once approved by the town council, grant payments will be made by the county council.

In a report outlining the scheme considered by members of the town council at their meeting on Tuesday, town clerk Gareth Thomas said that such schemes had been successful in the past and had improved a number of properties in town centres.

He added: “The scheme is worthy of support.”

He also said in the report he was confident that the extra workload it would mean could be handled by the council. 

Calls to re-open community hospital beds

The growing bed-blocking problem across North Wales has prompted calls to re-open community hospital beds.

 

Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board closed community hospitals in Llangollen, Flint, Prestatyn and Blaenau Ffestiniog last year, despite local campaigners warning that the centralisation plan would cause problems.

 

Plaid Cymru  North Wales AM Llyr Gruffydd said: “Only last week I called for an empty ward at Ruthin community hospital to be re-opened to cope with the pressures being put on our main three hospitals. This week the crisis has reached boiling point with non-urgent surgery being cancelled to cope with the pressure on beds. This is completely unacceptable, especially as this is not a winter crisis or as a result of a superbug infection.

 

“Senior Betsi Cadwaladr managers have, in their rush to centralise, failed to realise the importance of community hospitals as a way to ease pressure on our district general hospitals. We need those 50 beds lost last year to be re-opened to cope with the crisis and provide ongoing community care for patients.

 

“If NHS managers won’t respond to this simple solution, the Welsh Health Minister must intervene. It’s not a seasonal or temporary problem, it’s a structural crisis that has been allowed to develop under his government’s watch.”

 

The North Wales Health Alliance was formed last year to fight the closures programme and spokesperson Mabon ap Gwynfor said: “We warned Betsi Cadwaladr that closing dozens of beds without replacing them would cause problems. If anything, it’s worse than we feared. The pressures on the district general hospitals over the past year have seen ambulances backed up and unable to offload patients, beds have been blocked by patients unable to go home and the health service has become more remote from patients and communities.

 

“This could have been avoided if the health board had listened to campaigners, who understand the value of having health services at a community level. Re-opening community hospital wards makes sense and we hope it will prompt the new Betsi Cadwaladr chairman and chief executive to re-think the entire centralisation agenda.”