Who really gets my goat is Elin Jones though, chancers and Labour careerists are one thing but isn’t she supposed to be a nationalist? The patriotic voters of Ceredigion really need to get wise to this one.

As I understand it, during the current lock-down period, regulations for all local authority meetings [including meetings of planning committee] are to be determined by Welsh Ministers under S.78 of the Coronavirus Act. The statute is reproduced below. Delegated powers should not be given to planning officers to determine planning applications that would normally be determined by planning committee as there is provision for video conference facility under S.78 [2]. I am not aware of whether the regulations, under the Act, have yet been made by Welsh Government.

S 78 Local authority meetings
(1) The relevant national authority may by regulations make provision relating to:

(a) requirements to hold local authority meetings;
(b) the times at or by which, periods within which, or frequency with which, local authority meetings are to be held;
(c) the places at which local authority meetings are to be held;
(d) the manner in which persons may attend, speak at, vote in, or otherwise participate in, local authority meetings;
(e) public admission and access to local authority meetings;
(f) the places at which, and manner in which, documents relating to local authority meetings are to be open to inspection by, or otherwise available to, members of the public.

(2) The provision which may be made by virtue of subsection (1) (d) includes in particular provision for persons to attend, speak at, vote in, or otherwise participate in, local authority meetings without all of the persons, or without any of the persons, being together in the same place.

(3) The regulations may make provision only in relation to local authority meetings required to be held, or held, before 7 May 2021.

(4) The power to make regulations under this section includes power:

(a) to disapply or modify any provision of an enactment or subordinate legislation;
(b) to make different provision for different purposes;
(c) to make consequential, supplementary, incidental, transitional or saving provision.

(5) In this section the “relevant national authority” means:

(a) in relation to local authorities in England, the Secretary of State;
(b) in relation to local authorities in Wales, the Welsh Ministers;
(c) in relation to local authorities in Northern Ireland, the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland.

(6) In this section “local authority meeting” means a meeting of:

(a) a local authority;
(b) an executive of a local authority (within the meaning of Part 1A or 2 of the Local Government Act 2000 or Part 6 of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 2014);
(c) a joint committee of two or more local authorities;
(d) a committee or sub-committee of anything within paragraphs (a) to (c). (Continued).

I see from the Pigg in Heaven website you can be a “Luxury” sponsor of a porcine friend. £55 a year, and regular updates on how their troughing is going. Sounds a better deal than we get with the WAG. PIH sponsorship gets you a mug and t-shirt, but no mention if you eventually get some nice chops, leg and shoulder for your money.

Unfortunately Wales is a favourite destination for animal ‘rescue centres’. Who can forget ‘Happy Donkey Hill’?

And there’s money in it. Proven by the fact that this person in Gwaenysgor can afford to demolish a £690,000 house to erect a pig barn.

A row has erupted in a picturesque Welsh village after an animal rescuer knocked down a country home to build a pig barn, prompting outrage among locals who fear “unwanted waste and smells”.
Residents in Gwaenysgor, near Prestatyn in North Wales, had been concerned that Peter Davidson, who owns the Pig Inn Heaven sanctuary, planned to move his entire operation to the area.
Mr Davidson’s centre in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, takes in pigs that were bought as pets during the “micropig” craze about a decade ago and neglected or abandoned when they grew to full size. After demolishing a £690,000 house in Gwaenysgor he started to build a six-bedroom family home — and planned to build a barn next door to hold up to 70 pigs.
The site is yards from the Offa’s Dyke path in the Clwydian hills, an area of outstanding natural beauty.
One neighbour said the animals would cause “unwanted waste and smells”. Another said they would produce large amounts of waste containing ammonia, which could encroach on to a site of special scientific interest.

