Is Cardiff Metro Network Wales’ HS2?

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May 172013
 

The National Audit Office in London has delivered a very critical assessment of the proposed HS2 high speed rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. (Click here for BBC report.) Especially damning is the view that the promised economic benefits for cities other than London might not materialise. Worse, these other cities might actually lose out. Flanders HS2To come to this conclusion the NAO relied on evidence from around the world, some of it dealt with in this recent Newsnight report. This, to some extent, is the ‘shadow effect’, which argues that it is difficult for other, competing cities to flourish within the ambit of a dominating political, economic and cultural presence such as London. Looking at it this way, HS2 will merely lengthen London’s ‘shadow’.

There are examples of improved communications other than rail damaging areas brought ‘nearer’ to ‘shadow’-casting towns and cities. Here in Wales we need only think of the A55 North Wales Expressway. When the A55 was being built in the 1980s and 1990s we were told, by Minister of State Wyn Roberts, that it was a “Highway of Opportunity” . . . he should have added, ‘for Chester and other places on the English side of the border’. For soon after the A55 reached Bangor the Royal Mail moved its North Wales sorting facilities to Chester. Other employers followed because it was now possible to ‘serve’ North Wales from England. This leap into the future actually took us back to some of the darkest days of Welsh subjugation, when Chester served as the ‘capital’ of North Wales, the place to which countless patriots were dragged to be humiliated and butchered. Turning to a more modern capital . . .

As yet I have heard no Welsh response to the NAO report, nor any comparison made with the proposed Cardiff Metro network. (Institute of Welsh Affairs report here.) Which may not be surprising, seeing as there are  comparisons to be made, but these are hardly helpful to the proponents of the Cardiff Metro system. Which also highlights a major difference between HS2 and the Cardiff Metro system. Many of those in favour of HS2 genuinely believe that the reduced journey times from London will bring tangible economic benefits to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and other cities. This can not be said for those pushing the Cardiff system; for as David Stevens of Admiral Insurance put it, “We must help Cardiff compete more effectively with cities across Europe”. (A condition known to clinical psychologists as fixato obsessivo barcelonis.)

Cardiff Metro System

Click to Enlarge

So the Cardiff system is – as it says on the label – all about making Cardiff look like a metropolis by integrating and aggregating the populations of surrounding urban areas. This all linking in with the Cardiff city state project. So if HS2 might extend London’s ‘shadow’ as far as Leeds, what could the Cardiff Metro system do for Newport, Merthyr, Bridgend? I suspect that if this system was constructed, then it would extend Cardiff’s ‘shadow’, allowing little to flourish from Bridgend to the border and from Merthyr to the coast . . . unless it lay within the city.

The evidence piling up that improved communications often work against ‘peripheral’ areas should act as a wake-up call for many threatened by the Cardiff Metro system. It would be nice to think that Labour councillors in the Valleys could tear themselves away from their expenses claims forms for long enough to think about the people they supposedly represent. That senior executives on local authorities might take a break from wangling higher salaries to devote time to the communities they’re employed to serve. But for both, it’s probably too much like hard work, so they’ll end up doing what Russell Goodwage and the Wasting Mule want them to do; plus the IWA, the Cardiff Business Partnership and others who wouldn’t give a toss if Ebbw Vale and Treherbert were to disappear off the map.

Money Lost, Jobs Denied, Dignity Insulted

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May 152013
 

There has been a lot of debate lately about procurement policies in Wales. (One discussion was here.) At its simplest, this means ensuring that the Welsh Management, local government and other agencies give contracts to Welsh firms. Doing this obviously maximises the benefits to Wales in terms of jobs, but it also ensures that more money stays in the country, enabling Welsh firms to grow, and circulating in the local economy. So simple, and so obvious, that we shouldn’t really need to discuss it. But we do, because too many contracts – bigGlandyfi castle and small – are still going to companies from outside Wales. Stuck in traffic at road works yesterday I saw, laid out before me, a good example of this problem.

