A470 – Jac o' the North

In a sense, this is a follow-up to a piece I put out in February called ‘Wildlife Trusts, Crazy Money, Hidden Agendas‘. Perhaps a variation on a theme.

Though this is not quite the piece I originally promised. Perhaps I’ll return to the sweat lodges and other joys in the ‘Bhutan of Wales’ (“ample parking space“) at some later date.

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ABOUT MUCH MORE THAN NEWTS

What you have to understand about modern environmentalism, certainly in Wales, is that it’s no longer fleece-jacketed innocents protecting red squirrels or tagging birds. It is now intensely political. And financially lucrative.

Lucrative, as long as it promotes a certain interpretation of the world.

Which means, in practice, that environmentalists work for BlackRock and other Globalist corporations; Bill ‘jabs and bugs’ Gates, Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum.

And even if environmentalists don’t realise it, if they’re just useful idiots, then that don’t matter none – what matters is that they do what they do.

And as I suggested, they’re getting paid handsomely for it. Here’s one example.

Total income for the North Wales Wildlife Trust went up from £1.83m in 2019 to £6.17 in 2023, a rise of 237%. But in the same period, funding from the ‘Welsh Government’ rose from £309,480 to £3,760,000, an increase of 1,115%.

Similar increases in the funding awarded to the other wildlife trusts, river groups, etc, correlates with the ramping up of the ‘Welsh Government’s war on farmers.

Which meant blaming just about anybody other than Dŵr Cymru for river pollution.

But environmentalists weren’t confining themselves to persecuting cows, and matters scatological; for they were also pushing the anti-car agenda.

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THE WAR ON CARS I

An example of this would be defeating plans to upgrade the M4 around Newport. Here’s Friends of the Earth reminding us of its role in that campaign.

Which is fine with me because that’s the raison d’être of environmental groups. But if opposing M4 improvements was ‘Welsh Government’ policy, and if ‘WG’ funded various groups to support that policy, then that puts a different complexion on things.

As FoE stated, one of the major reasons for rejecting improvements to the M4 was to protect the Gwent Levels. Which was also the reasoning given by the first minister.

Mark Drakeford said he would not have gone ahead even if it was affordable because of the impact on the Gwent Levels.

But the environmentalists’ war on roads didn’t end with saving the Gwent Levels. (Though not from solar farms.)

I’ve written a number of times about the ‘Welsh Government’s decision to abandon all new road schemes. Let’s begin in June 2021, with the announcement of a ‘freeze’ on new road building.

Then, in September 2021, came news of a panel . . .

. . . of climate change and transport specialists . . . led by Dr Lynn Sloman MBE, a transport consultant based in Wales

Despite what the ‘Welsh Government’ wanted us to believe, Dr Lynn Sloman is not ‘based in Wales’; she actually lives in London, where she sits on the Transport for London board, headed by mayor Sadiq Ulez Khan.

Dr Lynn Sloman is, predictably, an anti-car fanatic. And her connection to Wales is a holiday home in Cwm Einion, near Machynlleth. To which she presumably drives.

Dr Sloman’s panel delivered the result required in February 2023 – no new roads!

This impacted on just about every part of the country, and deprived communities of long-awaited and much-needed, improvements. It meant no third crossing of the Menai, no by-pass for Llanbedr, no by-pass for Llandeilo.

This was of course welcomed by both Rachel Sharp, CEO of the officially defunct Wildlife Trusts Wales; and her trusty henchman, Tim Birch, of Extinction Rebellion.

But there is one issue on which environmentalists could and should be more vocal.

We’ll ignore the energy consumed in manufacturing wind turbines, then the damage inflicted on the environment from shipping them to Wales; widening roads, felling trees, ripping out hedgerows to get them to where they’re being erected.

Instead’ let’s just focus on the damage they cause in situ.

Wind turbines destroy peat deposits. They scar hillsides with access roads and cable trenches. Hundreds of pylons are needed to carry whatever’s generated in Wales to England. The turbine blades kill birds, bats, and all manner of insects.

There are also threats to human health from infrasound, flicker, and worrying over your home losing value due to its proximity to wind turbines.

Yet environmentalists have little to say against wind turbines. That’s because their ‘outrage’ can be switched off and on, as required, by their paymasters.

