This question relates to the A487, which runs from the roundabout in Penparcau, past the Co-op and other shops, down to Trefechan and into Aberystwyth. The area in Penparcau which the A487 runs through is heavily residential and may have the speed re-classified to 20mph. This could make the road safer, reduce air pollution and support Active Travel and wellbeing. Petitions have been made in the past to reduce the speed of the road, there have also been questions raised by other politicians, such as Ben Lake MP (Ceredigion), Elin Jones AM (Ceredigion), Eluned Morgan AM and Joyce Watson AM.  It would obviously be beneficial to the residents in the area, to local businesses, tourism could benefit, so could wildlife and it would reduce carbon and air pollution in an area with more children than any other in the county.  Question from Helen Mary Jones AM Mid and West Wales WAQ79184 (e)Tabled on 03/12/2019

Will the Minister provide an update on progress of the review into speed limit reductions on the A487 in Penparcau?

Answered by Minister for Economy and Transport Answered on 05/12/2019

The Speed Limit Review work is currently ongoing and is programmed to be completed by the end of this financial year. Any works or actions arising from the review will be prioritised and subject to availability of funding.

Understanding Council Tax - Penparcau, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion

Recently Ceredigion County Council announced the budget challenge

https://www.ceredigion.gov.uk/budget-challenge/

The aim of the challenge is to encourage residents to  - “Have a go at setting the Council’s budget with our online budget simulator.Ceredigion County Council continues to face severe budget cuts in the face of continued austerity. We still need to reduce the amount of money we spend by at least £6 million per year.” Personally I think it’s a good thing to do to get people to engage with budgets as it can tell you what funding is spent on what services.

After reading about this I was interested on how much the place that I lived, Penparcau paid in Council Tax as a whole - A map of the area can be found here: Map of Penparcau

I spoke to the County Council and they advised me to put in an FOI - a Freedom of Information Request. This is easy to do and anyone can do this. A good way to do this is to use a service such as “What Do They Know” - https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/body/ceredigion_council. It’s really easy and has lots of advice on how to ask for information.

I was provided with the following information on the number of houses in the ward, their band (A B C D E F G H I) and the amount each band pays to Dyfed Powys Police, Aberystwyth Town Council and Ceredigion County Council. Most of this information can be found here: https://www.ceredigion.gov.uk/resident/council-tax/budget/ The number of properties and their band is as follows (information courtesy of Ceredigion County Council) : Band                   Number of Properties A                                       321                B                                       570 C                                       865 D                                       155 E                                        76 F                                        16 T (deletions)                       24 Total                                2029           According to these figures the total amounts paid by Penparcau are as follows: Town Council                 £ 175,033.20       (Penparcau only) County Council.             £ 1,297,565.16    (Penparcau only) Dyfed Powys Police       £ 421,858.49       (Penparcau only) Now you have the figures for your area it means that you can start to think about how the money is spent in your ward.                           To be continued. . . .

Some images that I was asked to take of the water-logged Penparcau Park to pass onto Aberystwyth Town Council Near #Aberystwyth #Ceredigion #Wales 

Cycle and walking improvements in Aberystwyth Town and Penparcau

“Cycle and walking improvements recently completed in Aberystwyth Town and Penparcau. Ceredigion County Council has recently completed path upgrade works in Penparcau, and the installation of enhanced cycle parking provision in the Town Centre, following an additional award of £138,000 from the Welsh Government’s Local Transport Fund. ​Ceredigion County Council has recently completed path upgrade works in Penparcau, and the installation of enhanced cycle parking provision in the Town Centre, following an additional award of £138,000 from the Welsh Government’s Local Transport Fund.The path from Fifth Avenue linking with the Rheidol Cycle Trail has been widened and resurfaced along with new railings fitted on St Brieuc bridge, bringing it up to Welsh Government Design Standards for shared use by cyclists and pedestrians. The entrance to the Fifth Avenue allotments is now segregated for motorists, and the lighting along the route has also been upgraded making it safer for people using the path.The path through Penparcau Park has also been widened and resurfaced providing an improved cycle and pedestrian link to Llwyn yr Eos Primary School.  New lighting has been installed on the path, along with new scooter and cycle racks for children using the play area....” For the full story see the link below. http://www.ceredigion.gov.uk/English/Resident/News/Pages/Cycle-and-walking-improvements-recently-completed-in-Aberystwyth-Town-and-Penparcau.aspx

