Gig raises over £2,000 for Christmas festival

* Captain Zed on stage.

* Marblehead Johnson play.

A recent event at Llangollen Town Hall raised £2,160 for Llangollen Christmas Festival funds. 

Llangollen resident Ross Anderson, a guitarist with local band Captain Zed, organised the sell-out session at the Town Hall where an audience of 275 were entertained by popular local musicians.

Captain Zed were joined on stage by Marblehead Johnson, Jamie Jay and Tom Wilson.

All of the bands and artists performed for free and where supported by Paul Brown and James Barber who provided lights and sound.

Paul Keddie provided the bar with profits going to festival funds. Local businesses also supported the even by providing prizes for a raffle.

The Christmas Festival, to be held on November 26, provides a free family event in Llangollen town centre with surplus funds donated to Wales Air Ambulance. 

Chair of the Christmas Festival Committee Austin Cheminais was thrilled by the way the Llangollen Community came together to help ensure the immediate future for the event.

“Our thanks to Ross and all of those involved in what was a great evening. The local community coming together to support us demonstrates what a special place Llangollen is," he said.

Meanwhile, Austin, who doubles at the town crier, has put out the call for volunteers to help out at the festival ...

Skates calls on council to splash out on leisure centre

Wrexham Council has been urged to follow the Welsh Labour Government’s lead and show its support for Plas Madoc Leisure Centre.

Ken Skates earlier this week welcomed the news that communities minister Carl Sargeant had awarded the Splash Community Trust a £0.5m grant.

The Clwyd South AM (pictured) is now calling on Guildhall leaders to show the same good faith in the volunteer-run Trust, who have asked for a £50,000 loan from the council to ease cash-flow concerns caused by the huge repair bill it inherited.

“I’m proud that the Welsh Labour Government has shown its support for Plas Madoc Leisure Centre and the local community, and I’d love for Wrexham Council to now do the same and agree to help the volunteers,” said Mr Skates, a founder member of the trust set up to save the centre.

“Maintenance problems passed on to the Trust from the council’s watch have already cost more than they are asking for. I would now urge the leadership at the Guildhall to emulate the Welsh Labour Government, which earlier this year gave them an interest-free loan of £1m to fund the revamp of Chirk Leisure Centre and Waterworld in Wrexham.”

Before the council voted to close Plas Madoc in 2014, it was running at a £500,000-a-year loss.

Cllr Kevin Hughes, deputy leader of the council Labour group, said: “This funding from the Welsh Labour Government comes just at the right time. I don’t think anyone envisaged just how much work was required and how much money was needed when they took over the building. It’s a tribute to the dedication of the management team, employees and all the volunteers that they’ve kept this much-needed facility going with limited resources.”

Local councillor Paul Blackwell added: “A loan from Wrexham Council would further ease financial pressures caused by neglect over a number of years. The Welsh Labour Government is investing in the facilities of Wrexham, it's about time the council did as well.”

Clwyd South MP Susan Elan Jones said the Trust has spent in excess of £50,000 on repairs ‘which had been allowed to deteriorate as a result of the council assuming eventual demolition of the building’.

Ms Jones added: “There is clearly great support from the public and the profile of the centre is rapidly growing, its successes being noted on a national scale. I am also aware of the contributions of community councils such as Cefn Mawr, Ruabon and Rhos, who are doing everything possible on very tight budgets to support Plas Madoc Leisure Centre.

“I feel that the population of Wrexham would welcome their council supporting such a worthy cause.”

Culinary maestro to champion local produce at Hamper Llangollen

* Robert Didier will champion local produce at Hamper Llangollen this weekend.

A culinary expert who trained under chef to the stars Raymond Blanc will be championing local produce at one of the UK's best-loved food festivals.

Robert Didier, whose unique brand of pies, pastries and bread has tantalised the taste buds of the food industry’s toughest critics, will be the first to feature in a host of cooking demonstrations at Hamper Llangollen this weekend, October 15 and 16.

The popular event in the picturesque Denbighshire town has been hailed as one of the UK's top 10 food festivals by both The Independent and the Daily Telegraph.

The restaurateur turned businessman, whose gastronomic finesse has been enjoyed by some of Hollywood’s biggest names including Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones, is excited to be getting back behind a frying pan, where it all began, to show off the region’s finest, home-grown ingredients.

