Towards the end of the last year, the County Council replaced and improved pavements in Carmarthen Road, Fforest Road and Iscoed Road (from the Black Horse to the school)

During March and April when I was knocking doors pavement conditions were raised, my responses was I would investigate and raise the residents concerns which I did.

On my defeat at the May Election I had a number of emails about pavement conditions so I asked our MP to follow up on the enquiries I had opened

and work has commenced this week, Cllr Alan Scouser Blackley and myself were up chatting to the workers this week

Nia also sent me a response that the highways had sent her this week.

There's one or two other enquiries on going but once they have been delivered or completed, it will be down to the newley elected county councillor to look after his patch and I wish him all the luck. 

I turned up in Carmarthen at 9.40am to sort out some paper work, In the run up to the elections we were collecting signatures for a petition, and we have now decided to present one of them to the council.

So I hand delivered the petition ready hoping that the county can verify it and allow it to stand to be presented.

After doing this I ambered on to the main desk at the county only to be told the meeting starts at 11am, I was an hour early so I had a little more time on my hands than I thought?

After a walk down through the town centre to buy a paper and a few bits and bobs, I came back just as there was a queue to do the signing in,

The first group were escorted up and I was in the second party to be taken up, the Democratic girls explained about the procedures to get out and the translation equipment, but unfortunately after changing three head sets, I had to phone down as I couldn't get the translation equipment to work

Nor could the two members of staff who returned as well, which was dissapointing, as i sometime struggle to hear the conversations and have always been use to wearing the head sets as an aid to boost the sound, i did make a complaint after the meeting and hope that it is repaired by next time, and it really frustrated me that I couldn't fully understand the welsh conversations,

maybe with all the extra time I now have I can rebook my welsh lessons again, I got as far as meeting and greeting and talking about the weather, I can understand these simple bits but can't really get to grasp to responding, maybe if I progress and make an effort, I can make some progress on my welsh learning

Anyway as per text book style and predictable as ever there was a challenge for the leadership and a recorded vote was called for,  during the recorded vote I managed to catch a mumble from John Jenkins the Llanelli Independent that he was abstaining from voting for a leader and something about putting a curse on the other members? not sure exactly what that was all about?

Anyway I will be back listening to the debates and following the progress of the council

After the meeting was over I caught the Fire Chief leaving as I was handing my badge in and he was updating me on many of the 22 members and was predicting about 50% turn over of new members as several members from Llanelli, Swansea, and Neath lost their seats and with political balances also changing other members who won their elections could also be in danger of being removed through the political balance of numbers within their respective councils, which makes interesting thoughts 

With more time on my hands, I've been out delivering some leaflets for the hospital campaign, plus I've booked my place on the bus and really looking forward to it next week

Carnival Queen

My opponent made a good start to his political career, he failed to turn up at the count,

It was a very close call and after we (my self my agent and Gareth's Agent and the Independent Candidate agreed after three counts to accept the result) the candidates were called to the podium

Where the returning officer declared the results

A photographer took the photo as the winning candidates shook hands with Mark James the returning officer, obviously unaware that the person shaking hands was in fact Allan Evans. 

The photo was used in this weeks Star with the caption Gareth is congratulated?

I wonder how many other events and important meetings he will be missing over his coming term?

People were shocked at how close the election was and my loss was covered in the story below under Suprises and Scalps.

Terry Price Memorial Committee

This Committee has recently stepped its frequency of meetings up as planning of their official

launch dinner approaches, the group have confirmed that they have booked Parc Y Scarlets

for 15^th June for the dinner and have confirmed that the guest speakers have also confirm

their attendance, plus there will be a live act to entering the guests after the dinner and

speeches, Owen Jones the secretary confirmed that he would be attending a grant seminar

which was to be held later that week where the lottery fund managers would be

there to give advice to community groups. Invitation letters explaining full details of the

evening are now available from the rugby club, with booking forms and members were urged

to pick up the letters to help promote the whole evening

Llanedi Annual Chairmans Dinner

Hendy's Alawa Beynon Thomas was the winner of this years Community Councils Terry

Price Youth Award, she was presented her award by Guest Speaker, Aaron Shingler at this

years, Llanedi Community Councils Annual Chairman's Dinner.

