Tidy Town Team has another busy year

* Members of the Tidy Town Team at work near the museum.

A band of dedicated volunteers from Llangollen  Tidy  Town  Team put in a total of 690 hours of unpaid work last year, ranging from litter picking to painting.

The facts about the team’s activities during a busy 2014 are revealed in the latest annual report of the organisation, which was formed in 2006 and currently has a membership of 20 plus a couple of would-be volunteers on a waiting list.

Co-ordinator David Davies says in the report: “Litter clearing activities continue with Dinas Bran Castle Hill, the roadside along by the `Hawthorn’ sculpture, along the Panorama, the sports fields, the wharf area and canalside being annual work locations.

 

“New tasks this year included repairing some and re-varnishing six benches in the grounds of Plas Newydd and cleaning and painting the entrance route to the rear of the Catholic Church.  

“We also applied our `gardening’ skills to the much-overgrown area in the town centre between the Tourist Information Centre and Town Hall and continued vegetation thinning in Riverside Gardens, our sixth year of so doing.  Here we also repaired a picnic table and supplied and installed another new table.

“In Riverside Park we painted railings and carried out some renovation and cleaning of the mini-golf area before releasing our energy on some more Himalayan Balsam.

“We continue to assist at the Rotary Fete and at Christmas erect the town Christmas tree and have a considerable presence on the town Christmas festival day.

“Our efforts have been acknowledged by a Llangollen Civic Society Award this year for `considerable contribution to the appearance of the Town.’

Mr Davies adds: “A big thank you to all our supporters during the year including Llangollen Town Council, Denbighshire County Council, Keep Wales Tidy, Vale of Llangollen Golf Club, Horse Drawn Boats, the Spar Supermarket (Blakemore Foundation) and Kenrick Motors.

“Finally thank you to the members of the team for their 690 hours of voluntary work during the year.”

Llangollen county councillor Stuart Davies said: “I’d like to pass on to the team my congratulations for a job well done. I applaud them.”

Over 4,000 sign up for garden waste service

A deluge of orders at the start of 2015 means that over 4,000 Denbighshire households have chosen to chosen to continue with garden waste collection service when charges are introduced in April, says the county council.

By Thursday 8^th January some 4,092 households had registered for collections, more than 10% of the households offered the garden waste service.

Some residents even took a break from festivities to arrange their garden waste collection with seven orders being taken on the council’s website on Christmas Day itself.

Denbighshire County Council’s Waste Officer, Alan Roberts, said: “Reaching this point so early suggests we are likely to reach the expected take-up of around 35%, which really helps us plan.

“The council reduced the price of a year’s service by £2 to £22 for those that arrange it by 31^st January to encourage early take-up so we would like to thank every resident who has opted-in, or who is thinking of opting-in, by the end of the month.”

The council is currently processing all the orders received for the garden waste service since 1^st December.

Participating households will be sent a garden waste collection calendar and a uniquely bar-coded sticker to attach to their garden waste containers. The council will start delivering these to households towards the end of January.

Around two-thirds of all orders for the garden waste service have been made using the secure payment system on the Denbighshire County Council website

Alan Roberts added: “I would recommend using the online payment facility if possible. It is available 24/7 so you can place your order whenever it suits you. The number of calls to the Council’s Customer Service team is expected to increase over the coming weeks.”

The online payment facility is available at denbighshire.gov.uk/gardenwaste or, alternatively householders can make payment by telephone on 01824 706101 (or 01824 706100 for Welsh speakers) or by calling in at any of the council’s One Stop Shops.

Re-open cottage hospital to relieve A&E pressure says campaigner

* The closed down cottage hospital.

A LLANGOLLEN campaigner has sent out a plea to health chiefs to re-open the town’s cottage hospital to help relieve growing pressure on A&E services in Wrexham.

Martin Crumpton, who led local opposition to the axing of the 137-year-old community hospital in Abbey Road almost two years ago, has written to Dr Peter Higson, Chair of the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health board, calling for the facility which now lies boarded up and derelict, to be allowed to open its doors again.