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THE ‘FOXES’ OF ENVIRONMENTALISM

We often hear: “Farming occupies around 90% of ‘our’ land“, as if it’s something undesirable. It’s very revealing, because those who say it seem genuinely horrified that so much of Wales belongs to hairy-arsed peasants.

A recent example of the ‘90%’ fixation came in an article in ‘Welsh Government’ mouthpiece Nation.Cymru by Dr Malcolm Smith. He was ostensibly writing about the ‘Welsh Government’s Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS).

Smith wants us to believe that carbon emissions increase global temperatures when there is no link whatsoever, and then rather gives away his own position on SFS with:

Trees, it seems, aren’t welcomed by most farmers.

This obsession with the amount of land held by farmers seems most prevalent among politicians and middle class enviro-grifters who want Welsh farmers off the land they and their corporate patrons covet.

I say that because no one has ever come up to me in a pub, a supermarket, or any other setting, grabbed me by the lapels and shouted – ‘Isn’t it bloody awful that farmers have so much land?‘

Nobody. Honestly!

Which makes the support these spivs get from Welsh socialists difficult to fathom. And the support from those socialists who claim they want independence inexplicable.

Maybe this subservience can be explained by something I read last week. Someone was trying to explain why Sinn Féin has fallen for the Globalist-Woke-Left agenda.

It is a lingering symptom of what Ruairi Ó Bradaigh once described as the intellectual inferiority complex of men who were absurdly impressed by . . . bourgeois lefties and liberals

I think that explains a lot of what we see in Wales. Particularly the insecure among us, who can’t resist a bit of flannel delivered in a ‘posh’ accent.

What Ruairi Ó Bradaigh called “the intellectual inferiority complex” always lurks in the Welsh psyche. And it seems to afflict socialists far more than it affects those of us on the political right.

Welsh leftists like to see themselves as ‘progressive’, which then leaves them wide open to the blandishments of the ‘foxes’ Malcom X refers to here.

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ANOTHER WARNING FROM IRELAND

For some time now I’ve been paying closer than usual attention to what’s happening in Ireland, where the uniparty establishment has enthusiastically signed up to the Globalist agenda. It’s been open borders, war on farmers, and recently, referendums that hoped to re-define ‘woman’ and ‘family’.

Both referendums were heavily defeated, and the preening, obnoxious, Varadkar soon resigned in the hope of salvaging his political reputation. Because he fears there’s worse to come as the people wake up and fight back. (Something the Irish have a history of doing.)

And the Irish people are waking up. And demanding a return to sanity. Especially when they look around and see who’s been allowed into their country.

For example, one result of open borders is that Ireland is now home to the Nigerian Black Axe gang, which deals in romance fraud and other online scams . . . with a little murder, drugs, and extortion thrown in.

Just think about that. A Nigerian criminal network is actually based in Ireland. How the hell was that allowed to happen!

Well, as I just mentioned, because the Irish establishment obeys the Globalist agenda; and no-questions-asked immigration is an integral part of that agenda, designed to destabilise western societies.

Then, last week I was directed to news about moves to punish people who want to live in the countryside. (Unless, presumably, they’re Nigerian gangsters.)

You can read the whole publication if you like. But the opening paragraph tells you exactly where it’s going. And how it’s justified.

Moving Together . . . a commitment in the Climate Action Plan 2023 . . . to alleviate the impacts of car-dependency

Someone wants the Irish countryside emptied, and populations concentrated in urban areas. Now why should that be?

Wales may be heading in the same direction.

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THE WAR ON CARS II

I say Wales may be headed in the same direction because the ‘pieces’ are already there, we just need to put them together to see the bigger picture.

Earlier, we looked at environmentalists, funded by the ‘Welsh Government’ or Globalist corporations and multi-billionaires, campaigning against road improvements. In league with former Sustrans rep in Wales, and until so very recently, chauffeur-driven deputy minister for climate change, Lee Waters.

Waters welcomed the halt on new road projects with:

As the review points out the by-pass that was demanded to relieve congestion often ends up leading to extra traffic, which in time brings further demands for extra lanes, wider junctions and more roads

I suggest Waters and his allies stand for half an hour one summer day outside the ‘Vic’ in Llanbedr, or The Castle in Llandeilo; and ponder that the shit forming a skin on their iced tea, the shit they’re also inhaling, comes from cars and trucks in low gear inching their way through a traffic bottleneck.

And it could all be avoided with a by-pass!