Hendy and Fforest Senior Citizens Associaton

All members were welcomed by Mr Evans who invited them to recite the lord's prayer in

English. Names were taken of members wishing to attend the luncheon in The Bridge,

Llangennech on May 9th. Transport arrangements were made and agreed, anybody who

missed the last meeting and wish to attend should contact Elna on 883689, Mr David Cox

violinist and Mr Les Thomas pianist the guest speakers were introduced and entertained the

group with a performance, playing Ladies in Lavander and Fantasia from La Traviata, these

were just two of many musical pieces performed. Mr Cox was a lucky winner of the raffle as

was Gwyn and Janine

Below is a photo of myself and my partner at the dinner with Aaron Shingler

Firstly please accept my appologies, for the lack of enteries in the last fortnight, I've been very busy and what comes to mind is....... there's a lot of truth in the saying...... "a week is a long time in Polotics.

And what a busy!! busy!! last two weeks I've had? with last minute leaflets to write and deisgn and lots of telephone canvassing, and door knocking going on, to try and identify the Labour Promises and support,

(for those of you who are regular followers of this blog, I made sure I didn't get locked in any building during the last leaflet printing sessions)

This years campaign had a totally different action plan to the previous election for a number of reasons. In 2008 the election in Hendy was a straight two horse race, between Plaid and Labour and I was fighting to gain a seat, yet this time it was a three horse race and I was the sitting councillor with the opposition attacking decisions that i had choosen to take over the four year term  

Another reason was in 2008 the Labour Team in Hendy were all experienced councillors, with all Four Labour Community Councillors restanding, so the election and campaigning was a lot easier in 2008. Compared to this time, I had two brand new candidates standing who were total rookies, to the whole election process, and I had to show them how to gather and record the info and how to identify true Labour Promises and give them advice which households I thought would be anti Labour and had to give a lot of advice on why some things had happened or not happened because often there are things we would all want to happen, but in reality if there's no money in the purse things have to go on a wish list until some extra cash is found from another source.

What I'm trying to say and these figures are approx the council taxes we pay only gives the county council approx 15 % of its total spending power,  85% of the councils budgets comes from other sources such as central government and the Assembly and other funding sources

So when the Assembly states we are giving you a cut in your funding by 25 million difficult decisions have to be made, to put this into context a 1% rate rise to the individual householder raises approx £300,000 3% is almost £1 million  and people are struggling with bills without adding extra bills so if the rates went up by 3% there would still be a shortfall of 24 million unless cuts or savings are found.  

In the county election in 2008, Labour gained the Hendy seat by taking 638 votes against Plaid's 409, but despite my victory all of my three Labour colleagues sadly lost their Community Council Seats. Leaving me to represent Hendy as a sole Labour Councillor, against six Plaid and One Independent,

And as the result the last four years, especially the last year, the community council had become very political and I was constantly under attack, with my news letters and Llanelli Column often being debated in the chamber by the community council.

There were times that i wondered, what were their motives, because the Community Council were putting more effort into talking about what I was doing instead of resolving issues to benefit the community......and there were lots of long meetings, where standing orders were suspended because the 6.30pm meeting had gone past the 9pm threshold,

In the 2004/2008 term it was very rare for meetings to go on past the 8.30pm mark, as the meetings were always about working together for the good of the community and Polotics seldem entered the chamber, yet in the last term there were often comments and requests for me to make public appologies or to retract my comments and at one stage they made a complaint against me to the ombudsman. (A complaint which was thrown out because there was no case to answer) 

Anyway enough rambling lets get back to the point of today's blog

Although I gained Hendy as a Labour gain in 2008, Labour were a small Labour group in Carmarthen with only 11 councillors out of 74, because of our size it ment each member had to have several portfolios

I was plunged into the deep end and it felt like I was doggy paddling without a life belt in the beginning.