 

In his letter, Mr Crumpton says: “Please announce that you’re going to reopen the cottage hospitals whose closures, albeit not the sole cause of the pressure on beds and directly on A&E, precipitated this crisis.

 

“Everyone in Wales is angry and none more so than in towns like Llangollen whose cottage hospital with its precious beds was so foolishly closed and with a demonstration of extreme incompetence in our case.

 

“Eleven ambulances queued at Wrexham Maelor A&E is not a record – I’ve previously counted 16 on my way from a routine appointment – but now this is happening consistently and regularly.

 

“Increasing throughput by discharging patients prematurely and are borderline unsafe discharges in many instances will not be tolerated any longer.”

 

Mr Crumpton adds: “We are particularly hard-hit by your board’s decision to move our GPs to a vehicle-only, out-of-town location and now our access to the Maelor admissions is almost impossible. 

“Please respond with a statement I can give to the people of Llangollen to explain why there is little or no primary health care in North East Wales and exactly how, and within what timescale, you intend to restore it.”

 

A planning application was submitted last year for the Cymdeithas Tai Clwyd housing association to build six new homes on the site of the cottage hospital plus a further six on the car park opposite. This is believed to be still pending.

Local woman obtains her doctorate

Llangollen county councillor Stuart Davies and his wife Laura say they are proud to announce that their youngest daughter is now known as Dr Charlotte Eve Davies, having gained a PhD in Biology.

She attended Ysgol Bryn Collen and Ysgol Dinas Bran and obtained a BSc (Hons) in Biology at Swansea University before gaining her PhD in Biological Sciences there.

She has had six papers published and has travelled extensively around the world giving speeches on her speciality.

Cllr Davies says he is especially proud that she attended the local schools in the county and that they have served her well.

An example of Dr Davies’ work can be seen at: http://theconversation.com/competitive-lobsters-are-fighting-it-out-in-uks-first-marine-park-35830

Old King Cole to reign at town's latest panto

Old King Cole is usually such a merry old soul, but he isn’t at all happy when wicked wizard Abanazar steals his magic crown. 

Not even his special pipe and bowl can cheer him up as he makes an appearance in this year's stage extravaganza by Llangollen Pantomime Group.

The show's hero Jack embarks on a mission to retrieve the King’s crown from Abanazar’s clutches and the saga takes him, Rhubarb the Fool, Candy the Dame and three witless fiddlers on a journey to the shores of Loch Ness and the great pyramids of Egypt, before they can all return to Merrivale where Jack’s true love, the beautiful Princess Rose, anxiously waits for him.

Will Jack succeed in his quest to get the crown back and thus win Rose’s hand in marriage?  Will Candy the dame ever return to make sweets for her confectionary emporium, or will she elope with Jock the Scotsman, or even the Egyptian mummy? 

 

Anything is possible in panto land.  Let’s hope it all ends well, or else doom and gloom will persist in Merrivale forever!

The show takes place at Llangollen Pavilion next week, with evening performances starting at 7.30pm (doors open 7pm) on Thursday 15, Friday 16 and Saturday 17 January 2015 and matinee performances starting at 2.30pm (doors open 2pm) on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 January 2015. 

 

Tickets for the panto are now on sale from Gwyn the Butchers and Jades Hairdressers or by phoning 01978 860297. 

 

AM calls for Welsh Government to focus on health service

WITH A&E waiting times for NHS treatment in England currently dominating the news, North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood is calling on the Labour-led Welsh Government to start focusing on its own health service, where he says 16.2% of patients - more than double the rate in England - waited longer than four hours in A&E.

 

He said: “Only in Wales, where Labour run the NHS, have there have been cuts to health spending and the performance of Accident and Emergency departments in Wales is worse than in England.

 

“According to the latest available data, A&E performance in England, where  92.6% of patients were seen in time October to December, is the best in the UK.