Consider this, gentle reader: the man who can ignore the effects of low-gear emissions on human health – because it serves an element of the agenda – can also impose 20mph speed limits, guaranteed to increase harmful emissions – and justify doing so on health and safety grounds!

But when it can be used to serve another element of the agenda, air quality becomes a consideration. For Nicola Lund recently reminded us in ‘Message to Wales – On Yer Bike (Part 2)‘ that the Welsh Government’ is also promising air quality legislation, and a ‘national road user charging framework’.

So where might that lead, if we put it all together?

Let’s look at Llanbedr, which sits on the A496 running up the coast from Barmouth. A busy road, and especially so in summer.

With a combination of no by-pass, air quality legislation, and a ‘national road user charging framework’ in place, many people will give Llanbedr a miss. Some will avoid that road altogether.

The map above shows that travellers between north and south will still have the A470, so the effects would be very localised, but highly damaging.

There’s one more consideration I want to throw into the mix.

I have consistently supported plans to raise council tax on holiday homes and restrict numbers of holiday lets*. And I will continue to back measures that might return domestic properties to local use. But . . .

Tourism means cars, camper vans, etc. So are the measures against the worst excesses of tourism doing the right thing for the wrong reason? By which I mean, are they just part of the bigger plan to restrict car journeys in Wales?

Putting it all together – and irrespective of the stated justifications – what we’ve just looked at will result in a seriously damaged rural economy, and could lead to the kind of rural clearances being talked about in Ireland and elsewhere.

Yet it all fits perfectly with the Globalist-environmentalist agenda.

*I received a communication on this very matter yesterday!

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CONCLUSION

Where the Globalists have been clever is in funding or promoting ideas, organisations and lobbies that push their agenda.

This includes, cyclists, vegans, renewable energy enthusiasts, advocates of CBDC, and of course, environmentalists.

We’re at a stage now where an environmental lobby is waging war on our farmers while also working with the ‘Welsh Government’ to make us view cars as something evil, to be done away with.

But what’s being targeted is not really farmers and motorists, but land and freedoms. Which is the essence of the Globalists’ power grab – promote fear and confusion in order to seize assets, restrict freedoms, and exert control.

As I said earlier, ‘environmentalists’ are no longer fleece-jacketed innocents. So see them for what they really are. Who they work for. And treat them accordingly.

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I went to a Christmas Fayre on Saturday afternoon. While there I was approached by a former tribune who still involves himself with local affairs. He recounted a recent meeting he’d had with Edwina Hart AM, the Minister for Economy, Science and Transport. He was mightily impressed with Redwina. I bit my tongue. (For you know me, boys and girls, diplomacy is my middle name.) Anyway, to cut to the chase, as they say, the subject they had discussed was a new crossing of the Dyfi on the A487 at Machynlleth. To explain . . .

The A487 runs from Bangor to Haverfordwest, though for a short stretch after Porthmadog it becomes the A470, before rediscovering itself at the Cross Foxes, close to Dolgellau. After parting company the A470 then runs on to Llanidloes, Builth, Brecon, Merthyr and Cardiff. The A487 sticks to the west coast linking Machynlleth, Aberystwyth, Aberaeron, Cardigan, Fishguard, St, David’s and, finally, Haverfordwest. One might think the A470 would be the busier road but it’s often empty of traffic – especially in the ‘Green Desert’ – until it reaches Merthyr. (Though more than once I’ve been on the A470 south of Merthyr in the middle of the day in very light traffic.)

Despite this, the A470 receives far more funding for road improvements than the A487, with this justified by arguing that it is ‘the main north-south artery’. It’s not; it’s the main road from the north to Cardiff, which is not the same thing. The A487 is busier than the A470, for two main reasons. First, it has a much higher population density along its length than the A470. Second, the A487 is the main route from the north west, Aber’ and other places – via Lampeter – to the Swansea Bay conurbation. These are uncomfortable facts for a Cardiff-obsessed ‘Welsh’ Government. But the problems of the A487 will not go away, and in this neck of the woods, as the former councillor reminded me, the big and enduring problem is Dyfi Bridge.

Coming from the north, the only way of reaching Machynlleth by road is over an antiquated stone bridge in the wrong place and just not up to the standard demanded by modern transport. (Obviously, heading north out of the town means using the same bridge.) With the result that, even on good days, there can be problems . . . but there are fewer and fewer good days. Being so narrow, big trucks have great difficulty negotiating Pont Dyfi, often resulting in other traffic having to back up, with all sorts of chaos resulting. Predictably, the bridge is regularly hit and damaged by trucks. At present, there are traffic lights operating following the latest incident.