I found myself being nominated as the Secretary of the group in the very first meeting, the Secretary is one of the busiest jobs, as minutes have to typed up, agendas sent out, rooms booked for meetings letters sent on behalf of the group etc etc, The Secretary does all the organising.  I found the group were making decisions and it would be, the secretary can take care of this.

As well as the secretaries job I was also told, which committees I was sitting on and I ended up having Housing, Education, Appeals, and a named sub for the Planning Committee,

then I was told ohh and here's the other committees you will be on

Heart of Wales Railway Forum, Sacre, Corporate Parenting Panel, and another two committees who's names I've forgotten because although I was named as the Labour representative, I never had any invites or contact from them and it came to light nobody knew what they did or do?

In fact this is apparently a common thing that sometimes people don't know or understand what an oraganisation or outside voluntary group actually does and this became apparent, because when one of the Independents became ill and started missing the SACRE meetings nobody subed for him and the attendance was often only just a quorum and I kept asking why doesn't anyone sub for him?

I was asking these questions during my term on SACRE when I was appointed the vice chair and then chair, and during my time of chair I raised the issue about getting named subs to try and ensure the meetings were quoret,

When the Council agreed subs should be appointed (previously there had been no subs allowed)  a number of long standing councillors asked as a query

what does SACRE actually stand for do we know what do they do, and I remember a senior officer saying I don't know but I will find out for you, at which point I responded

its an acronym for Standard Advisory Council of Religious Education

its made up of members from external religous groups plus some Religous Education teaching staff from within the County and local authority members, and two officers from the school governor support team.

We scrutinise the results and performance of the teaching of Religious Education within our schools ie studying the O and A level results, and we give comments and ideas on how to increase Religous Education uptake within schools. by looking at how the education department performs within our schools, and we study the work of the local churches and chapels and religious organisations and voluntary groups, its main aim is to promote all aspects of religious education

We often have slide shows or talks from schools and churches about easter festivals or christmas concerts from across the county and it also looks at the work of Christian Aid in times of emergancies or the help they give the third world countries. This one committee alone has taught me so much in my term as a councillor,

But there were other areas that I learnt so much, for example I've learnt lots of stuff about child protection and child poverty through the Corporate Parenting Panel, we went around most of the departments meeting the various teams that deal with Child Protection and Fostering

Half way through the term of office with the County, there was a shift and change within the education department, with Gwyn Wooldridge, swapping positions with Ieuan Jones of Llandeilo and a few other minor changes

The Chair of Appeals resigned his post and a new independent came onto appeals, and with the Vice stepping up to Chair I was promoted to Vice Chair. The appeals panel was a busy committee and I think its the only committee that actually met members of the public on a regular basis when the council made decisions not to fund free school transport the parents often made an appeal about the decision and would come and share their personal circumstances to argue why their family should be granted free school transport,

When Tegwyn Devichand was given the Vice Chair of the Council, she resigned her Fire Authority Post and the group nominated me to represent them on the Fire Authority and I found this body very very interesting and busy,

There was a group leader of the Labour group who gave us good advice and guidance during the first six months on the Fire Authority, but over some internal dispute in his own authority, he resigned and left the Labour Party and became an Independent and when he left the Fire Authority, I suddenly found myself nominated as the Group Leader, and before I knew it I was getting invites to lots more Fire Authority meetings

Because all meetings were on a political balance and often there was a position filled by the Labour Group Leader to make a meeting politically balanced?

At every AGM of The Fire Authority, the chairs and vice chairs of the Authority would change hands, going to the various counties on a rotation basis, and the following year after being the group leader, Carmarthen was offered a vice chair so I was once again promotted, but I stated to the group I would accept on a condition that one of the other Labour Members took the leadership role.

I'm not really complaining about all the movements and changes, because it meant I had plenty of variety, and with all the extra meetings came access to more info, I was learning something new and expanding my knowledge and skills every week.