Jurassic Penparcau

From the People’s Health Trust see link below “Karina Shaw discusses the role of a carnival in building community cohesiveness.

Meet Dave. Yes, Dave is a dinosaur. More importantly, he’s our dinosaur. The result of months of perseverance, effort and hard work from the fantastic community that I live in. How did Dave become a member of our community? Let me take you back to 2015, when it all started… I am part of the Penparcau Community Forum History and Heritage group. Last year, we took part in our first Aberystwyth Carnival. This was an opportunity to celebrate the history and heritage of our village. We wanted to highlight the positive aspects of where we live, which is sometimes overshadowed by the history of other areas.  We soon decided our 2015 float would be called ‘Penparcau through the Ages’. After months of planning, we were ready to construct the float. We started by building a replica Southgate Tollhouse which used to be prominently situated in the village, but was removed and is now housed in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. We then built the Wellington Monument that sits on top of Pendinas - an Iron Age Fort, located in the heart of the village. Finally, we recreated a small scale street party - our village was well known for holding the most amazing street parties.” To read more please follow the link below http://www.peopleshealthtrust.org.uk/news/news-stories/jurassic-penparcau

People, Politics & Penparcau: Lessons for the Fight Against Rural Poverty

Every so often we’re going to have a guest blogger who raises an important issue or concerns that relate to the area. This time it’s the turn or Dylan Lewis,

This article underlines the importance of understanding the concept of tacking poverty from a rural perspective. Welsh Government policy needs to recognise and adopt an inclusive community development approach that engages and empowers communities across Wales. The Penparcau Community Forum provides an excellent example of what can be achieved..... Dylan Lewis 

Dylan Lewis  “has worked for the former Penparcau & West Aberystwyth Communities First project. He is now a director of the Penparcau Community Forum, a trustee-director of Community Development Cymru, and was Mayor of Aberystwyth from 2012-13.”

To download the full article as a pdf file click here Article

Many thanks to the people at Planet for letting us use this article.

“Four in 10 children in Penparcau living in poverty, charity claims” Cambrian News

It’s worth linking to this as it’s been reported in the Cambrian News and been all over Twitter and Facebook.  It’s an article by Caleb Spencer on the disapointing figures from the national charity End child Poverty that we reported on earlier in the year. The article is well written and highlights some of the issues that people in Penparcau, Ceredigion, Wales are facing. 

The charity End Child Poverty is a National charity whose member include the NSPCC, Barnardos, Oxfam and so on... “In 2013, funding for Communities First — the Welsh Government’s programme for tackling poverty — was withdrawn, but volunteers in the community soon stepped in and CF was replaced by Penparcau Community Forum. A spokesperson for the forum said: “The community was really surprised when we saw this statistic, especially as there are more children in this ward than any other in the whole of Ceredigion. “A statistic like this is clearly disappointing. “We’d already seen Penparcau worsen by over 100 places in respect to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation last year, which was appalling.” from the Cambrian News, article by Caleb Spencer.  Monday, 16 November 2015 http://cambrian-news.co.uk/article.cfm?id=100403

Party in the Park - Penparcau

This week I’m sharing an article that was written by Dylan Jones of the Penparcau Community Forum. the original article was published in the Aberystwyth Ego, and Huw Bates has kindly let me use this. I think that it’s important to share this as it clearly shows how much pride people have in the area that they live in, and how a range of people have come together to support each other to create a day that all can enjoy. To get the readable PDF document click here http://bit.ly/1K2Q90c Dylan Lewis, Party in the Park, Aberystwyth EGO Issue 9 JUL 2015 www.facebook.com/aber.ego

Child Poverty in Ceredigion

Recently I’ve been seeing the image below about child poverty quite a lot on Facebook and other social media. I know that lots of people were surprised, saddened and upset by this figure 26.62% of children in Ceredigion live in poverty; and rightly so.  

