#plaidcymru

The planning committee of cyngor Gwynedd met on Monday, 27th April 2026. Applications included -

C25/0403/09/CR Corbett Arms Hotel Corbett Square, Tywyn, Gwynedd, LL36 9DG

Part demolition of the listed building was passed by the committee despite objections from historical groups. There was also confusion in the department's report with comments from the community council being wrongly attributed to a different council. A question to the cost of the scaffolding could not be answered by officers.

The report can be found in the agenda pack for the meeting -  https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/g5483/Public%20reports%20pack%2027th-Apr-2026%2013.00%20Planning%20Committee.pdf?T=10

C25/0710/41/LL Land Adjoining Brynhyfryd/ Cae Capel, Chwilog, LL53 6SF  An application for a mix of social housing and intermediate housing (higher rents and limited to those living within 6 kilometres of the area) was rejected. Advice by the monitoring officer - and other councillors warning of costs against the public purse if the case goes to appeal was ignored.  

Gareth Roberts, a Plaid Cymru councillor representing Bangor spoke against the proposal. 

He bemoaned the lack of Welsh being spoken in the university city and claimed a primary school headteacher was struggling to deal with pupils speaking 42 different languages. 'So what's going to happen is the people being housed in Bangor now in HMO's and bedsits - I can see them - they're housed here now and they're having children...'

Has Roberts raised his 'concerns' with the education department? Or is it just a story to cover for what some may see as conscious bias?

Roberts spoke to the meeting in english... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1cybNmRUAk

Roberts lists himself as a consultant for BJA International Ltd and Sherrin.

What housing crisis..?He is also a landlord owning 8 properties and land in Bangor. https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru/mgDeclarationSubmission.aspx?UID=684&HID=310&FID=0&HPID=1180987303

Below is the link to Cyngor Gwynedd council's Education and Economy Scrutiny Committee held on Thursday, 25th January 2024 - https://gwynedd.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/846470

Non Welsh speaking Councillors and the public will not be able to view the webcast as the english version is not available...

The agenda pack (and minutes of the last meeting) can be found here -  https://democracy.gwynedd.llyw.cymru//documents/g4895/Public%20reports%20pack%2025th-Jan-2024%2010.30%20Education%20and%20Economy%20Scrutiny%20Committee.pdf?T=10

The Gwynedd Economic Development Project was first on the agenda and was to be presented by the Cabinet Member for Economy, Nia Jeffreys. The cabinet member did not attend the meeting... From her report - ...it was intended to produce a plan for the development of the economy in the period 2023-28. An independent company was commissioned to facilitate the work and on the 1st of April 2022 a joint workshop with our main partners in the field to initiate a discussion of the needs and priorities for the period ahead. This work has not yet been completed... One councillor did mention that a family member was a beneficiary of available grants.

The Equality Objectives Consultation Document was presented. The report authored by Delyth Williams, contains a lot of evidence of consultation with different groups and received many responses. Yet the meeting complained that not enough was done to involve the Welsh language. It was pointed out to councillors that the language has nothing to do with the Equality Act.

Next up was the Education Annual Report 2022-23, written by the newly appointed Head of Education, Gwern ap Rhisiart. Beca Brown, the Cabinet member for Education was to present the report but she too was absent from the meeting...

This report was also detailed and informative but again the scrutiny committee wished to focus on the Welsh language used in schools and some councillors were quite scathing. On a positive, pupil absences have improved slightly...

It was left to Councillor Cai Larsen to ask the important questions regarding the safety of children in Gwynedd schools. Gwern ap Rhisiart informed that police checks (DBS) were being carried out on teachers and school staff. He reminded councillors that he had only been in post for one month...

The GwE Annual Report for 2022/23 was presented. The annual report for this year is not specific to Gwynedd and covers every Local Authority and its schools. It is difficult to take GwE seriously after the 'hotdesking' scandal and the vastly inflated fuel expenses submitted by its officers before the pandemic. Their report begins on page 184 of the agenda pack...

Finally, the Post 16 Education Project report was presented. This came at the end of a long meeting and was passed without much ado. 

The meeting was most notable for the attitude of certain councillors towards the presenting officers. One wonders if they are driven by conscious bias...?

It will take time for the new Head of Education to get to grips with the failings of the past. Failings that committee members should be taking some responsibility for. They did not appear to act on media reports, nor presumably parents concerns. 

How many councillors were - or are still - governors at the schools where teachers have been arrested...?

Scrutiny committees are there to hold Cabinet Members to account for the work of the departments they have responsibility for, but it falls down when the Cabinet members do not attend...

Chukka Ummana Set To Join Plaid Cymru. A Man of Principle !

Affronted at being rejected by the electorate Chukka was on a mission. Speeding round the M25 heading for the M1 and Scotland.

His phone rang. It was Nicola Sturgeon. ‘Don’t worry with the Scottish accent Chukka.’ she chuckled.