Anyway I had held all these posts and positions whilst holding a full time job down I would often have to take documents into work to read during my tea breaks as there's lots of bed time reading with the role of a councillor, In 2008 because I was a newly elected councillor taking a Plaid Controlled Strong hold, which Plaid had held since 1982? I had decided I would keep my main job and do the council work together, (as I had 19 years service with my other job), and I didn't want to resign in case I was a one term wonder,

Its been a hard struggle to do and I had my eyes opened I didn't really understand how much work was involed, and as a result i've worked 7 days a week for the last four years, working 34 hours for Tesco and attending on average about 10 meetings a month

But I have had excellent support from my employers, they had allowed me to take one day a month off unpaid, but apart from that there was often never a week gone by where I wasn't doing case work or attending an official duty (or an unoffical county council meeting)

an official meeting would be a scrutiny meeting in the diary

an unofficial may be a planning meeting representing an applicant or an objector, or meeting officers on site in the community to discuss residents issues?

As councilors we were often invited to lots of functions organised by voluntary groups to help members understand what the charities do or have issues with and I did try to accept many of the invites when my diary allowed it, but my diary was always full and with so many committees and meetings there were often clashes?

It was not uncommon for me to be choosing which committee shall I attend and which one shall I ask for a sub, I can recall on more than one occassion there were three meetings all scheduled at the same time.

When I heard rumblings that there was going to be an Independent Candidate I knew my post would be under threat, but I had discussed with my line manager that if re-elected I would be considering dropping a shift to work three shifts instead of four, obviously after this weeks results it was a wise move that I had kept my job.

On the doorstep people were telling me they hadn't seen the other candidates but I knew they were about, I spoke to one lady who was getting out of her car and opening her front door, she told me you are the first we've seen, but on her door mat there was an oppositions, sorry I called today sorry I missed you card.

The feed back on the door step was rather positive, but I also was aware that many people would say that, just to please you.

Because one house said I've posted my postal back and you had our vote? yet according to the official register there was no postal vote at that address,

and another house a man was walking down his path when I was next door, so I went to talk and he was rather polite you've got two votes in this house good luck?

on going back up the drive to speak to one of my colleagues who was out with us with the electoral register they pointed out they are not registered,

the household was unregistered so if he was genuine he would have been turned away as he wasn't on the register,

I wasn't taking anything for granted and I knew it was going to be very close, and in the count I wasn't suprised at how close it was but the oposition were more shocked than me,

Feed back I had been given from locals in the community was that the opposition were confident of a walk over, and they started to panic in the count, because as the count got closer to towards the end, there were lots of the opposition gathering around our table and the officer monitoring, asked them twice to move away unless they were actual official counters for the ward.

Then when the counters put the bundles of fifty together and it was one vote in my favour, the officer counted the bundles three times and said ok recount without asking any of the candidates or agents?

This caused a mad rush to our table and the officer asked people to move back, suddenly on the recount there was another ten votes on the table,

I challenged how did the total suddenly increase, the response was one bundle had had sixty votes in instead of fifty

So I asked for a recount and a verification of the total votes counted, on the second recount I lost a few votes to spolit ballot papers, and the final result was

Labour 411, Plaid 422 and independent 198 total 1031 voted

compared to the 2008 election of 409 plaid 638 labour 1047 total

Plaid had only gained 13 votes in the four year term.

We went up to have the results announced and If honest I was very emotional, but it was me, the Independent and Plaid's Allan Evans Gareth's Agent, because Gareth the candidate had not attended the count which is a good start to his busy new career, the election date and count had been planned for weeks? Its not for me to critise because I have no idea how important his other engagement was and as I stated diaries often clash!

However the drama didn't end there in the afternoon I came top of the Community Council Election result polling 441 votes but the bottom position caused just as much drama as my count earlier in the day because there was only two votes seperating three candidates,

Three recounts later Alan Scouser Blackley Labour came in with three more than the next candidate. But a politians dairy is never empty?Friday evening pratically straight from the count to a Llanelli clp meeting and then after a sleepless night, a further meeting of the full new group to listen to their views and ideas about the election results in general on Saturday Morning.