However, I was really surprised when I found out that the Child Poverty figure for the ward with the largest population of children living in Ceredigion - Penparcau (a village suburb of Aberystwyth) - was 39.85%. This means that out of every ten children that you meet from Penparcau four are living in poverty; yes that’s nearly half of the children in a ward with nearly 1000 children! To draw a local comparison  and to see why these issues need to be tackled at a ward level child poverty is at  0% in the Bronglais ward (Aberystwyth). It’s not exactly clear if there’s been a response to this.

 Only the Teifi ward in Cardigan has a higher percentage of child poverty (two and a bit percent higher),  but also has a population that is almost 2000 people fewer than Penparcau - according to the last census.

*Interestingly if we look at other indicators we can see that the Save the Children report CHILD POVERTY SNAPSHOTS - The local picture in Wales This report says that 12% or children in Ceredigion claim free school meals, however an additional 27% (who are eligible) are not claiming them. This is Ceredigion wide.

However, what is worrying has also been the increase in deprivation shown by the drop in the WIMD - Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation - overall Penparcau looks to have worsened by nearly 150 places. It’s disappointing to see that Income, Health, Education, Employment and Access to Services have all worsened.  However, the community are steeping in and doing something about this, the Penparcau Community Forum are working with the community to bring about change and Starkies served over 1000 meals to children and their families over the Summer (in 2014), but these organisations cannot survive on thin air.

This combined with the fact that West Wales (of which Penparcau is part) is number one in terms of it being the poorest area in Northern Europe, in terms of GDP. Link below http://inequalitybriefing.org/graphics/briefing_43_UK_regions_poorest_North_Europe.pdf data produced by Eurostat, the data agency of the European Union

One only has to look at the census to also see that there has been a decline in the Welsh language, in an area where there was once one of the largest populations of Welsh speakers, yet little has been done directly in the village. It feels as though the issues of the area are not being addressed. 

I think that there is a duty of care and that more needs to be done. There have been attempts - Communities First (funding withdrawn) and Flying Start - However, it’s evident that things have got worse over the last few years, so perhaps the funding needs to be given to grass roots organisations in the area that the community trust and who can engage with the local people and their issues.

The picture is taken from a Facebook page of a friend, and it’s from a campaign by http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk

Data

http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/why-end-child-poverty/poverty-in-your-area

Linked

http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/images/ecp/Wales_LA%20and%20ward%20data.xlsx

From: The Campaign to End Child Poverty The Campaign to End Child Poverty is made up of more than 150 organisations from civic society including children’s charities, child welfare organisations, social justice groups, faith groups, trade unions and others, united in our vision of a UK free of child poverty.

We campaign to achieve our vision by:

- Ensuring the voices of families facing economic disadvantage are heard; - Increasing understanding of the causes and impacts of child poverty and - mobilising public support and action; - Promoting to politicians and government the case for ending child poverty by 2020, the actions that will achieve it and holding them to account on the requirements of the Child Poverty Act.

Penparcau - 39.85% of children living in POVERTY - after housing costs.