‘Look, I really appreciate you want to stand for us at the next by election but we’re already pretty much in charge of every seat. Besides you are a bit fickle?’

‘No no.’…

"My sister failed her A-levels because she was helping the Labour party win the 1983 general election."  That's the myth that existed in our family for many years.  My sister didn't fail her A-levels, although she may have done better had she not spent quite so much of her free time door-knocking for Labour. My sister was a political animal. It was hard not to be with a father like ours.

I grew up in a home where politics were talked about.  I didn't ever think it odd that my father retreated to the living room after Sunday lunch to read the paper from cover to cover; it was part of his ritual.  He would watch news bulletins several times a day, listen to Radio 4's PM in the car and express his views on the changing landscape of British politics whenever a cabinet minister resigned in disgrace, fell backwards on a beach or made ill-advised comments about eggs.

My dad loved the soap opera of Westminster and immersed himself in political coverage.  He was devastated by John Smith's death and gathered us round the TV to watch Margaret Thatcher's knee-jerk Paris speech when she failed to win the Tory leadership contest.

Despite my father's fervent interest in politics however he wasn't a member of a political party.  He was left-of-centre but flirted with Labour, the Liberals, the SDP and their various incarnations.  He wasn't a party activist but would attend public meetings to hear politicians speak.  He accompanied my sister to hear Michael Foot address an audience at Carmarthen Leisure Centre and he took me to hear Hywel Teifi Edwards at the Lyric Theatre in 1987 when I was just 12-years old.

Dad's interest in politics held sway over us in a very real way and it was predictable that I like my sister would find myself getting involved in politics at a young age. When the 1992 election came around I joined packs of Labour supporters stuffing leaflets through letterboxes after school on the streets of Carmarthen.   At University I campaigned for Labour in Tower Hamlets to stop the BNP and went on marches against racism.  By the time Tony Blair fought his first general election campaign as leader I was fully radicalised and spent long days campaigning to elect Nick Ainger as MP.

On election day I drove older voters to the polling station and collected polling data.  When Portillo lost his seat I was in a house off Spilman Street celebrating a landslide win with others who had campaigned for the party.  Over the next few years I witnessed policies I felt strongly about such as civil partnerships, a referendum on devolution and the establishment of a minimum wage being realised.  The party I'd believed in was taking action at last and was having a very real effect on society.  My faith was being rewarded.   Yet somewhere along the line, I felt out of love with Labour.  For many of my friends it was Blair's decision to go to war that did it, but when I try to analyse why I left Labour I can only recognise a slow disillusionment with the party as it became comfortable in power.

Nowhere was this truer than in Wales.  Ironically, Labour had created the Welsh Assembly and yet their politicians didn't seem to know what to do with the institution.  There was an impotence amongst Welsh AMs that seemed to prevent the fledgling government from realising a progressive agenda that worked in Wales's interests.  I felt the party in Cardiff was working within the confines of Labour's UK policies over what might be best in a Welsh context.  The decision-making had been devolved but the party machine hadn't.

Welsh Labour was typically Welsh in the way it operated in those early days.  It was grateful for the opportunity to have its own government and didn't want to step on anyone's toes.  Where was the passion and the ambition?  I looked elsewhere for that and I found it in Plaid Cymru.  One of the things I admire most about Plaid is its desire to devise new ways of doing things.  Plaid acknowledges there are alternative ways of tackling Wales's problems and revel in the opportunity to affect change in a positive and rewarding way.

I've sat on enough committees over the years to recognise the dementors who answer every new proposal with "Oh, that'll never work" and I've come to believe that this is one of Welsh Labour's problems.  They're frightened of shaking things up or taking risks.  What we've ended up with in this last stagnant government is a paucity of policy and ideology.  Carwyn Jones seems to suffer from the unfortunate mentality that "If we change the way we do things we'll be admitting we've been doing it wrong all these years... and we can't be doing that."  Admit you can do things better, I'd respect you more.  Don't scoff from the safety of your comfy swivel chair, Leighton.  Seventeen-years in government.  Seventeen-years to make a difference.  I’m still waiting.

Adaptation shouldn't be feared.  We need to change in order to improve.  Wales has fewer doctors per head of population that any other part of the UK. Why wouldn't you want to address this issue and take action to correct it?  My partner and other teachers across Wales have spent hours during the last few weeks uploading examples of their pupils' work to a cloud because ERW (the education consortium created by WAG) requires it to be done.  Not one of the teachers I know seems to understand why ERW require these thousands of documents to be recorded digitally and they would all rather be spending their time teaching.  How does filling a teacher's day with this senseless bureaucracy help children learn?  Let's be bold, listen to what teachers say they need to do their job and get rid of the red tape.  And until Welsh Labour finds the courage to address such obvious problems I will look elsewhere for inspiration.  I want a government in Cardiff that's brave and forward-looking.  I want a government that's unashamed at addressing what Wales needs to prosper.  These are all things I identify in Plaid Cymru.