There is no viable detour – certainly not for heavy traffic – yet the road is vital for people in south Meirionnydd to reach their local hospital in Aberystwyth, or just to go shopping. Apart from the problem with the bridge there is also an issue with flooding on the road between the bridge and Machynlleth itself and, on the other side of the town, at Derwenlas. These problems may now have been remedied . . . though I stress may. Time – plus a combination of a high tide and heavy rain – will tell. So it has been obvious for many years that a new bridge is needed, and perhaps a more far-reaching solution that also provides Mach’ with a by-pass. To inspect the problem first-hand, and get a few pics, I took myself off to Machynlleth this morning. There are five photos in all, click on the ‘I’ to get a brief description.

[flagallery gid=4 w=550 h=700 skin=green_style_jn align=center]

On my return I got to wondering if the ‘Welsh’ Government had plans to improve the situation, so I went to that body’s website, where I found the following information (right, click to enlarge), and nothing more recent. The ‘Welsh’ Government (more likely, the civil servants who take too many decisions in Wales) is prioritising three – I repeat, THREE, east-west links – and one north-south route. Suspecting that the north-south link referred to might be the A470 I dug a little deeper into the website. My suspicions were confirmed. (Click on panel, left.)

In the works listed to start by 2011 the only one on the A487 is the Porthmadog by-pass, now completed. It’s probably no coincidence that this improvement is located at a point just before the A487 becomes the A470, so in many ways it’s an improvement for the A470 as much as for the A487. The only improvement in the pipeline on the A487 is the stretch from Bontnewydd to Caernarfon. (With which no one could argue.) The other road mentioned here is the A483, the old Manchester-Swansea trunk road.

Given the pressing need for a new bridge over the Dyfi why is the ‘Welsh’ Government refusing to do anything? My suggestion is that there are three principal reasons:

The A487 is a north-south road which means that – unlike east-west routes – it offers limited benefits to English companies exploiting the colonial nature of the ‘Welsh’ economy.

There are no Labour seats along the entire length of the A487 at either Westminster or in the Welsh Assembly, and little chance of Labour winning any. (This also explains the refusal to re-open the Carmarthen to Aberystwyth rail link.)

Any improvements to the A487 at Machynlleth would be of no discernible benefit to Cardiff.

So yet again we see how certain parts of Wales are ignored by the Cardiff Assembly, and why. For a party as tribal, vindictive and anti-Welsh as Labour this neglect of the whole western side of the country is entirely predictable. What’s not so easy to explain is why those MPs and AMs representing the constituencies along the A487, and especially those representing the areas immediately affected by the Dyfi bridge bottleneck, aren’t doing more to press the Labour Party into acting like a government for the whole of Wales.

Which in a curious, roundabout way, reminds me that many years ago political analyst Denis Balsom suggested a tripartite political division of Wales along lines of cultural identity. These were ‘Cymru Cymraeg’ (the Welsh-speaking areas – remember them?), ‘Welsh Wales’ (the Valleys and Swansea Bay), and ‘British Wales’ (the north east, south east and Pembrokeshire). Maybe it’s time we updated this tripartite interpretation taking contemporary realities into account. More specifically, how Labour runs Wales and decides priorities.

I would suggest that Labour also sees Wales in three parts, according to voting habits, and treats each area accordingly in everything from funding on infrastructure to health care, broadband provision, etc., etc. These categories are:

1/ Areas that can be taken for granted, and therefore ignored (the Valleys, Swansea Bay and the urban north east).

2/ Areas that don’t vote Labour – so they can be ‘punished’ (the rural areas of central, western and northern Wales plus perhaps Monmouthshire).

3/ Areas Labour needs to keep ‘rewarding’ in order to hang on to power in the Assembly (basically, a few seats in, and close to, Cardiff).

Which means that unless we see a major shift in voting patterns Labour only needs to worry about six or seven (out of 40) seats to stay in power for ever and a day. This division of Wales certainly explains a lot, but is it a fair or proper way to run a country?

Jac o' the North

Tag: A470

Wildlife Trusts – Not To Be Trusted

Far Away, Few Votes, Who Cares!