Festive celebration at the Abbey

Free after three parking for Christmas

Denbighshire County Council has announced that the "Free After 3" parking scheme will again operate in Llangollen this year to help support the town centre in the run-up to Christmas. 

The scheme provides free parking in all council operated pay & display car parks in town centres after 3pm on a daily basis.

Llangollen car parks are also free all day this Saturday.

The scheme operates until the 31st December 2015.

Llangollen car parks involved are:

* East Street
* Hall Street
* Market Street
* Mill Street

Support urged for Small Business Saturday

 

Denbighshire County Council is urging residents to support their local businesses on Saturday.

 

The day has been designated Small Business Saturday and a national campaign has been launched to encourage people to consider shopping locally.

 

The county council is supporting the initiative and has launched its own publicity and marketing campaign.

 

Councillor Hugh Evans OBE, Leader of Denbighshire, who is also the Lead Member for the Economy, said: “Our teams of staff have already been out and about talking to businesses and encouraging them to display posters and we have been delighted with the response.

 

“We want to emphasise the importance of shopping locally and accessing the wide variety of goods and services that can be accessed in our own communities.  We would ask residents to help us spread the word about the campaign and lets see our town centres thriving on December 5.

 

“We hope that the council’s free after three parking initiative where people can park for free in our pay and display car parks in the town centres will also encourage more people to visit town, rather than visit out of county locations."

 

* To find out more information about Small Business Saturday, please visit: www.smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com

County gives details of its financial position

Denbighshire County Council says it continues to invest in major projects, with over £200 million either spent or planned for projects county-wide.

 

The authority says it is also protecting key services during difficult financial times.

 

Councillors meeting in County Hall, Ruthin yesterday were updated on the current budget position.

 

The council needs to save £15.7 million over two years. 

 

£7.8 million has been identified for 2015/16, with a further £5.2 million in 2016/17.  Further work is going on to identify how the council can bridge the gap.

 

Councillor Julian Thompson-Hill, Cabinet Lead Member for Finance and Assets, said: “The vast majority (82%) of the savings made so far have been efficiency or other measures which have not negatively had an impact on services to the public and that has been down to careful planning and making savings through working more efficiently.

 

“We also kept our Council Tax increase low, with the increase of 2.75% being one of the lowest in Wales and this level of increase is the working assumption for 2016/17. Residents have asked us to keep any increases to a minimum and councillors agreed this was the right thing to do."

 

At the same time as dealing with a funding cut, the council set priorities to

protect and invest in important service areas such as schools, social care and the roads and has continued to achieve this throughout the budget process.

 

Some of the headline investments:

·         £96.8 m for schools

·         £18.4 m for roads

·         £21.5 m for social care

·         £16.1 m for floods and coastal defence

·         £26.8 for  economic development and regeneration

·         £6.7 m for leisure and libraries

·         £9.3 m on other key projects.

Leader of Denbighshire, Councillor Hugh Evans OBE, said: “We are on schedule to deliver all of the savings identified for this financial year and are proposing a further set of cuts for the following 12 months.

 

“However, our approach is to trim down on services through being more efficient, identifying budgets that are historically underspent and cutting our cloth accordingly. 

 

“We are committed to protecting key services as much as possibly can and identifying savings through looking at all aspects of our services. This way of working provides confidence that the Council is working to protect public money through investing in those areas needed and saving costs through careful planning and monitoring.”

Llan councillor hits out over government funding

Llangollen county councillor Stuart Davies has voiced his “irritation” at the relationship between the Welsh Government and local authorities like Denbighshire.

Cllr Davies (pictured) said: “The results of the UK Government Spending Review have confirmed that the funding coming to Wales is going to increase in cash terms over the next four years.

“The revenue position will increase from £12.9bn this year to £13.3bn in 2019/20 and capital from £1.5bn to £1.6bn. The capital allocation is to increase further by 2020 to £1.7bn.

"As a local councillor I am being forced by the Labour-led Welsh Government to take part in cuts across the board in our services because they have cut our funding year on year.

"We had to find cuts of £8million last year and this year with more again next year.”

He added: “The Welsh Government continually says that its central funding has been cut, but in fact, as can be seen in the document below *, the cash funding has been increased!"

"It irritates me immensely when simple things that are the responsibility of the Welsh Government, like the yellow lines on the A5 opposite Stan’s supermarket and the extending of the speed limit on the A5 past the new print works, are promised but haven’t taken place due to so-called funding constraints.

