New-York-Daily-News-cneifiwr-emlyn

It was a bitterly cold and frosty morning, and visitors to County Hall were greeted by the sight of Bob Crachit and about ten other members of Unison staging a small protest outside the main entrance in support of a living wage. How they must have enjoyed seeing Brother Kevin  roll up sun-tanned from his latest cruise in his council Jaguar or Mercedes, heading into County Hall to explain why all that turkey and Christmas pudding would not be good for them. Or perhaps Kev used the special VIP entrance.

Members of the public, meanwhile, found that new entry procedures were in place.

After nearly 18 months of protests and complaints about the county council's treatment of members of the public wishing to observe council meetings, it seems that all it took was a short visit by the county fire officer a couple of weeks ago for new arrangements to be put in place. What that says about the council's repeated claims that the procedures were legal and in accordance with fire regulations, readers can decide for themselves.


Visitors are still required to sign in, but are no longer asked for their home addresses. A council security officer now sits at the rear of the gallery for the duration of the meeting, presumably watching out for threats to security. Good to see that the council has got staff with time to carry out such important duties.


Before the meeting got underway, Cllr Pam Palmer could be glimpsed marching up and down the corridor behind the chamber giving what appeared to be orders to the troops.

There was an almost total lack of Christmas cheer this year, although the Chair had brought along a table decoration featuring a small squirrel. Cllr Siân Thomas was clearly very pleased with her white gwiwer, and Cneifiwr had a short day-dream in which she stroked it while saying "Bore da, Mr Bond". The gwiwer had been purchased at a charity craft stand which is normally allowed into County Hall at this time of year to sell squirrels and other tasteful decorations to councillors.

Perhaps because of the security threat, there was unfortunately no stall this year.

But the Chair was determined to try to cheer everyone up. She would be taking part in this year's Boxing Day Walrus Dip wearing her itsy-bitsy, we were told. Cneifiwr managed to control his passion by closing his eyes and thinking of the council leader and his two deputies frolicking in the icy waves.

This month's clutch of awards included two prizes for the Dyfed Powys Pension Fund, which had been voted the best pension fund in Britain. Pam Palmer immediately rose to ask if she could send them a Christmas card.

The Chair reminded councillors that they too could join the fund, even though most of them are already drawing other pensions. For a small contribution (and a much larger contribution from council tax payers), they could all be part of the best possible pension fund.

But it was time to get down to business, and the little squirrel would soon find out that there were other, much larger rodents lurking in the chamber.

Today's issue of the South Wales Guardian leads with the paper's own account of its blacklisting by Carmarthenshire Council. The story can be found here, with an editorial here and and a further comment piece here, in which Cneifiwr gets a mention.

Congratulations go to the paper and its staff for having the guts to stand up to the County Hall bullies. Cneifiwr waits with bated breath to see whether the Carmarthen Journal will now follow suit, or failing that report on the punishment meted out to a fellow member of the local press.

The blacklisting was triggered by the Guardian's decision in early September to criticise the council for the now infamous Sainsbury's press release which falsely accused MP Jonathan Edwards and Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM of "deliberately sabotaging" the development of two new supermarkets.

The MP and AM eventually complained to the Ombudsman for Public Services after a coalition of senior Labour and Independent councillors and senior council officers blocked any discussion of the affair by councillors.

By happy coincidence, the Ombudsman was in Carmarthen yesterday and paid County Hall a visit as a part of his investigation. Some of the discussion involved the contents of a leaked e-mail between chief executive Mark James and Debbie Williams, the head of the council's press office.

It now seems that interesting questions have arisen over the authorship of the press release. If you believe that Kevin Madge wrote it, you probably also believe that a jolly elf visits your house every Christmas and leaves lots of toys and other goodies behind.

DNA samples are now on their way to the Ombudsman.

The matter also merited a brief mention at today's council meeting, where Cllr Glynog Davies (Plaid) said he was astonished to read about the blacklisting. Labour and Independent councillors remembered their vows of silence, and it was left to the chief executive to say that there could be a debate about the Guardian another time.

Just don't hold your breath.

More on today's very unfestive council meeting and the decison to reject a motion which would have allowed members of the public to record meetings will follow rather sooner than any debate in County Hall about the council's treatment of the local press.

The phrase Carmarthenshire County Council uses to dismiss its critics is usually something along the lines of "a small, unrepresentative group which has a problem with local government". In the case of Llanelli Town Council and a good many of the town's residents, County Hall may have to come up with something different. "Rabble" didn't go down too well last time, did it? No, it really will have to work on this one. Fortunately, it has all those PR people to come up with the goods (20 of them, apparently).

The problem is that Llanelli doesn't want to be in Carmarthenshire any more. A motion presented by Mayor Winston Lemon (Plaid) seeks to take back decision-making powers from the county council in what could be the first step towards creating a separate unitary authority.