After this meeting it was a party time for the Labour Party, but I couldn't attend because my diary clashed, as I had had an invite to a family 17th birthday party get together

Now that the dust has settled and I reflect on what's happened I wonder

do I regret all the hard work with no time off and not having people supporting my hard work by giving their vote to the Independent?

 ANSWER not really because as explained I've been fully committed and I have gained so much knowledge and experience

which does somewhat outway the negatives of not having much personal free time,

I remember spending new years eve at my girlfriends and on my return home 3rd January there were 12 answer phone messages about frozen water pipes and no grit on the roads and pavements

I also remember booking a three day holiday down Tenby in a Caravan and there was a whip out that all members had to attend an important meeting, so I left my partner in Tenby to attend a three hour meeting in the middle of our three day break.

Would I do it all again, if honest ..... probably Yes.

But I suppose I can actually chill out for a few weeks, and take some time out to finish my garden and some jobs in the house, 

I had ripped my fire place out and was going to put a new fire place and fire in which has been uncompleted for a long time, maybe during all my new spare time, I will have over the next few weeks I should find some time to do these few jobs started but not finished and while I do these I can reflect on my future oportunities that will be open to me.

Over the last few weeks and days when I have been door knocking for the pending election there have been a number of issues that the community police team need to deal with

Several people said they don't know how to deal with the issues or how to contact the team

Issues can be raised by phoning 101 and asking to speak to the community policing team or PCSO Steve Lloyd

or people can attend the regular monthly meetings, because the next scheduled one falls on a bank holiday the local police team have moved it forward a week to a Tuesday and it appeared in the local press this week

I've now had the poster and further details about the Carnival Queen Disco

Pontarddulais & Hendy Carnival Queen Competition 2012

Disco Friday 4^th May 2012 - 7:00p.m. at Pontarddulais RFC

(Judging will start at 8.30p.m.)

Carnival Queen and 2 attendants aged 12 years upwards

All candidates must live in the Pontarddulais/Hendy area

£2 entry fee

Hendy News

Here's this weeks Hendy News Column

Llanedi Community Council

At the last Community Council meeting the community council picked 22 year old Alaw Beynon Thomas as the winner of its Terry Price Youth Achievement Award for 2012. Alaw Beynon Thomas of Goitre Fach, Hendy, was selected primarily on the basis of her outstanding achievements as an athlete. Since 2004, she has represented Wales in cross country, mountain and track running events at various age groups with notable success. She is the current Welsh Senior 5000 metres track champion and now competes for Swansea Harriers, who will be competing in the British Women’s Premier League this summer. It is her ambition to represent Wales in the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Alaw’s dedication to her sport has not led her to neglect her studies. She graduated last year with an honours degree in Geography from Aberystwyth University, where she is now studying for her teacher’s training qualification. As if this were not enough, she also finds time to help out on the farm when at home and, in order to assist with her training costs, works every summer at agricultural shows around Wales (including the Royal Welsh at Builth Wells) taking care of and showing cattle. A truly determined and multi-talented young lady!

Football Pitch

Several parents including Natalie Reynolds and Alan Scouser Blackley have been out collecting signators for the football clubs attempt to obtain grant funding to plant a new hedge in the local football field together they have collected almost 300 names in just under a week, various other organisations like the Hendy School, Llanedi Community Council, Pontarddulais Town Council, and the local Carnival Committee have also shown support by writing letters of support to help the club obtain an Assembly Grant for the planting of a new hedge which will benefit the local wildlife as well as addressing the issue of cattle breaking into the fooball pitch, the club will be adviced by the end of May if they have been successfull or not in their application bid.

This week I spent most of the week working on writing a grant application for the local junior football club.

Which included a trip down to the land registry to purchase copies of the title deeds, for the pitch.

Plus I've personally spent about 8 hours typing and retyping the application form out, every time I printed it, I would see a possiblity of improving what I had already written and added.