Anyone who travels the A487, Bangor to Fishguard trunk road, will know about the major road works being undertaken at Glandyfi, between Aberystwyth and Machynlleth. This stretch of road was totally unfit for twenty-first century traffic, having blind bends and a carriageway too narrow for vehicles to pass. (Geologists among you may find this of interest.) The problem at Glandyfi was due to the road being squeezed between the Dyfi estuary and the railway line on the one side, and the walls of Glandyfi castle on the other. Glandyfi castle which, its website tells us, “lies just 12 miles from Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast”. At 12 miles from Aber’ where else it would it be – the Côte de bloody Azur! The website also informs us that guests can go “walking in the Welsh hills”. Fancy that – Welsh hills in Wales! Glandyfi Castle seems to be the worst type of colonio-tourism: ‘Come and enjoy the scenery . . . sorry about the natives’. Makes me wonder how much loot this place has milked from the Welsh public purse over the years. But I digress. Let us return to the road below the castle.

The main contract for this £10m project was granted to English firm Carillion Construction Ltd, which has its HQ in Wolverhapton, some 12 miles from Birmingham, an English city, in the English Midlands, which is in England. A company that does not enjoy an unsullied reputation in civil engineering. Since the work started I must have driven along this stretch of road some 20 or 30 times, and I have always been struck by the fact that most of the sub-contractors seem to be English firms, based in places like Manchester, Coventry; or else I see vehicles showing telephone numbers I know are not Welsh. Though the real giveaway at Glandyfi is the transit camp of portakabins to house the workers. Which is not to say that local firms haven’t seen a few crumbs. For example, when I drove through yesterday I saw a Brodyr Evans of Dolgellau roadsweeper being used . . . which won’t make a big dent in £10m.

So why was the contract given to Carillion? Other big projects in this area have gone to Jones BrCarillionos of Ruthin, Alun Griffiths of Abergavenny and Watkin Jones of Bangor. And there are other Welsh companies. Did none of them tender for the Glandyfi project? Let’s give the Welsh Management the benefit of the doubt and assume that Carillion’s was the only, or the only acceptable, tender. Even if that were the case, then the Welsh Management could still have insisted that Carillion use Welsh sub-contractors. So why didn’t they? How can our AMs lecture our councils and others about local procurement when they don’t practice what they preach?

Some sources say the work was scheduled for completion in July 2012, others say “late 2012″. Whatever the date, it’s well behind schedule. Are we to believe that Welsh companies couldn’t have done a better job? Whether they could or not, the fact remains that millions of pounds have left Wales; a few hundred jobs have been denied to Welsh people; plus, tens of thousands of Welsh people have driven through Glandyfi encouraged to think, ‘How could we manage without the English?’ And all due to the incompetence of those buffoons down Cardiff docks.

The Streets Of Swansea 3

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May 102013
 

In March 2012 BBC Wales ran a couple of programmes about homelessness in Swansea. The fact that my home town is now ‘the homelessness capital of Wales’ prompted a response. MyStar of the show post about the first programme can be found here, and the post of the second programme here. Due to Google censorship I can only transfer posts from my old blog to my new one – via RSS Owl – without comments. Of those comments many were supportive of my position, but there were a few from devotees of political correctness, those choosing to focus on my pithy terminology as a way of avoiding the meat of the issue. Tossers!

This week the Beeb returned to the subject with Swansea: Back on the Streets, linking up with some of the stars from previous shows – such as Gheorgika, the exuberantly religious Romanian – and to let us meet some of the new faces around town. Chief among these was an Irish alcoholic straight from central casting, named Tim (shown above, right); given when drunk to a kind of maudlin loquacity that could be mistaken for profundity. (Especially if the hearer was also drunk.)

