Council urges residents to take care in wintry spell

With wintry showers predicted over the coming days, Denbighshire County Council is urging people to be take care and to also keep an eye on their elderly relatives, neighbours and friends.

The Met Office today (Tuesday) has a weather warning in store for ice for North Wales, with the potential for wintry showers for the rest of the day.

The cold weather is expected to last until the end of the week when slightly milder weather is predicted. Further cold weather is then predicted for next week.

The council says it is monitoring weather forecasts and gritting teams have been working and are on stand-by to deal with the freezing temperatures.

Councillor Brian Jones, Cabinet Lead Member for Highways, Planning and Sustainable Travel, said: “We have teams of staff who work around the clock to monitor the potential for severe weather and will deploy teams to grit the county’s roads whenever the temperatures drop near the freezing point.

“We would urge people to take extra care If they are driving in any snow or icy conditions and to follow any advice issued by the authorities."

Meanwhile, the council is asking the public to keep an eye on the elderly and vulnerable friends, neighbours and relatives.

Councillor Bobby Feeley, Cabinet Lead Member for Health and Well-being, said: “If people have neighbours, friends or relatives that are unwell, they are encouraged to visit, making sure they have everything they need and to offer help with any daily tasks such as shopping. It is also important to check they are eating properly and keeping their property warm.

“You may be their only visitor they so they will appreciate your kindness and consideration.  The severe weather is getting closer and is likely to last over the coming days, so we want to make sure people do not feel vulnerable or isolated.

“Showing care and compassion towards the elderly or vulnerable will really make a difference to their quality of life."

* If you have any concerns about a vulnerable person, please call the Single Point of Access, on  0300 456 1000, or for out of hours, the Emergency Duty Team, on 0345 0533116. 

Information about any weather-related incidents or advice can be found on the Council’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and its website: www.denbighshire.gov.uk

MP meets Minister over nuisance fireworks

Clwyd South MP Susan Elan Jones recently met Business Energy & Industrial Strategy Minister Kelly Tolhurst to discuss the regulation of fireworks.

Ms Jones (pictured) was part of a cross-party delegation of nine Labour, Conservative and SNP MPs who were calling on the Government to change the law. 

Last year Ms Jones led a debate in Parliament on the subject and also took part in another debate before Christmas in which every participating MP called for reform.

Speaking after the meeting, she said: "I love firework displays and I think organised displays are fantastic. However we can't carry on with the current noisy and dangerous free-for-all which seems to happen throughout the year.  

"There have been big public petitions calling for change and I support them wholeheartedly.

"As well as meeting the Minister we also had a good dialogue with civil servants at the Office for Product Safety and Standards who have been asked to look at the regulations."

She added: "I raised concerns about the ridiculously high noise limit of 120 decibels on fireworks and the fact that while there's a limit on when fireworks can be bought, there's absolutely no limit in terms of the days when they can be let off.

"This is a far cry from fireworks being used only on Bonfire Night. The RSPCA has noted this presents a major problem for animals and pet owners. Veterans' groups and others have also raised similar concerns. 

"Then there is the issue that many of us raised about fireworks being let off by people who are committing anti-social behaviour. This is now commonplace in big cities but we've also seen it a bit in our area too.

"Locally, we have fought tooth and nail to protect fire appliances and we must not have fire fighters and appliances, Police and innocent bystanders caught up in these mindless incidents."

Further to her meeting, Ms Jones will also be writing to Welsh Government Ministers. 

Emporium owner in wrangle with council over sign

* Paul Taylor outside his Chapel Emporium with the controversial sign. 

The owner of a Llangollen second-hand business is at odds with council chiefs over exactly where he can display a sign to advertise his business.

Because his Chapel Emporium is located just off a lay-by on Abbey Road and out of sight of the main shopping area in nearby Castle Street, Paul Taylor has painted a small board to draw customers in.

But because this is not easily visible if he puts it right outside his showroom in a converted chapel he has positioned it, with the permission of the owner, outside the nearby newsagents shop.

But he says he has been informed by Denbighshire County Council that he is not allowed to do this and must keep the board directly outside Chapel Emporium.