Tony Hughes, the local planning officer, said the plans for a giant barn were “excessive” and would have a significant adverse impact on the character and appearance of the area.
Residents were angered again when the plans were approved by Flintshire county council under delegated powers, meaning that no public hearing was held to allow those objecting to voice their concerns. A neighbour said: “I am left with the impression that for some reason this matter was dealt with in a manner to avoid public scrutiny.
“The concerns we raised at an early stage are now proving justified. The whole thing is a mess and we are very concerned at the planning process.”
However, Mr Davidson, 63, who plans to live at the new house with his partner Janet Devereux, 54, and his son David, 30, said he was not moving his rescue centre from Rochdale, intending instead to use the new barn to house animals needing “long-term care”.
“Early on I offered to meet the people of Gwaenysgor but they didn’t want to know,” he said. “The behaviour of some has bordered on malicious bullying.
“We have done nothing but comply with every request and are left to build a property not to our design but to comply with official compliance to the environment.
“I am an environmentally aware person and in fact Natural Resources Wales complimented me on clearing gorse from part of the land.”
Ms Devereux said their treatment had been “horrendous”.
Dismissing suggestions that the barn would be a blight on the landscape, Mr Davidson said it was an attractive building of Welsh stone and timber with a Welsh slate roof.
Although the top could be seen from some points in Prestatyn, he said that the timber would turn silver-grey in time and that landscaping would obscure it.

When an excess of slurry gets directly into watercourses, it does kill fish. This is due to an ‘algae bloom’ where microscopic plant life are boosted by high nitrates in the fertiliser, this results in de-oxygenation of the water, and hence kills fish. These rare ‘overspills of slurry’ are usually lagoon breaches due to poor slurry management and there have been a few prosecutions.

These rare farm cases form a minority of incidents in our rural areas, the majority of such pollution incidents are in fact sewer breaches of domestic waste water.

So what accounts for decline of fish in our rivers and steams?

We need to look at the science rather than the dogma, and the science of fish stocks takes into account the whole eco-system, flow, microscopic plant and animal life, small vertebrates, the stuff that feeds the fish. There are also consideration of the ‘life at sea’ for migratory species like sewin and salmon. The best comparison with rivers in Wales is that with Ireland, which has the same topography, rainfall and ecosystem.

Here are articles that explain the science.
https://oldrivershannon.com/author/ecofactireland/
Andrew – Please read and circulate.

The REAL threat to fish stocks in Welsh rivers is not farmers, it’s ‘not so green’ energy schemes where flow from reservoirs are managed in favour of small hyro-schemes lower downstream, barriers to migratory species, changes to seasonal flow, and disturbance to ‘sponge filters’ in the form of upland peat deposits from constructing wind turbines, clear felling of forestry plantations and non-native flora and fauna (crustations) which upset the natural balance of river quality.

Fishermen tend to be an intelligent bunch. So perhaps they should look to the science rather than the gobshite from civil servants with an agenda to eradicate farming. To sum up my comment, I recommend using maggots and flies to catch fish, and when you’re not fishing, it’s the maggots and flies which the fish still seek.

If only we could trust environmental controls. In Sir Gaer, on the Tywi, they worked against the blue-collar guy ie coraclemen, and canoeists, and in favour of the BMW crowd who want the Tywi to be theirs alone. In Sir Gaer, on the cocklebeds, environmental controls have not stopped the deposit of e.coli (cachu to you and me) on the cockles, thus holding back a multi-million pound earner for Wales if done right. And don’t get me going on the (lack of) environment controls on the Cardiff Grounds, another fishing area for the sea-angler ie the “regular guy”. And now you’ve started me on this, what about the scallop dredging in Cardigan Bay? Dashed hope of bringing back local fisheries for local men. Whose side are you on? Me, I back local Welsh men who need work and could do well (and buy BMWs) if they are given the chance. Ask Dai in Llansteffan

Probably as interested in Indy as that other Rhondda girl who was at one time striding forward in the right direction but got distracted by a raft of ishoos that relegated our freedom to a distant last behind that long list of exotic priorities. Lots of people like that about the place.

Yes, I thought she’d ‘come over’. Which is why it’s so strange seeing her in that company, for none of the other three wants independence.