Robert's handmade bakery business, Wrexham-based Orchard Pigs, continues to go from strength to strength and scooped its first two Great Taste Awards this year for its fruit cake with cheese and gingerbread. The prestigious awards, organised by the Guild of Fine Food, are the acknowledged benchmark for fine food and drink.

“I’ve always loved demonstrating, it goes back to my restaurant days. I don’t find it very stressful at all now,” he said.

“It’s like the first time you do a public speech – you spend the first minute judging what the crowd are like and then get into your stride. Most audiences at food festivals have come along to be inspired by food and cooking and that’s what I intend to do.”

Robert will open the festival’s cooking programme on October 15 and among the culinary delights he plans to demonstrate is a feast of Welsh rack of lamb, supplied by D & J Thomas & Sons family butchers in Wrexham, locally-picked wild mushrooms and farm-to-doorstep vegetables as well as a mouth-watering desert of Tarte Tatin with hedgerow fruits and apples.

The top chef, who employs five people, is passionate about supporting local food businesses and growers and protecting the livelihoods of independent suppliers.

“It’s always important to back local producers, if we don’t support local farmers and businesses then our food will be imported from overseas. They might be able to produce it cheaper but the quality and taste isn’t the same,” said the 50-year-old, who runs Orchard Pigs alongside his wife, Nicky.

“If something has been on a lorry for two to three days, it’s not going to offer the same quality. If you buy local, the produce is picked locally and is fresher, there’s more flavour and there’s a better quality overall.

“You can talk to local suppliers and engage with them. If you ask your local butcher for something specific, like pig cheek for instance, they will say ‘no problem’ because they have the whole beast there in the shop.

“But it’s not all about taste. You’re also supporting the infrastructure, providing jobs for youngsters and apprentices. As small businesses grow, they employ people and train them up so that hopefully one day they will go on and start their own business.”

Robert, whose French father was a chef, spent his early career working at Raymond Blanc’s bakery and patisserie, Maison Blanc, in Oxford, which supplied Harrods and a host of top London restaurants with traditional French bread and patisseries.

A stint in the kitchen at Blanc's double Michelin starred restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, in the Oxfordshire village of Great Milton, followed before he travelled to the Valence region of the south of France with his grandmother for a year while he worked as a second chef in a bakery and patisserie.

Robert later opened his own restaurant, Petit Robert, in the Borough Market area of London, before it was compulsory purchased to make way for a new railway line.

He moved to Bwlchgwyn in 2003 where he bought Nant y Ffrith forest, a 250-acre mixed woodland, and populated it with a herd of Oxford sandy and black pigs. What originally started out as a means of managing the undergrowth soon became a thriving business with Robert selling pork, bacon, hams and sausages at farmers’ markets. 

The handmade pies followed and went on to become the focus for the business, with 1,000 to 1,500 now made every week – including Robert’s trademark Tractor wheel pie, using local free range produce.

The business, which is now in its 13^th year, now boasts no fewer than 130 products from artisan breads and cakes through to luxury pastries and deserts – success Robert credits to wife, Nicky, 43, who has led the path to expansion.

“Nicky is a much better salesperson than me and she organises me – I can bake but she is behind the new product development and building sales at the markets and festivals,” he admitted.

Previously, the chef unveiled the UK’s most expensive loaf at Hamper Llangollen, made with champagne and 24 carat gold at a cost of £25. 

To this day, Robert remains at the centre of the business operation – in the kitchens.

“I still love the baking side of things,” he said.

“I love making bread – it’s my first passion – and there’s always something new to learn. It really tests your skill as a chef, judging what’s going on with the temperature in the room and how it’s going to impact your bread.

“It really keeps you on your toes.”

Returning to Hamper Llangollen is always a treat for the chef, who has been a regular for the last 10 years at least.

“Llangollen is a focus for us every year,” said Robert.

“Although it attracts a lot of local people, you get visitors from across the UK who come along for the weekend. Many of the visitors have been coming along as long as we have and you get to know them.”   

Hamper Llangollen chair Colin Loughlin is delighted the food festival has played a part in the Orchard Pigs success story.

He said: "Robert is a multi-talented culinary expert and is a very welcome regular at Hamper Llangollen.

"We're all looking forward to his demonstration, particularly because he will be championing local produce which is what Hamper Llangollen is all about.