This is a bit of a PR disaster for the self-proclaimed best council in Wales. If it's really that good, why would a big chunk of it want to leave?

Llanelli Town Council is a democratically elected body, and was here making a democratic decision. The run-up to the vote and the views of quite a few local people were reported by the Llanelli Star here. In a separate piece of equal length (here), readers of the paper were treated to the views of the unelected chief executive of Carmarthenshire County Council attacking the motion and complaining at length about the ingratitude of some people. Only a week earlier, he reminded readers, the council had had to step in to deal with whingeing about the East Gate development.

County Hall doesn't do irony.

A second strand of irony was almost certainly lost on the chief executive: the town's wish to have more say in its own affairs is in no small part a reaction to the way he has run the county council  for the past 11 years.

Readers who do not live in Carmarthenshire may find it strange that a council chief executive is so publicly involved in political debate. Where were the elected politicians in all this, they may wonder.

To be fair to Carmarthenshire County Council, it has a bit of a problem here. Fielding Kevin Madge, the shambling, rambling council leader from Garnant would only have inflamed the separatists, while putting up deputy leader Pam Palmer to defend Carmarthen rule would probably have led to the immediate outbreak of civil war. Tegwen Devichand, the second deputy leader, has the advantage of coming from Llanelli, but probably felt that saying anything would be political suicide.

Certainly, if Llanelli (population 47,000) were to become a separate unitary authority, there would be major consequences for the rest of the county (population 180,000).

Llanelli is not the only part of the county which might want to contemplate an alternative future. Llandovery, about to lose its secondary school, might cast amorous glances across the border at Powys, while in the west St Clears and Whitland feel neglected and unloved. Pembrokeshire may be a basket case local authority, but being able to write Pembrokeshire on your address might do wonders for property prices and tourism. Step forward the Selwyn Runnett Liberation Front.

Up on the #welshtaliban infested North West Frontier, Newcastle Emlyn and the surrounding area (equally unloved and neglected) may be torn out of the existing Carmarthen East and Dinefwr constituency and lumped in with a much enlarged Ceredigion. Perhaps it might be better to go the whole hog and make the area part of Ceredigion full stop.

There may even be a case for creating yet another unitary authority. How about the County Borough of Trimsaran? In a single two-member ward Meryl Gravell and Pam Palmer could become councillors and Executive Board members for life, while the chief executive makes a bid for the 2024 Olympics to be hosted in a new Robbie Savage Stadium, and Pembrey Airport could expand to position itself as the new London hub airport.

The regeneration possibilities would be endless, and council tax hikes in Trimsaran would ensure that the village became rabble-free.

Meanwhile, in this digital age, we will have to wait a few more days to find out the result of the Llanelli vote. Or nearly two months if we wait for the official minutes.

Sometimes you get a feeling that something is missing, but you can't quite put your finger on it. Observant readers of the South Wales Guardian may have had that nagging feeling for the last three months, because in all that time Carmarthenshire County Council has not placed a single advertisement with the paper, not since the paper ran a piece which was critical of the council's infamous Sainsbury's press release. That was back at the beginning of September.

Back in July of this year the manager of the council's notorious press office, Debbie Williams, e-mailed colleagues in the council's marketing department suggesting that the council should cease placing adverts with the paper "until this issue is resolved" following a very mildly critical piece about a regeneration project in Ammanford. Notice the chilling use of words there. In plain terms, the suggestion was that the newspaper should be made to toe the line and stop printing stories and comment pieces that the council leadership does not like.

Because Carmarthenshire County Council sees itself as a big, important local authority we need not only a chief executive, but two assistant chief executives. Neither of their salaries is disclosed in the council's most recent statement of accounts, probably thanks to the use of a loophole in reporting requirements, but it is reasonable to assume that they are buried among the 23 individuals who were being paid more than £85,000 per annum (readers may be surprised to learn that in this time of cuts, the number of top earners in County Hall has been rising).

One of these two assistant chief executives, Chris Burns, was wheeled out to offer an explanation and some soothing words:

The intention was to meet with the editor next week to discuss concerns that had been raised in the steering group regarding a front page story in the Guardian. In the meantime one single advert was put on hold. We spend quite a lot with the Guardian and there's no intention to stop this advertising. As I understand it the trader's concerns were that the story appeared to suggest that the town was likely to be 'closed for Christmas'. The article concerned was not, I must say, particularly critical of the county council and I cannot see any reason why this would have led to us removing advertising completely.

That was in July. It would be interesting to hear what Mr Burns has to say now.

Local authorities are required by law to publish certain types of notice (e.g. road closures) in the press, and they also have large discretionary advertising and marketing budgets which can be used to promote events and provide residents with useful information on council services, etc. For most if not all of our struggling local newspapers, this revenue is desperately needed, so by denying the Guardian advertising revenue, the council is certainly aware of the possible consequences.