Paul said: “As we are situated just slightly off the beaten track, a sign to let people know where we are is a massive help getting customers to us.

“Unfortunately,  the council have said if we have our sign outside the newsagent and sandwich bar, it will be removed and taken away.

“Since being told to remove the sign weeks ago our trade has dropped dramatically especially with visitors to the town who don't know where we are.

“After seeking some advice we were told that the council cannot discriminate against just us, they'd have to tell every shop, pub, cafe etc which puts anything outside to remove theirs as well, and not just in Llangollen but the whole of Denbighshire.”

He added: “What harm is a sign? It's a small town and hard enough to run a business and try make a living as it is.

“We also have 10 stall-holders from as far as Liverpool who also rely on customers coming to us, and they can't believe how pathetic this place is with some very silly rules on having a sign out to advertise a local business in its own town.

“We are doing our bit for the environment by saving and re-using old furniture and other things from being skipped and going to landfill .”

A spokesman for Denbighshire County Council said: "An officer from the council's Streetscene department spoke to an employee at the business.

"The signs were placed approximately 50 metres away from the front of the business so contravened the Highways Act. 

"Advice was provided on how they could approach Llangollen Town Council and county councillors to find help on how to attract business.

"Any 'A' boards in the high street placed directly outside a business and which belong to the business are acceptable, as long as they do not cause an obstruction. This applies to all high street businesses."

The Fratellis and The Coral line up for Llanfest

* The Coral.

* The Fratellis.

Celebrated British rock bands The Fratellis and The Coral have announced their double headline appearance at Llanfest, the finale party of the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod, on Sunday July 7.

Wirral-based The Coral, who recently released their critically acclaimed new album Move Through The Dawn, will fill the International Pavilion with melodic and eccentric songs as well as renowned classics including Dreaming of You, Pass it On and In the Morning.

Also taking to the stage will be award-winning Scottish band The Fratellis who roared into their second decade with their fifth album, In Your Own Sweet Time in 2017.

The three-piece will rock the Pavilion with their famous top 10 singles, Chelsea Dagger and Whistle For The Choir as well as some new hits.

The show will be both bands’ first gig of the year in North Wales and one of the first opportunities in 2019 for fans in the region to see them live.

The two bands will be joined on the bill by Platinum-selling indie rockers Pigeon Detectives, with the likes of This is an Emergency and Take Her Back, and nineties power pop rock trio Dodgy with their nostalgic hits Staying out for the Summer and Good Enough.

This year's eistesddfod runs from Monday-Sunday July 1-7 and will welcome more than 4,000 performers and up to 50,000 visitors across the week.

Tickets will go on sale on Friday February 1 at 9am and can be purchased online at www.llangollen.net or via the box office on 01978 862001.

This year, the layout of the Pavilion has been changed with rear seating being removed and additional standing available at the front of the stage to increase capacity to more than 5,200, making it one of the festival’s biggest ever gigs. A tiered seating area will also be available in the middle of the arena.

There will be live performances from a range of artists from 2pm on the outside stages and support acts The Pigeon Detectives and Dodgy will perform in the main Pavilion, before The Fratellis and The Coral take to the stage.

The Coral frontman James Skelly said: “We’re really excited to join such a brilliant line-up for Llanfest 2019, to come together with other artists to support the ethos of global peace at a festival is something quite special."

Music Director of the festival Edward-Rhys Harry said: “The Fratellis and The Coral are the perfect mix of two iconic bands whose upbeat indie rock hits resonate across generations, the day is certain to bring thousands together to enjoy a high-energy finale to our 2019 festival.”

* For more information and to buy tickets go to www.llangollen.net or contact the Box Office on 01978 862001.

Tidy Town Team has another successful year

* Members of the Tidy Town Team do preparation work for Centenary Square last year.

Co-ordinator David Davies presents the 2018 annual report for Llangollen Tidy Town Team                       

Activity continues with a meet at least once a month and with no sign yet of the chance of retirement for the 18 members of the Team.   