“Thanks to a whole host of indigenous companies, North East Wales is rapidly establishing a reputation as a centre of excellence for high quality products.

“The food festival is a perfect shop window for the companies who form the backbone of the local economy."

* For more information about Hamper Llangollen go to www.llangollenfoodfestival.com

MP calls for radical reforms to Universal Credit

Susan Elan Jones MP has written to Prime Minister Theresa May urging her to make "radical reforms" to Universal Credit.

The Clwyd South Labour Member (pictured) said: "If the Prime Minister really wants a country that works for everyone, she needs to reform the current mess that is the Universal Credit system as soon as possible. 

"I think most of us would support the intentions of Universal Credit to simplify benefits and improve incentives to work. However, the system as it operates at the moment is a serious threat to the incomes of low-paid working families, who are left much worse off when they get transferred onto Universal Credit.

“I am glad we forced the Government to change its mind on tax credit cuts, but I want to see Theresa May go much further to tackle the issue of in-work poverty".

"The shopworkers' union, USDAW, has just produced detailed research that shows that a parent couple, both working in retail, earning just above the so-called National Living Wage, one working full-time and one part-time, would be £1,866 worse off on Universal Credit. That can't be right. It isn't an incentive to work and it isn't supporting family life.

"I am calling on the Prime Minister to do a total overhaul of Universal Credit so that it supports ordinary working families."

Learn to play the ukelele course planned

Plas Madoc wins £500,000 boost

Assembly Member Ken Skates has welcomed a huge investment by the Welsh Labour Government in Plas Madoc Leisure Centre.

The Clwyd South AM said he was delighted that communities minister Carl Sargeant had awarded a £500,000 grant for the facility, which was saved from the bulldozers after Wrexham Council leaders voted to demolish it in 2014.

“This £0.5m grant is massive for Plas Madoc, and I’m delighted for the team that their application has been successful. They really deserve this,” said Mr Skates, who was a founder member of the charitable trust set up to save the centre.

Mr Skates added: “I’m proud that the Welsh Labour Government has shown its support for Plas Madoc Leisure Centre, and I would like to thank Carl Sargeant for awarding this grant.

“The volunteers who run the Trust and the centre’s hard-working staff have done such an amazing job, from rescuing and reopening it initially to making it the success story it is now.

“The fact that Plas Madoc is even still standing is testament to a people power, and the public need to continue to support it as they have done so brilliantly over the past two years.”

Decision time looms for controversial homes scheme

* The site of the proposed housing development at Vicarage Road.

A controversial scheme to build 99 homes on land at Vicarage Road in Llangollen is likely to be decided within the next couple of months, according to a senior county planner.

Earlier this year Castlemead Homes submitted an application to Denbighshire County Council for the development, which includes a mixture of two, three and four bedroom detached and semi-detached properties.

But the scheme has sparked fears amongst people in the area that local roads will not be able to cope with the extra traffic it will generate both during construction and when the new homes are occupied.

The scheme has attracted considerable opposition and members of the group campaigning against it have submitted evidence to the council which they say shows the kind of traffic problems it would create on roads leading to the site from the town centre.

One of the opponents has just received notification from a senior planning official which says: “We are in the process of receiving various amended details in relation to the application. Once these details are complete and finalised then a re-consultation with interested parties will take place.

“The deadline to report to October Planning Committee has passed and therefore I would anticipate that the application will be presented to either the November or December Planning meeting.”

Planning permission to build 54 houses on land adjacent to Vicarage Road was granted to Castlemead on appeal by Denbighshire back in 2001.

Attached to the original application was a Section 106 agreement under which the developer was legally bound to build a new access road to the site before the scheme was started.

The field above the main site has since been included in the Local Development Plan at the request of the Planning Inspectorate to encourage the building of more houses to meet local demand.

Castlemead’s latest application has been to build a further 45 homes, making a total of 99 houses on four parcels of land.

A statement issued on behalf of the company by planning consultants in support of the application said it would not be economic to build the access road before construction work starts on the houses and suggests it should be put in place by the time the 31^st dwelling has been occupied.

As part of the formal consultation process, the town council has been able to give its official response to the application although a decision on it rests with the county council.   

At their May meeting all seven members of the town’s planning committee voted to object to the proposal.

In a subsequent development, the Welsh Government told the county council not to decide on the application until major road issues had been clarified.