Llan's Food Assembly features on BBC

A special feature on Llangollen's Food Assembly is available on the BBC's iPlayer Radio. 

Food Assemblies are a new way of buying local food which is steadily spreading across the country.

The idea, which started in France, is an online service that brings people together to buy their groceries directly from local farmers and food producers.

The aim is for everyone to get a better deal: communities get to know each other, farmers get a fairer price and the consumer gets locally sourced produced.

In the iPlayer feature Rachael Garside visits Llangollen Food Assembly which has been up and running for over two years and is one of five established Food Assemblies in Wales, with more to come.

See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05l5hr8/p05l5hl8

AM raises concerns over hospice funding

North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has made calls for the Welsh Government and Health Boards to provide more funding for charitable hospices in Wales.

Mr Isherwood raised the matter in the Assembly Chamber when he asked the First Minister how the Welsh Government is supporting the palliative care sector in Wales.

Carwyn Jones said his Government’s updated End-of-Life Care Delivery Plan, published in March, includes £6.4 million to provide specialist palliative care services, but Mr Isherwood said that is poorly targeted.

He said: “The majority of end-of-life care in Wales is provided by Wales’s 13 adult and two children’s hospices. You indicate a figure of roughly £6.4 million, but they spend £32.5 million a year to deliver those services in people’s homes, and also residential, day care and respite. So, they are having to raise over £2 million a month, and they’re keen to help you, the Welsh Government, and their local Health Boards do very much more.

“How can you, or will you, engage with them and ask them how they can help you achieve more? Perhaps a little bit more funding from the Health Boards and the (Welsh) Government would save massively more for Health Boards and liberate services to help tackle some of the other problems we’ve heard referred to today in different contexts.”

In his reply, the First Minister said: “In terms of engagement with the sector, it is the care boards that provide that level of engagement, and that’s why, of course, we work with them in order to identify the resources that are needed.”

Mr Isherwood added: “It is concerning that from April 2017 the funding provided by the Welsh Government to Local Health Boards to be spent on specialist palliative care is no longer ring fenced for this purpose. This means hospices risk losing this important financial contribution towards hospice care.

“As Marie Curie’s Report ‘Triggers for Palliative Care in Wales’, said: ‘There is much work to be done if Wales is going to achieve its vision of access to high quality care for everyone who needs it, regardless of their underlying condition."

Historic school gets new 'green' heating system

* David Jones, right, of Hafod Renewables, with local resident David Crane at Pentredwr Community Centre, near Llangollen.

A historic village school which closed more than 30 years ago has been given a new lease of life in its second career as a community centre after going ‘green’.

Pentredwr School opened in 1909 when the village near Llangollen was the home to many of the quarrymen at the Berwyn Slate Quarry on the Horseshoe Pass.

Then the 60 pupils were kept warm through the winter by two open coal fires but now a sophisticated air-source heating system has been installed by Denbigh-based specialists Hafod Renewables.

Two highly efficient units have been fitted to the rear of the building to take heat energy from the air even on the coldest winter’s night and convert it to warm the large high-ceilinged main room.

The £5,000 system, paid for by a grant from the Waterloo Foundation which supports eco-friendly projects in Wales, complements an array of solar panels on the roof and is part of a £200,000 refurbishment designed to bring the building up to date and make it more user-friendly for the community.

David Jones, Managing Director of Hafod Renewables, said: “The new system will now heat the room effectively and in fact air-source systems are extremely good at heating large spaces like this.

“It acts like a fridge in reverse – the back of a fridge is hot while the interior is cold and this just reverses the process so that the room is heated while the outside is cold.

“It should work very well here in combination with the solar panels and the air-source system can be set to low level heart all the time which can easily and quickly be raised so it’s ready for use in less than an hour on the coldest night.”

The renovation of the community centre has been carried out by Pentredwr Community Association and local resident David Crane, from nearby Eglwyseg, handled the grants for the renewable aspects of the transformation of the Ruabon brick building.

He is delighted at the progress of the building which now provides facilities for everything from caving and mountaineering to Zumba classes.

He said: “We originally bought the property from Denbighshire County Council just before 2000 for £6,000 and we’re now in the process of an update that will make the building much more community friendly.

“It used to be heated by three large electric wall heaters which were very inefficient and cost a huge amount and there have been damp problems too.

“But there are 30 local organisations here and more in the surrounding area who would be interested and we have groups like the North Wales Cavers, climbing clubs and the Duke of Edinburgh Awards which use it.

“There are kitchen facilities and the plan is to terrace the grounds so they will be suitable as a campsite and Denbighshire County Council are installing new toilets so the facilities here will be really excellent.

“We’re also looking at taking someone on part-time who can organise events here and really ramp up the activities.”

Hafod Renewables, which was founded in Denbigh in 2010 by David Jones and his father, Richard, now employs nine staff and has become a key player in North Wales in the installation of non-solar systems such as air and ground-source heating and biomass and this sector now accounts for over 60per cent of its business.

Managing Director David Jones said: “We have been successful by being versatile and not relying on the solar sector and by using only our own dedicated teams of installers.

“Over the last 12 months a number of innovative new products have come onto the market and I believe it is vital to stay abreast of what is a rapidly developing industry because that’s the way to continue to grow the business.