I had a good idea what to expect of the programme from the information given on the BBC Wales website. Though I guarantee that the Jacks do not “boast” about their city having “the highest number of homeless in Wales”. Though others do. I’m referring now to those who promote Swansea as a magnet for dossers so they can then run to funderSwansea dosserss claiming there’s a terrible problem that can only be solved by throwing lots of money at it. (Or rather, at them.) And of course, to achieve the desired funding porkies must be reared and fattened, a few of which we heard on this week’s show.

In trying to explain why Swansea is the homelessness capital of Wales we were told that, ” . . . people come from the surrounding valleys because there’s more help on offer here. It’s also at the end of the railway line, they get off the train and stay”. But if I was a homeless person from the Valleys, with enough money for a train ticket, why would I pay the extra to go to Swansea, passing through Cardiff? For are we not constantly told that Cardiff is wealthy beyond the dreams of Jacks, Gogs, Cardis and assorted other provincials? People from across southern Wales don’t just drift into Swansea because it’s at the end of the line. (Anyway, it’s not.) The giveaway is “more help on offer here”. They’re drawn here by the Third Sector homelessness industry. And then of course there’s the uncomfortable truth that Irish Tim, and our Romanian friend, plus many others, were not sired in Merthyr, nor were they suckled in Tonypandy.

A lot of people in Swansea – and other parts of the country – think that the Welsh media is rather too keen on promoting Cardiff while ignoring or even undermining other areas. Programmes like this only increase that perception. So one such programme would have been enough, but four in just over a year is overkill.

On the one hand we have individuals, groups and agencies in Swansea tryinBayg their best to improve the city’s image, to attract visitors and investors, and then we have BBC ‘Wales’ doing this. So it’s: ‘Come and enjoy the Maritime Quarter . . . Don’t forget the Dylan Thomas centenary celebrations in 2014 . . . You must visit Gower . . . Go see the Swans . . . ‘ While from BBC Wales we get – ‘But remember! Wherever you go in Swansea you’ll be pestered by winos and panhandlers – cos Swansea is the dossers capital of Wales!’

Though perhaps in recognition of the fact that these programmes do not go down well with the Jacks, the Beeb is also currently running a few programmes about Swansea Market. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s a local institution, biggest covered market in Wales and all that, the only place I’d buy my laverbread and cockles; but if the BBC wanted to balance things up after so much air time given to the negative publicity of the homelessness industry, then they could have done a hell of a lot better than a few progs about the Market. Must try harder.

'Taffy Was A Welshman . . .'

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May 062013
 

This poster can be found in the corridor leading to the cafeteria at Bronglais hospital, Aberystwyth. Or at least, it was there this afternoon. It seemed worthy of a wider audience.WEA blanked

My initial thought on reading this poster was, ‘What insulting bollocks, treating us as if we’re a primitive and exotic species to be discussed at a ‘fully residential course”. After thinking about it for a few hours, I’m even more pissed off with those organising this course.

The organisers are the Workers Educational Association, a Labour Party front organisation, so nothing to be surprised at there. But what does surprise me is the source of the funding.

I have complained in many posts about the Labour Party diverting EU funding to the Third Sector, but Labour sources have always denied that party connections helped gain the funding. Or, as in the case of Naz Malik and Awema, that Labour Party membership protected wrong-doers when the funding was mis-used. What’s different here is that we have an organisation that is unquestionably linked to the Labour Party receiving EU funding.

I don’t doubt that the funding was given for ‘educational’ purposes, but to improve the skills of Welsh people so that they might get better jobs . . . or just jobs. The EU certainly didn’t hand over this money to fund a course for the titilation of those who have come to Wales to take jobs from Welsh people!! Then, again, squandering the funding, and allowing Welsh jobs to be stolen, guarantees that we’ll qualify for more funding.

Though maybe we’re all missing the point. Perhaps this funding from the EU is primarily for the use of the Labour Party, its members and hangers-on. Because that’s obviously what Labour believes.

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