I popped to Llanelli to meet one of the officers who run by my check list and also added some comments on what they would have added or taken out of the application, eventually after a full day of working on finalizing the application, I sent the application off

I had managed to get letters of support for the grant off

Pontarddulais Town Council,

Llanedi Community Council,

Hendy School,

Pontarddulais and Hendy Carnival Committee,

Nia Griffith MP,

and Keith Davies AM

Five quotations for the work for the project from local contractors

Plus approx 300 signators on a petition that we have collected over the last week whilst door knocking in the village

All we are hoping is that the fund managers looks on the application with some favour

Recently I got locked in a building in Carmarthen. After I had spent some considerable time designing one of my election leaflets, I popped to Carmarthen, to use the printing machine in the office, on arriving about 3pm there were about six people in the queue.

The whole process saw us working as a team because after a print run, you would need to leave the ink dry for about ten minutes before you could turn the paper over to print the second side.

So whilst you are waiting for the ink to dry, a second person would do another print run, when they finished their run and were waiting for their ink to dry, you could then do your second run, therefore we were working in pairs.

At 5pm Ryan in the office showed us how to load our PDF files into the printer and he locked his office door, but this still allowed us access to the printing room,

Ryan asked the four of us left could the last person out switch the lights off and turn the computer off.

Two of our colleagues left at about 5.30pm leaving me and Calum in the room to do our prints, at about 6.15pm we were both done and we went to leave, on packing everything up we left the room, going down off the second floor towards the ground floor, on getting there I noticed the inside door on the ground floor of the lobby had been locked,

We rung a few of our Labour Party colleagues to try and find who had a key and why had it been locked, and after about six phone call conversations we had failed to get hold anyone with a key, so the last resort was the police and this was just as bad

They weren't very helpfull after about twenty minutes on the phone waiting for them to confirm if the had found a key holder or not, Calum gave them a list of the other tennants in the building, the  response off the 'Police' was go and find a fire exit and ring us if you set off any alarms?

So up we went back up the stairs to look for a fire exit, as the only exit on the lobby was the front doors or the stairs back up onto the first or second floors, 

we eventually found a fire exit in the back of one of the open offices on the first floor and we opened the door and too our relief, no alarm went off, so we made an exit and closed the door behind us, then it dawned on me.

"Calum how do we get off this platform, theres some steps there onto a flat roof but where's the ladder down to the ground floor"

We walked across the flat roof going up the street across what looked like the buildings next door, eventually we spotted a metal gate on the edge of the roof which led us to the ground floor

On turning around as we negoiated the iron steps I chuckled at the sign "No skateboarding in this area" it was a large flat roof area and it was obvious from the signs there's been issues with youngsters skateboarding on the roof.

It wasn't funny at the time as I had visions of having to find a place to sleep in the building, but at least we got out safely and can see the humorous side of the story

With the elections now pending the Labour group launched its manifesto

There were three photo sessions and I managed to make two of them

The first was at the Castle Courtyard in the County Hall premises, and the second was in Llanelli, the Llanelli launch had the best turn out as there are more candidates for the Labour Party standing in this area

I failed to make the afternoon session in Ammanford

The photo used by the local press was taken at Carmarthen I'm situated far right

The photo below was taken at the Llanelli Launch

Well last night there was a change in stance of the Community Council and they moved from last months decision to just note the correspondence and actually agreed to support a joint application

I had already had an email off the Highways confirming that although Hendy had already had funding for one traffic hump on Heol Y Parc from the Assembly, this didn't disqualify us from applying for the second round of funding

Following Wednesday nights meeting I sent off all the relevant documentation and Mike Jacob acknowledged reciept of this to our clerk, the deadline for the grant was Thursday mid day 5th April 2012

The Ammanford Guardian used the photo taken at a long service dinner awards that I organised and took part in the other week

nine members had clocked up 340 years service between them

Last month when I put the request for the pedestrian crossing in front of the community council, they decided to take no action and just noted the request?