 

“The data in the other nations lags behind England. In Wales the data from November shows just 83.8% of patients were seen in time. In England the data from the last week of November shows 93.5% of patients were seen in time, almost 10% higher than in Wales. Northern Ireland is performing even worse - just over 80% of patients were seen within four hours in November. In Scotland 93.5% of patients were seen in four hours during September, but comparing the September figures for England and Scotland shows England was performing slightly better.

 

“In England, the Conservative-led UK Government has protected the health budget. In Wales, it continues to suffer the consequences of Labour’s record-breaking cuts. That’s why performance is not on a par with England – and that’s why patients are forced to wait longer for treatment here.”

 

 He added: “NHS Wales is something to be valued and protected, but, despite the best efforts of frontline NHS staff in Wales, patients are waiting longer for NHS treatment than pati ents in England.

 

“Labour should stop trying to score political points and accept that long-term pressures from an ageing population can only be addressed by a long-term plan to invest in the NHS.

 

“Labour’s First Minister would be wise to focus upon his own health service. Figures showed NHS England missed its A&E waiting time target for the last three months of 2014, but A and E waiting times haven’t been met by NHS Wales in over five years, ambulance response times in Wales are at their lowest since 2011, and one in seven people in Wales are on a waiting list for trea tment.

 

“As recently as last week a dozen ambulances were seen queuing outside one Welsh hospital, while this Labour First Minister continues to dismiss Welsh Conservative calls for a cancer treatments fund.”

Sainsbury's reviews plan for Llan store

 

* The Dobson & Crowther site where the new Sainsbury's store is due to be built.

 

Sainsbury’s is reviewing its plan to open a new supermarket in Llangollen, which it says will create 130 jobs.

Despite claims from campaign group Keep Llangollen Special that it would severely impact on the viability of local businesses, the plan to build the 20,000 square foot store was approved by county planners in the autumn of 2012.

Sainsbury’s said later that the supermarket would open sometime this year.

And on the basis of the new store being built, local printworks Dobson & Crowther, whose site off the A5 it is due to occupy, recently moved to a new purpose-built factory at nearby Cilmedw as part of a linked planning scheme.

But just before Christmas a Sainsbury’s executive revealed in a letter to Llangollen Chamber of Trade and Tourism that the local supermarket was part of a general review of new store openings it was undertaking.  

This was confirmed by a Sainsbury’s spokesman yesterday (Tuesday) who said in a statement to llanblogger:  “We are reviewing our plans across a number of supermarket sites, including Llangollen. Once we are in a position to do so, we will update people on our future plans.” 

Llangollen county councillor Stuart Davies, a strong supporter of the scheme, said: "There are 130 jobs at risk here and contrary to the patronising nonsense put out by opponents, well paid jobs.

"People in our community are looking forward to working in the store. Legally binding Section 106 agreements were part of the planning process and I am sure that Sainsbury's will take all factors in to account if they are reviewing this project."

Martin Crumpton of Keep Llangollen Special said: “While Keep Llangollen Special has no wish to raise false hope, this is a remarkable departure from their [Sainsbury's] recent hard-line position and is encouraging as it means the threat over local jobs – the statistics are that edge-of-town supermarkets destroy on average 176 jobs within a 15-mile radius – it would also safeguard the essence of Llangollen that attracts so many visitors, its distinctive lack of cloned retail chains bearing testimony to the value of our small traders.

“However, even if this turns out to be a false hope and Sainsbury’s go through with constructing it, KLS will continue fighting it until the economics of online shopping and boycotting forces it to close. Our immediate concern will be the remaining jobs at Dobson & Crowther. We will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

Speaking to the Leader, Ken Skates, Assembly Member for Clwyd South, described the news as “concerning” as he was “anxious to ensure that Llangollen benefits from the promised jobs”.

But he added: “It is normal for companies to review operations in this manner and I will be seeking early assurances that work will not be delayed.”