Keeping Bryneithin Open

I was at Bryneithin Home’s Easter Party last night (with Derek playing harmonica as the entertainment).

Although the home is not closing immediately, as initially expected, due to clauses in the contracts of some of the residents, the Conservative Council are still planning on closing Bryneithin as soon as possible.

In the papers, I accused them of cutting off their nose to spite their face.

If the home has to be kept open until the final resident is no longer with us and must be maintained to the proper standard (over a timeframe which could be many years), then surely the Council would be better off investing in upgrading and using Bryneithin as a model example for elderly mentally infirm homes.

There is a need for an EMI home in the Vale and it makes no sense to waste taxpayers money through the provision of services for a small number of people when you could get better value from more use of the facility.

The Keep Bryneithin Open group will be having a table-top sale this Saturday, 10th April at Lee Hall in Dinas Powys.

THIRD PARTY REPRESENTATION AT PLANNING

One of our ongoing campaigns in the Vale of Glamorgan is to ensure that local residents, or at least community councillors and representatives of groups, should be allowed to speak at Vale County Council planning meetings.

16 of the 22 unitary authorities allow some form of representation so that local people are able to clearly put forward their opinions on planning proposals so that they can be taken into consideration by the planning committee. Not the Vale, though.

The issue has come to a head after a series of contentious planning proposals in the area, from Cemetery Lane to St Athan where frustrated members of the public felt that their voices were not being heard or treated fairly by the committee.

The Vale’s Tory cabinet has already thrown out the proposal once, while the council’s community liaison meeting last month descended into farce as the Vale councillors on the committee voted to accept the cabinet report on the matter while community councillors wanted to refer the issue back to cabinet.

The Vale’s attitude towards this has been so poor that a number of councils are actively considering leaving the Vale’s council charter which governs rules and responsibilities between the unitary authority and the community councils beneath them.

The campaign takes a different turn tomorrow (Tuesday) as the Welsh Assembly’s Petitions Committee responds to a petition signed on-line and off-line by many community councillors in the Vale, and from further afield.

Organised by Plaid’s leaders on the Vale, Nic Hodges, and on Barry Town community council, Shirley Hodges, it will be an interesting test of the Assembly’s petitions committee (which includes a Conservative AM from the Vale of Glamorgan) to see how they deal with the issue.

Bryneithin Decision Today

While other events today such as the Queen’s Speech and the release of the All-Wales Convention Report on the need for a referendum might be the big issue of the day for many, my thoughts will be elsewhere this afternoon as the Conservative-run Vale of Glamorgan Council take the chance to bury bad news and close Bryneithin care home in Dinas Powys.

The Tory Cabinet will be taking the decision today, presuming they follow the recommendations provided to them in their papers.

If they do, it’s not a decision that would be in any way a surprise – many in the Keep Bryneithin Open campaign think that the whole care home review exercise was concocted with the intention of closing the home in the first place.

If the Conservatives do close the home, they will have ignored the extensive evidence provided in favour of keeping Bryneithin open at the scrutiny meeting back in February and that which was provided in the consultation which ended in March.

They will also have gone back on earlier promises that the issue would be debated first in the social care and health scrutiny committee.

As it is, the Conservatives, who use their majority to take every position on the cabinet, will be making the decision themselves without the input of other parties.

A sad day for the Vale if this happens.

Update : Pleased to hear that the Vale Cabinet have postponed making a decision for two weeks. Hopefully that'll give them time to read the document properly and ask the same questions that Keep Bryneithin Open and others have already put forward.

No Local Voices on St Athan

I was disappointed at hearing the quality of debate in the Vale of Glamorgan’s Planning Committee recent approval of the plans for St Athan’s Defence Training College.

Just two councillors spoke on the plans, Llantwit First councillor Gwyn John and Plaid Cymru’s Nic Hodges.

Whatever your thoughts on the concept of the Defence Training College, there are a large number of outstanding issues in the planning applications that will impact negatively upon current local residents in St Athan, Llanmaes, Eglwys Brewis and surrounding areas.

They have very legitimate concerns regarding, for example, the northern access road, the proposed firing range and the fact that, with a brand new village being built on a Green-field site in the rural Vale, there will be barely any green space left between St Athan, Eglwys Brewis and Llantwit Major.

And that’s ignoring possible other effects upon other parts of the Vale, such as congestion in the Cowbridge area or going through Llysworney.

It is a shame therefore that with the county councillor for St Athan, a Conservative, claiming a conflict of interest in the debate, there was no-one to actually represent local residents in the debate.

Those people should be able to hear their voices represented properly in the council chamber when it comes to debates such as this, and the councillors who vote should set out their reasons for doing so in front of the general public.

As it is, those attending will have been disappointed that the council effectively rubber-stamped the plans without discussing them in detail, in public.

In one respect, this shows the failure of one member wards at a council level – one conflict of interest and there’s no-one there.

To avoid this in future, we’re calling for the Vale of Glamorgan to allow local councillors and residents to be allowed to speak in planning meetings - so-called ‘third party representation’ - something they recently refused.

More than two-thirds of unitary authorities in Wales allow community councillors or those who are affected by the planning decision to speak at the meeting and give their opinions to the planning committee.

By not allowing this in the Vale, the council are creating a democratic deficit and leaving people shut out of a decision making process which impacts upon them on a personal and everyday level.

Local people should be heard in the council chamber, not just have their names read on a petition.

Vale Council finally end leisure centre sunbeds

I was glad to hear that the Vale Council has decided to end the use of sunbeds in the council’s leisure centres. They are the last council in South Wales to make that decision – not exactly a badge of honour.

I have to agree with British Medical Association Cymru Wales who make the point that leisure centres are considered places of health and wellbeing and that including sunbeds there sent mixed messages about the effects of exposure to UV rays.

Hopefully the remaining two councils in Wales - Flintshire and Wrexham will soon also change their position.

Proposed Closure of Bryneithin Old People's Home

I’m very worried by the proposed closure of the Bryneithin Old People’s Home for people suffering with dementia in Dinas Powys.

There were some very strong words said in support of keeping the home open at a special scrutiny meeting at the Vale of Glamorgan Council last week, but whether that will impact upon the ears of those in charge is another matter entirely.

More than a few people have accused the Conservative council of creating a sham consultation with a foregone conclusion.

I wouldn’t go that far, but the closure must be resisted and proper service maintained for the elderly and vulnerable in our community.

Hopefully the Conservatives will have a change of heart before any wrong decision is made – as Labour have done since they dropped their own proposals to close the centre in 1997.