48 full sacks of litter have been collected this year (double that of 2017) with the main problems area continuing to be the road into Llangollen from Trevor along by the “Hawthorn”. 

Litter from along the Panorama, on Dinas Bran castle hill and around the Wharf adds to our collection.  

Work in Cemetery Woods continues but unfortunately much of the yew hedge we transplanted there in the summer from around the Cenotaph area has failed to take.   

Young  yews, as we acquire them, are being planted along the precipice edge.  A challenge for 2019 is the removal of a couple of very tall Hemlock trees.

In partnership with DCC Countryside Services we tried our hand at hedge laying this year along the main footpath leading from the Town up to Dinas Bran Castle.   

We are pleased that one of our members subsequently participated in a hedge laying competition achieving a certificate for second place.   

We have repaired and repainted a few seats in Plas Newydd and undertaken significant gardening and hedge cutting work around the Llangollen Health Centre.  

Our services continue to be provided at the Town Christmas Festival day with our erecting stalls, traffic assistance during the Parade and fireworks and end of day clear up.   

Attendance at this event this year was enhanced with the use of the new Town Square area.   

A special thank you to the Team retiring from their activities of the past seven years of daily collecting horse manure from along the canal tow path and for the income generated  towards the cost of our activities.

Finally a big thank you to all Members of the Team for over 500 hours of voluntary work during the year and to our Supporters for their continued encouragement.

Mair aims to bag your used crisp packets

* Sheena Grindley, right, and Andree Beaverstock at the RAFA were first

to sign up as a crisp packet collection point. 

It’s crunch time for crisp packets in Llangollen thanks to the woman who has already led a successful crackdown on plastic straws and water bottles.

Fresh from her success with these two plastic-reduction campaigns which led to the town becoming the first in Wales to win coveted plastic-free status Mair Davies (pictured right) is now spearheading a new drive to clear local streets of the dreaded crisp bags.

If not correctly disposed of this highly common piece of plastic garbage can eventually cause major ecological damage.

She has already signed up her first crisp packet collection point, at Llangollen RAFA Club, and is now looking for more places willing to lend a hand in harvesting them in ready to be sold off in bulk for proper disposal and a small cash return which will be put towards the work of Llangollen Friends of the Earth (FoE).

It was through her membership of FoE that last spring Mair launched her smash-hit straw battle, aiming to have local catering businesses swap plastic for enviro-friendly paper versions.

Twenty-three Llan outlets, including pubs, restaurants and cafes, were persuaded it was a good idea and came aboard.

After straws Mair turned her attention to plastic water bottles with the goal of persuading  businesses in the area to offer free water refills of reusable bottles. This time 18 outlets flooded to her support.

Late last year the effectiveness of her campaigning led to Llangollen landing its prestigious plastic-free accolade from the respected Surfers Against Sewage eco organisation.

Another success came when Mair was awarded a £3,500 grant from the Welsh Government which is enabling her to run sessions across Denbighshire on how to effectively use the composting bins that many people now have in their gardens.

It’s now time for her to target those crisp packets and Mair explains that the kind of plastic they are made from isn’t generally popular with recycling firms as it costs more to process than they can sell it on for.

But she’s now found a company, Terracycle, a worldwide-based outfit whose UK arm specialises in handling hard-to-recycle plastic products such as cigarette butts, contact lenses,  toothbrushes – and crisp packets.

The return she’ll get on packets collected up is pretty meagre – about £2 for 2kgs or four binbags full – but all profits from the operation will be handed over to FoE in Llangollen.

Mair said: “I decided to turn my attention to crisp packets as there are so many of them about and, if not properly disposed of, they can cause major ecological problems.

“There was one story recently of a dead whale being cut open and a 30-year-old crisp packet being found in its stomach.

“The more I read about this the more depressed I became and that’s why I feel I have to do something about it.”

Town councillor Sheena Grindley at Llangollen RAFA Club, who like Mair is a member of the town’s Cittaslow Committee which aims improve the quality of local life, was the first to sign up to the crisp packet collection crusade.