“These products like the high temperature air-source system which can be retro-fitted to older properties are revolutionising the market and can provide heating even when it’s -20C outside.

“The system absorbs heat from the air into a liquid at a low temperature, then a compressor increases the temperature of that heat which warms air which is then blown into the room.

“In the summer it can also be operated in reverse so it becomes an air-conditioning unit to provide cool air.”

* For more on Hafod Renewables go to https://www.hafodrenewables.co.uk/

Special event planned at Plas Newydd today

DRAWING THE LIGHT AT PLAS NEWYDD

Sunday 29th October

5.00pm  -  7.30pm

£4.00

Explore the grounds in the fading light and draw some things that go bump in the night.

FoE group takes fossil fuel campaign to bank

* Friends of the Earth campaigners outside Barclays bank in Castle Street.

Members of Friends of the Earth Llangollen visited Barclays Bank this week as part of their campaign against fossil fuels.

According to FoE, Christian Aid has revealed the high street banks are still using savers’ money to support fossil fuel companies, even though governments, scientists and even the banks themselves are in agreement that the country needs to move away from coal, oil and gas to protect our planet.

The Llangollen-based group presented messages from the community explaining why the bank needs to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy as part of the Christian Aid’s Big Shift Campaign.

Group spokeswoman Kay Polley said: "The banks have already agreed to take action on climate change, but they are still financing coal mining and oil companies, and the most frustrating thing is that they are using customers’ money to do this. 

"Barclays is now the only bank in Llangollen, and it’s using our money to fund actions which are destroying the planet.  That must change."

The group presented a letter to the bank to be passed to the chief executive and showed off their piggy bank poster filled with messages of support for the bank to act. 

Kay Polley added: "Climate change is the biggest issue humanity faces. We need everyone, including the people managing our money to make the right decisions to put us on a safer path towards a better future.  

"Fossil fuels are increasingly a financial risk as well as fuelling climate change. As governments and markets around the world act to reduce carbon emissions, the value of fossil fuel companies could decrease rapidly.  

"Christian Aid believes that with a shift in policies and investment decisions, the biggest high street banks could be providing the capital needed to invest in the energy systems we need for the future instead of damaging the planet." 

Plans to build council houses is welcomed

Denbighshire County Council (DCC) have committed to build 170 new council houses – the first in decades.

The news was welcomed by the Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales group of councillors although they are concerned that the plans were not ambitious enough.

Plaid Cymru spokesperson on DCC said: “It was Plaid Cymru that tabled the motion to stop the Right To Buy in Denbighshire because we value our housing stock and believe that we should be able to provide good quality affordable housing to people.

“Building new Council Houses was one of our key manifesto pledges, and we put it forward as a group to be part of the County’s Corporate Plan. We have seen how the people of the County who wish to remain here are forced out because of a lack of affordable houses.

"We’ve seen some people live in very poor rented accommodation which impacts on their health and well-being. The case is clear for a stock of affordable and good quality, and we put a strong case forward to ensure that we saw Council houses being built in Denbighshire. This shows what an effective opposition can do.

“We are concerned however that the plans aren’t ambitious enough. We’d like to see more Council houses being built. But this is a large step forward in the right direction."

* See the original statement by Denbighshire County Council at:

https://www.denbighshire.gov.uk/en/resident/news/october-2017/plan-to-build-170-new-council-houses-in-denbighshire-approved.aspx

AM raises concerns over waterway access

North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has called on the Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Rural Affairs to respond to concerns expressed by Salmon and Trout Conservation Cymru regarding access to waterways.  

Questioning the Secretary in the Assembly Chamber, Mr Isherwood (pictured) highlighted the benefits that access to waterways brings to Wales, before outlining the concerns expressed the Salmon and Trout Conservation Cymru regarding the recent Welsh Government Consultation, ‘Taking Forward Wales’ Sustainable Management of Natural Resources’.

He said: “The September 2017 update on the report ‘The Value to the Welsh Economy of Angling on Inland Fisheries in Wales’, collated by the Sustainable Access Campaign Cymru in 2014, found that under the current arrangement for access to Welsh rivers, around 1,500 Welsh jobs and £45 million in household income is supported by angling on inland fisheries each year, that there are 1.7 million days fished on inland fisheries in Wales by licence holders, generating £104 million annually, and that the contribution to the Welsh economy of angling on inland fisheries in Wales must exceed over £125 million annually in Wales.

“In that context, how do you respond to the concern expressed by Salmon and Trout Conservation Cymru that it would not be in the interest of the ecological integrity of such habitats to move to unfettered access under the proposed extended provisions of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, and that environmental protection is paramount when consideration is given to increased access to the natural resources of Wales, and especially the fragile ecosystems in and around rivers and lakes?”

The Secretary, Lesley Griffiths AM, responded: “I think your question lends me to say that it’s really important that you get the balance right, and that’s absolutely why we’ve consulted on such an important issue.”

Mr Isherwood added: “As both the last two National Assemblies have concluded, we need voluntary access arrangements dealt with at a local level rather a one size fits all approach imposed by the Welsh Government, recognising that a blanket approach could create conflict between users, have a negative economic impact on landowners and the fishing industry, and seriously damage the local environment."