The City Deal is a Treasury driven stimulus for empowering local areas to drive growth by putting greater resources and financial freedoms into the hands of local leaders and it is gaining much attention in Wales. It has the potential to deliver an extra investment of circa £1billion and if used wisely might have a significant…
I went to Penarth yesterday, hadn’t been there for some time, but I remembered it as a smart little town but I was shocked when I saw how the centre of the town has changed. Standing in the middle of the shopping area I could count 3 supermarkets, 4 coffee shops and 5 charity shops….
Clearing out a few cupboards this weekend uncovered this old photo of the London County Council run “Welsh Class” in HungerfordRoad School, probably around 1963. I wonder where they all are now. You probably couldn’t call it the Welsh Class now, would infringe some law or other I’m sure.
So, Ed Miliband wants to raise the minimum wage over the course of the next Parliament from £6.50 which is due to take effect in October to £8 an hour. This is a remarkably easy vote winning strategy for a Labour leader to throw out there, but he needs to understand the reality of what he’s…
I live in Cardiff, but am lucky enough to spend a lot of time in Aberaeron in Ceredigion. One strange thing I’ve noticed is that the 2 councils place different recycling demands on me, and other residents, and are not working in a common national agenda. For example: we’ve all got those horrid little food…
There’s a really pleasant walk along the riverside in Aberaeron. It’s perfect for a lazy stroll and for many it offers an opportunity to picnic in the shade whilst listening to the sounds of the passing River Aeron. I took a walk down there yesterday with Ben my Labrador and was appalled at the state…
Last week the BBC reported in Wales: “First Minister Carwyn Jones has told BBC Wales he thinks some councils are incapable of improving education in their area. He said that with six local education authorities (LEAs) in special measures it is impossible to have faith in the delivery of education across Wales. Mr Jones argued…
Mobile phone coverage is pretty patchy in west Wales, but when I was getting a poor service indoors in Aberaeron I decided to look at the service provider map for the area. It gave some interesting results: This first map is off 3’s website and shows the indoor and outdoor coverage for…
I’m not a keen user of Facebook, but I do read it to keep up with the news from some of my friends. Tonight, in Aberaeron, I had difficulty connecting to the site and when I did a trace of the route being taken got the results in the picture. I don’t know what’s wrong,…
The Blue Forces were always the good guys in the Military wargames that we used to play all those years ago on the Central Front of Europe. Russia – or the Warsaw Pact – had claimed bragging rites as the Red Forces and all that colour coding made great sense. In summary: Blue equals good, Red…
The Living Wage has been getting a lot of press recently, most notably when global confectionery giant Nestle decided to make sure that all its employees were paid the standard as set by The Living Wage Foundation. While not recognised by the government as a legally enforceable wage, The Living Wage denotes a standard hourly…