Since last month I've been busy campaigning gathering info and support and the clerk has now put the item back onto the agenda of tommorrow's council meeting

Below is the minute referring to the request last month

Some of the evidence was gathered at the vision day held in the school and our clerk drafted some of the points raised during the consultation period

I have covered the whole issue about the need for traffic safety and the zebra crossing a couple of days ago see earlier entry here

On Friday of last week officers of the County Council had arranged to meet the football club to give them an update about the cattle situation, and I gave Alan Scouser Blackley a lift to the Llanelli Town Hall to meet them

Whilst there wasn't any real progress with the land owners from last year, the officers aparantly have been dealing with the clubs issue last year, and they had promised to discuss the cattle concerns with Welsh Water as they own the fields and the access route and the County wanted Welsh Water to errect fencing to keep the cattle out of the football pitch.

The officers adviced there was a grant available for biodiversity purposes, this has also been on the cards for a number of years with officers from Carmarthenshire Bio Diversity Department advising in 2010 a new hedge might be the best option,

In 2010 I met the Bio Diversity Officer on site and they kindly drafted a plan that grant funding would accept, below is the front page of the report recieved in 2010

but the club never gathered all the necessary paper work in time in 2010 for the grants, so this time I will be helping to gather all the relevant info, i've already spoken to several local contractors and we will be meeting this Wednesday to measure up the area where the new hedge will be going?

The officers this week adviced there was a round of funding available but letters of support would be needed to show evidence for the need and I've already started working on this, with three letters already recieved including one off the school

So we drew up a petition over the weekend and the local Labour team in Hendy have been out collecting signatures to be used as evidence for this grant

Over the coming week or two your local labour team will be out collecting signatures to help add strength the funding grant application

The opposition put out a news letter in Hendy this week and it was full of unfactual points, many of which I will be addressing on the door step over the coming weeks

One of the big issues has been traffic calming on Heol Y Parc, I have has been touched upon on this issue on several occassions in this blog

In the news letter he stated following the County Councils refusal paid for traffic calming on "Heol Y Parc"

I've put out three or four news letters over the last 18 months, where I have always stressed that the County Council and Community Council has worked together to address traffic calming, referring to the top two humps, one by the new access up by the top park gates and also further up the road the former Griffiths Pallets Site.

A third scheme near Clos Glyn Dwr was originally on the cards, but the Community Council decided not to take this third scheme forward pulling out of the agreement with the County Council

Therefore  I take offence when Plaid actually say when the county refused to pay for traffic calming and they paid to do so

This is backed up because the very bottom ramp near the bottom gates was installed by the County without any assistance from the Community Council and was funded by the Assembly under .................. "a safer route to school scheme"

Recently a second round of this funding became available and the Community Council were invited to apply jointly with the local school but the only decision the Council made was to note the correspondence

the County Officers in several further email stated that joint applications would carry more weight and would stand a better chance of success and would be a prefered option,

In one Mr McEnvoy confirms that the County had secured the funding from a previous Assembly Grant which comfirms my point that the County had not refused to fund or address road Safety on Heol Y Park

but here's the details that came in the application pack

Whilst the Community Council made a decision not to apply and noted the correspondence

At the vision day held last week it was made very clear there was a need for a zebra crossing and two parents stated they would conduct a petition urging the school and the community council to work together

And the petition has been well recieved we were out on a number of occassions last week during the school run and everybody was positive about the possibility of the school and councils applying in partnership

This special one off train went through the village today and I was on the crossing point for the football pitch along with a number of train spotters who were all there to take photos and videos

It had at least twelve carriages and there were passengers waving to us all as it passed, i took a few photos and then turned my phone over onto video mode

I wish now I had switched it onto video sooner and caught the whole moment as it was really a spectular site to see all the whole length of the train,it had three engines and there were dozens of people heads out of windows waving

As the Llanelli Usdaw Branch Secretary, I often have to organise events for the union, to celebrate 30 years but this weeks celebrations award was really special because nine members had clocked up three hundred and fourty years between them.

We had fifty years fourty and thirty years, they were all former employees of the creamery in Llangadog, which closed about seven years ago and is now a pet food factory

As they all lived local to Llangadog we booked the Red Lion in the village centre, the meal was outstanding and everyone enjoyed the lunch time gathering, all nine members shared lots of tales of industrial and union activities from across half a century of working