And Mair says she’s now looking for other places in the town to get involved. Anyone interested can contact her by email at: cerimair@gmail.com, or by phone on 07969 891683.

Her next green project, still in its early stages, is the production of “ecobricks”.

She’s just led her first workshop, at Pengwern Community Centre in Llangollen, showing people how to stuff plastic bottles with small pieces of waste plastic which can then be turned into building materials, furniture or perhaps artwork.

Griffin is safe with its new handlers

* The iconic Vauxhall Via GT.

* The new Vauxhall Corsa Griffin.

Motoring with Steve Rogers

The Vauxhall brand is safe in the hands of its new French owners.

That was the upbeat message from Vauxhall's Customer Experience Director Peter Hope to motoring journalists gathered at Vauxhall's Luton base to drive some of the company's newest and oldest cars.

Hope said PSA boss Carlos Tavares wants to develop Vauxhall's 'Britishness' and make it matter more. The goal is a "mainstream domestic brand that develops a stronger bond with its British customers."

The marriage with Peugeot-Citroen will be no stroll in the park and job losses have already been announced at the Ellesmere Port plant but on the plus side there will be the opportunity to share platforms, engines and technology in an industry that is going through some of the biggest changes in its history.

Electric and hybrid vehicles will be coming thick and fast as the pressure grows to cut pollution, but back at the showrooms it is business as usual for Vauxhall building for the arrival of the new Corsa supermini.

We won't see it until much later this year but it will be new from the ground up sharing Peugeot technology. In the meantime Vauxhall is doing its level best to maintain interest in its top selling car.

To kick off Corsa's last hurrah a special Griffin edition offers fantastic value. And in this case fantastic is no exaggeration because it is stacked with kit.

For £11,695 the spec list includes 7in colour touchscreen with navigation, DAB radio, Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, cruise control, air conditioning, auto headlights and wipers, heated front seats and heated steering wheel. The only useful feature missing is parking sensors which you could probably get as a £465 option.

This could be the perfect Corsa... except for the engine. It is the 1.4 litre petrol with a meagre 74bhp which is slow off the mark, doesn't offer much mid range, and wheezes when faced with a climb.

The plus side are its price and low running costs - insurance group four, 40-45mpg real time economy, and emissions just low enough to qualify for £140 road tax after the first year's £205.

Should you prefer a Corsa with a more grunt look to the GSI, yes the GSI is back while the hotshot VXR models take a break, and it sounds like it will be a long one. Meeting emissions standards are causing quite a few difficulties among the car makers.

The GSI won't get close to a hot Ford Fiesta or Renault Clio and would come second to the Suzuki Swift Sport in a race to sixty but I liked the quality and design of the interior. Its price tag of £19,440, and that is without £650 worth of navigation, shows the Griffin Corsa is a real bargain.

Vauxhall has a wonderful heritage collection dating back to the magnificent Prince Henry (1911-1914) and moving through to the ground breaking H-Type of 1937, the first production car with monocoque body and synchromesh gears. Ten thousand were sold in the first five months at £159 a time.

I ran out of time before I could get my hands on something a little more up to date, the outrageously fast Lotus Carlton, all 177mph of it, so I had to be content with a bright red 1970 Viva GT.

It is believed to have been registered by Vauxhall as one of its company cars and was bought back from its owner in 2014 and beautifully restored at the Heritage Centre.

The GT would have been up against hot Ford Escorts and had pretty reasonable performance from its 2-litre with sixty coming up in 10 seconds and a top end of 100mph.

Back in 1972 I had a Vauxhall Viva estate, light green, and remember it as a pretty reasonable car, but driving this near 50 year old model brings home how things have moved on. The braking system would have been perfectly acceptable then but now it's downright scary - I nearly put the GT through the exit barrier at the Heritage Centre thinking it would pull up.... and it nearly didn't. My fault, of course.

The steering is not what you could call precise, movements have to be made a little earlier, and the engine, although feisty through a four speed gearbox, is noisy. Just goes to show how sound deadening has come on.

Yet driving a classic gives you a good feeling, and plenty of onlookers no doubt all thinking 'I wish I could have a drive in that'.