But it is not just the newspaper which is being punished here. Carmarthenshire has a high proportion of elderly people, people on low incomes and people in remote rural locations who do not have access to the internet. For many of them, especially the elderly who still loyally buy and read local newspapers, publications such as the Guardian are their main source of information about the council and its services.

Since its spat with the council back in July, the Guardian has, to its immense credit, continued to publish stories which the council will not have liked, and in many cases these were stories which you could not read anywhere else.

In the case of the rival and much larger Carmarthen Journal the list of major local stories which have gone unreported in the last two years grows ever longer. If the council doesn't like it, the Journal won't print it. At its worst, the Journal was almost certainly guilty of colluding with the council's Ministry of Truth when it ran "spoiler" stories to detract from scandals which were being reported elsewhere. The most glaring example of that was in the aftermath of the BBC's documentary on the Delyth Jenkins case when the Journal ran a re-hashed summary of a CSSIW report on social care provision praising the council.

More recently the paper seems to have adopted tactics similar to those used in countries with oppressive regimes where criticism is of the subtle, between the lines kind.

It would be futile for a lone blogger to call for a boycott of the Journal, but the knowledge that the newspaper is being censored makes it soiled goods. Almost as worrying is the Journal's aggressive stance towards its competitors. Since the paper re-launched its local editions, it is clearly going for smaller rivals, such as the Tivyside Advertiser, with a marked increase in its coverage of news in the south of Ceredigion. Strangely, the paper has no qualms about criticising Ceredigion County Council.

Competition is great sometimes, but the thought that the compliant and censored Journal might kill off a smaller rival has to be of concern to everyone who cares about a free local press.

So what can be done? The Journal has recently come under new ownership, and it remains to be seen what the new proprietors will do with the paper and its sister publications. But now is as good a time as any to try to stop this bullying and intimidation of our newspapers.

We can write to our councillors, although in many cases I would not bother wasting ink and paper. We can write to MPs and Assembly Members, and Rhodri Glyn Thomas for one is certain to give public concerns a sympathetic hearing. We could try writing to the new proprietors of the Carmarthen Journal. But perhaps the most effective thing would be for someone like Rhodri Glyn Thomas to offer his good offices to bring together the various press interests in Carmarthenshire. They can either all hang together or hang one by one, as at present.

The council, whatever its other failings, is not stupid. In the end, the council needs the local press to get its message and information across, as much as the papers need the revenue. The council's own wretched propaganda rag is no substitute.

So call the council's bluff and tell the town hall dictators to get back in their box.

The announcement by John Griffiths, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, on the news and shortly afterwards on the cringe worthy Wales Report last Sunday, that the Welsh Government will in future insist that any plans for new housing which involve flood risk must be referred back to the Welsh Government, will not have given much comfort to the hundreds of households across Wales which have seen their homes flooded this year. And as Plaid Wrexham has pointed out, the announcement seems to be another case of smoke and mirrors because the shots are called by the Planning Inspectorate which is not devolved and therefore does not come under the minister's control.

What the minister's "in future" means in the case of existing planning applications will be an early test of whether this announcement was anything more than a PR manoeuvre to be seen to be doing something - anything - after the recent catastrophic flooding in Rhuthun and Llanelwy/St Asaph.

Meanwhile, Carmarthenshire continues to fill various in-trays in Cardiff, with planning topping the list as usual. The full list of current applications under consideration for call-in by the Welsh Government can be found here. At first sight, Carmarthenshire is just one of a fairly large number of local authorities whose judgment is being called into question, but whereas most outside Carmarthenshire concern minor cases (a wind turbine or two, a couple of planning enforcement cases, a piggery, a slurry lagoon, etc.), the haul from Carmarthenshire comprises a raft of major proposed developments. These include the byzantine battle over Stradey Park (450 proposed residential units); a proposed development of 336 houses just outside    Ammanford; a proposed new "eco-park" and housing development at Machynys near Llanelli; and a major proposed redevelopment of the former Grillo Zinc Oxide Works at Burry Port.

No other local authority has generated a case load anything like as large and smelly, so Carl Sargeant's recent decision to hold his nose and reject calls for a public inquiry into planning in Carmarthenshire is even more surprising.

The Stradey Park development will be one of the first tests of just how serious John Griffiths is about clamping down on building in a high flood risk area.

Almost equally extraordinary is the proposed development of 336 houses at Penybanc, just outside Ammanford (planning report here).

The developer here is Swallow Property Developments Ltd. which gives its main place of business as an address in the tax haven of Guernsey. The agent representing the developer gives an address in Berkshire.You can judge from that how much they have the interests of a Welsh community at heart.