"They seem to be able to spend money on failing airports down south, to spend millions in Cardiff and yet can’t find a few thousands to do the simple things here in Llangollen and Clwyd South.

“I would remind the local Assembly Members that it is election time next year and the public are taking note of their actions or lack of.”

Clwyd South AM Ken Skates said: “After a period of unprecedented cuts to the Welsh budget and our public services, this continues to be the slowest economic recovery in living memory. Sadly, Wales is still suffering from the UK Government’s ongoing failure to meet its own targets.

 

“Tory policies mean our spending power can’t even keep track with inflation. Overall, between now and 2019-20, there will be a real terms reduction of 3.6% on a Welsh budget which has already been cut by £1.3bn since the Tories came to power in 2010-2011.

 

"While some have clearly been misled by the smoke and mirrors offered by Chancellor George Osborne, the vast majority of Welsh people won’t be.

 

“I share the anger of our communities at the UK Government’s approach to public finance and its relentless austerity campaign, but the Welsh Labour Government continues to spend more per head in key areas such as health and education. Cuts this side of the border are forced, not a choice.

 

“It is also worth pointing out – again – that more money is spent per head in areas on things like health, roads and tourism in North Wales than Cardiff and the South East. Locally, the Welsh Government has just spent more than £4.5m on brand new state-of-the-art health centres in Llangollen and Chirk.

 

“With regard to the double yellow lines opposite Stan’s, I am continuing to push for them and the Welsh Government’s Transport Minister Edwina Hart has said several times that the work will be put forward for funding consideration in the next financial year. As always, I will pass on any news to Cllr Davies and Llanblogger.”

 

* The document Cllr Davies refers to is a letter sent by the leader of Denbighshire County Council to Welsh Public Services Minister Leighton Andrews earlier this week, a copy of which he has supplied to llanblogger. It reads:

 
Dear Minister,
 
Local Government Settlement 2016/17

The results of the UK Government Spending Review have confirmed that the funding coming to Wales is going to increase in cash terms over the next four years. 

The revenue position will increase from £12.9bn this year to £13.3bn in 2019/20 and capital from £1.5bn to £1.6bn.  

The capital allocation is to increase further by 2020 to £1.7bn.

These cash increases do not allow for inflation of course and assumptions about the 'real terms' impact are suggesting a reduction in the revenue position of 4.5% but importantly, this is over the next four years.

Given the relatively flat cash settlement from Westminster, I would urge you to support a fair settlement to local government in Wales.

Applying the same principles to the local government settlement as have been provided to Wales as a whole would seem fair. 

The justification for such a settlement would be clearly understood and important services would have time to adjust in a well organised way over the period to meet the challenge.

I would appreciate your support on this very important issue.

Yours sincerely,
Cllr Hugh H Evans OBE
Leader of Denbighshire County Council

Traffic halted to allow wide load to pass through town

Traffic along Regent Street was halted briefly by police earlier this afternoon to allow the passage of a wide load on its way towards Corwen.

 

* The escorted load makes its way through the centre of Llangollen.

* A police motorcyclist controls traffic at the lights.

Plaid candidate speaks out over Syria bombing vote

In advance of tomorrow's vote on whether or not the UK should bomb Syria, Mabon ap Gwynfor, Plaid Cymru spokesperson for Clwyd South (pictured), said: “The Government are itching for a war, and David Cameron wants to be seen as a war leader.

 

"I sincerely hope that our local MPs won’t fall into the trap of massaging his ego at the expense of the lives of children, mothers and fathers.

 

"Two years ago this Government wanted to bomb Syrian leader Bashar al Assad and in the process help his enemies, including Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/IS).

 

"Since then the Coalition Forces have supplied weapons to Daesh and allowed arms to be sold to other despotic regimes which in turn sell them onto Daesh. Now they want to deal with Daesh and support the despotic Al Assad.

 

“Whatever the bombast, the sad truth is that airstrikes have dire consequences. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Syrian Network for Human Rights calculate that Coalition bombing has killed over 500 civilians, at least 97 of them children, in the last two months. Bombing kills, and kills innocent civilians far more than military targets.

 

“Daesh have an extreme and evil ideology. As evil as it is, you can’t bomb an ideology. Any military actions will have inevitable consequences, and bombing will only create fertile ground for that ideology to flourish. I urge our elected representatives to think logically about these proposals; to vote against escalating this conflict further; and do everything they can to secure peace in the Middle East and stop this ideology from spreading further.”