“On yer bike” - Cycle Paths in Penparcau, Aberystwyth and Beyond. Since speaking to an Assembly Member a couple of weeks ago I’ve been thinking about what he said about linking the cycle paths - the Ystwyth Trail and the Rheidol Trail together across Penparcau, and maybe having some signs and bike parking to take advantage of the Celtic hill fort - Pen Dinas (which has a Local Nature Reserve, walks and sites of special scientific interest, also amazing views). I thought this was a great idea, good for the area, good for the local economy and also the residents (there are possibly more people in the Penparcau wards than in any other in Ceredigion and there are certainly more children, not to mention the large school). I’d also been discussing the importance of Pen Dinas to Penparcau and Ceredigion with Mike Parker, when he and Leanne Wood visited, I’d also mentioned it to Baroness Andrews when she visited Penparcau too. All seemed to agree that it was an amazing resource. Anyway, I sort of forgot all about this until I saw an update for something to do with the Aber Cycle Fest on Facebook, and I mentioned the cycle paths idea to friends and they said that they’d seen Steve Jones (the Chief Executive of Tai Ceredigion) give a really good presentation at an event in Newtown and that we should get in touch as it’s sounded like the sort of scheme that he’d envisaged - supporting their tenants, social innovation, health, children and parents being able to cycle to school, and bringing more money into the local economy via tourism etc. So I emailed Steve and asked about getting a letter of support for a Penparcau cycle path; and I got a really supportive and super fast response! I’d also noticed that they were painting some railings, and that looks superb; so I asked about a community group planting up the old rose bed behind the railings and maintaining it; just something that would bring people together and engender a bit of pride in the area (and importantly be free) and he seemed supportive of that too. Actually it’s really good to have people like this in organisations in Ceredigion that are quick to respond, give support, can see the bigger picture and are intelligent enough to see how small changes and support can bring about a bigger change for the better.  I’d also love to see an interpretation board relating to the area on the grass across from the Co-op and a gate into the land. I’m sure that the Penparcau History and Heritage group & Royal Commission (who I’ve worked with before) could design something really amazing. The Penparcau Community Forum have just managed to take over the running of the Community Centre (the old boxing club) it would be great if there was a free WiFi access point there that people could use for free and get information about services and all kinds of local information - this could even be a super fast connection. I suppose it just takes time and a little money, but the publicity from this and the partnerships that are made could form the platform to bring in serious funding to the area.

We’ve already got support from a variety of sources, so the next thing will be to approach the County Council.

Since this was written cycle stands have just been placed outside the Penparcau Community Centre. People have been really enthusiastic about this!

IWA - How can Cardigan Bay punch above its weight economically?

Last week I went to this panel, organised by the Institute of Welsh Affairs. How can Cardigan Bay punch above its weight economically?

Around 20+ people turned up and it was more of a round table affair, which in my opinion is better than sitting in the audience. I recognised a couple of people from Ceredigion County Council and someone from the uni, but I didn't recognise a majority of people there, however, people had a lot of interesting things to say. The discussion mainly focused around Ceredigion and Aberystwyth.

From my memory there was a focus on local procurement and localist approaches, but with a eye towards pulling in expertise, there was also a concern about administration of funding and the projects/businesses funded from european funding. There were questions to the both the County Council and the University about helping create and support innovation in the county, but there didn't appear to be the expertise and a discussion was had a bout the perceived previous failings of the systems that had been in place.

I did think that it was interesting that people seemed to be unsure about what european funding could be pulled on in the county, and I think that's quite worrying. We know that according to Eurosat that West Wales is the poorest place in Northern Europe in terms of GDP, and within those areas there are ex Communities First areas that are amongst the most deprived (top 10 and 20%) in Wales. Currently there have also been suggested County Council cuts of 4.5% across everything, and with Aberystwyth Town Council apparently putting up the precept (Town Council Tax) every year there needs to be more coming back into those communities and less being charged to them.  Anyway I digress, the meeting seemed somewhat unresolved and it felt like as one person said, people were, 'institutionalised', 'afraid' to do things differently and the system was 'stale'.

Who knows when Cardigan Bay will punch above its weight, as one of the panel members said, "Cardigan Bay isn't even punching at it's weight".