Originally Swallow put in an application for 141 houses, and planning permission was duly granted. Now the developer believes that a mere 141 houses falls far short of the true potential of the site, and is asking to up the number to 336, with parking for 580 cars.

Nobody in the area or any of the various agencies consulted has a good word to say for the proposals, apart from the developers, their agents and the planning officers.

As you read through the planning officer's report, red lights flash, alarm bells ring and just about every page contains information which screams out "No!". For example, the Environment Agency warns that it could lead to increased pollution in the Carmarthen Bay Special Area of Conservation and the Burry Inlet. The defunct Welsh Language Board examined two Language Impact Assessments and warned that it would have an adverse impact on the Welsh language; it also questioned the need for such a large development. The Countryside Council for Wales expressed concerns and objected to the application. And hundreds of local people took the time to write in to object.

The list and extent of objections goes on and on, and the planning officer's report sweeps the lot aside. It takes the Welsh Language Board to task for what it considers to be an inadequate and flawed analysis, although common sense screams at the top of its voice that the proposals would undermine the language, and that no amount of bilingual street signs will help.

At one point the report acknowledges that the proposals are not consistent with the council's existing UDP, but concludes that that is all right because it will only be eating into land designated as amenity land.

Naturally, despite all the evidence stacked up against it and the wishes of the local community, the officers recommended acceptance of the plan. The Planning Committee decided first that it had better go and take a look, which is where the matter currently rests.

Penybanc itself lies in Saron ward which is represented by Peter Cooper (Lab) and Alun Davies (Plaid). Cllr Cooper, who is a member of the planning committee, has spoken strongly against the proposal, and will therefore have no further part to play in the process. Cllr Davies is biding his time.

If, incredibly, the application is not called in, we will face the interesting prospect of a Labour councillor having to stand by while his party colleagues do as they are told by the officers, backed by a motley collection of super-annuated "Independents" who won't even stand up for their own wards, leave alone anybody else's.

As Cllr Cooper may be about to experience at first hand, the quasi-judicial exercise of authority in Carmarthenshire makes even Judge Jeffries look like a paragon of fairness and impartiality.

Approved! Next!

Update

I have been asked by someone familiar with this lady's circumstances to point out that she takes great pride in keeping her home immaculate. The rat infestation was therefore especially shocking and traumatic for her.

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The Ombudsman for Public Services may be wondering whether he is being taken at all seriously by his favourite local authority, Carmarthenshire County Council.

Every time the Ombudsman delivers a report criticising the council, he eventually gets a very grudging acceptance along with an assurance that measures have been put in place to ensure that this or that outrage will not happen again.

Earlier this year the chief executive was noticeably very annoyed to be criticised in the case of Mr M, a disabled man living in council-owned accommodation who had been trying for several years to get the council to adapt his home and make it suitable for a wheelchair. The principal requirement was for a ramp to enable him to get in and out of the house.

This week the South Wales Guardian reports on two cases of rat infestation in Ammanford, the stomping ground of council leader Kevin Madge who makes a very big deal of his commitment to providing decent council housing.

In one case a 94 year-old lady was living on her own and nearly blind and discovered to her horror that rats were taking the food off her plate. Although she is living in a council-owned home, the local authority repeatedly refused to send anyone out to tackle the problem, and eventually she had to pay £240 out of her own pocket to call in a pest controller.

As Cneifiwr's own parents found out last year, some private pest controllers can be even worse than the pests themselves when they rip off elderly and vulnerable people.

This is the sort of thing you might expect of the very worst kind of private landlord.

Apart from the council's much-publicised commitment to improving its housing stock and building new bungalows, it is also very keen to encourage independent living as it seeks to limit the cost of residential care.

As some councillors have pointed out, independent living is great provided the elderly are actively helped to stay in their own homes and lead a reasonable quality of life, but all too often old people can find that their homes become lonely prisons.

We do not know the particular circumstances of this lady, but the chances are that she will have some sort of involvement with social services, the NHS, Meals on Wheels, etc. Why did none of these agencies act to ensure that things were sorted out earlier?

As we know from the newspaper report, this was not an isolated case either. What it suggests is systematic failure by the council to look after this old lady, and things could have ended up much, much worse.

A couple of months ago the council produced a huge, glossy annual report trumpeting its alleged successes in all sorts of fields, including care of the elderly. What's the likelihood that Mr M and the old lady in Ammanford will get a mention in next year's report?

Any attempts by councillors to raise the alarm about such appalling cases are invariably silenced and dismissed as "ward matters", but the truth is, as we can see from the South Wales Guardian report, that negative publicity is the only thing which makes the council sit up.

Of course, none of this excuses the rest of us. One day we will all be grateful to receive visits from neighbours checking to see that we are OK.