Banking Hub for Hay

 There was a knock on the door this morning, while I was in the middle of watching an episode of Star Trek with my friend.

On the door step was Jane Dodds, the MS for this area, and another Lib Dem campaigner.  They wanted to drum up support for a banking hub for Hay.  

The last proper bank in Hay, Barclays, closed in 2018.  There used to be three bank branches in total, the others being Nat West and the Midland, which became Santander (and is now a clothes shop).  The Nat West send a van every fortnight, which parks outside the Cinema Bookshop for three quarters of an hour.

The idea of a Banking Hub is that several different banks share the same premises - so on Monday it's Barclays, on Tuesday it's Nat West, and so on. 

I was immediately enthusiastic, and so was my friend, who also came to the door to sign the petition.

At the moment, if I want cash I can go to the cash point at the Craft Centre, but it often runs out of money, and at the moment it is closed down until repairs can be made after someone tried to break into it.  The other option is the Post Office, which has taken on some of the functions of a bank branch.

If I want to do anything more complicated with my money, I have to take the bus into Hereford, which takes about an hour, and then I have to make sure I have other things to do in Hereford, because the X44 only runs, at best, every two hours (and not at all in the afternoons).  So what used to take me ten minutes at a local branch now takes me half a day.

I'm quite capable of organising online banking - I'm computer literate enough to have a blog, after all - but I refuse to do it.  I want to be able to go into a branch and speak to an actual human being who knows what they're doing, face to face.

So I have filled in the questionnaire they gave me, and I'm about to take it to the post box now.

For anyone who wants to join in the survey to say how the loss of banking services in Hay has affected them, they are also gathering information online at www.brlibdems.uk/HayHub

They will then take all the answers to the regulators to convince them that Hay needs a Banking Hub. 

Hustings - Other Questions

The meeting was supposed to finish at 8pm, but there were lots more questions on the list, and the consensus from the audience was that they should carry on - the Globe allowed the meeting to continue until 8.30pm, when they really did have to kick everyone out!

 One question came from a seventeen year old girl called Daisy, who was probably the youngest person in the room.  She pointed out that she had lived under a Tory government for fourteen of her seventeen years, and wanted to know if her future looked brighter?

Fay Jones said something about educational standards (and was heckled with "She's lying!").  Matthew Dorrance said that the system was broken, and the last Labour government had been better, and Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal, who works with secondary school children, said that kids today are much more aware of the issues, and they need empowerment.  Later, she mentioned being in favour of young people voting from the age of sixteen.  David Chadwick quipped that asset prices are better.

The candidates were also asked what their priorities would be as an MP.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal said it would be dealing with issues for constituents.

David Chadwick said there were different responsibilities between the Welsh government and Westminster, and who controls what, and that funding was important.

Fay Jones talked about better broadband for rural areas.

Matthew Dorrance talked about stopping younger people from needing to move away from the area, and international development.

And at one point there was uproar as David Chadwick went completely off the topic of the question to attack Vaughan Gething, the Labour First Minister of Wales and his funding scandal.  Despite shouting from the audience and the efforts of the moderator , he would not stop.  Roger Williams, the previous Liberal Democrat MP for Brecon and Radnor, was in the audience, and he actually stood up to remonstrate with him.  It took some time for order to be restored.  Matthew Dorrance also mentioned that he was a friend of Vaughan Gething.

Up until that point, David Chadwick was looking like quite a reasonable candidate, but he did himself no favours with that outburst.  Matthew Dorrance has a lot of local experience, and he was getting on quite well with Fay Jones, chatting quietly between questions.  After all, they have been working together locally.  Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal impressed me too.  I'm afraid that, whatever her personal qualities, Fay Jones is part of the Conservative government that has got the country into the state that it is now in, so I can't bring myself to recommend her as a candidate.

Hustings - the Candidates and Climate Change

 Obviously Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal, the Green candidate, had a lot to say on this issue, including pointing out that the Greens have been talking about this for the past fifty years, and the main parties are only now starting to think seriously about it.  She talked about giving rivers legal rights, in the same way that businesses have them now [this has been done successfully in other parts of the world].  Also on the subject of legislation, she mentioned the Rights of Nature Act, which would restore 30% of our land and water back to nature.  There is also a need for research and development funding, and she was appreciative of citizen science, and the need to talk to the people who are actually studying the problems.

David Chadwick for the Lib Dems approached the theme from a farming point of view, talking about more subsidies to encourage farmers to work with nature, and the need to work with farmers.  The Liberal Democrats want to achieve Net Zero by 2045, as the time for action is running out.

Matthew Dorrance, for Labour, mentioned the Australian Food Deal, agreed by the government after Brexit, which is worrying local farmers.  They believe their prices will be undercut by the deal.  He also talked about ensuring that 50% of food bought by the public sector should be from local sources.

Fay Jones, for the Conservatives, described their policy of lengthening the deadlines to act on the climate crisis as "pragmatic".  This would include replacing boilers in homes, and older cars.  She talked about the need to bring climate deniers along with the changes that are necessary by education - Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal agreed with this, and thought that presenting the facts about climate change in a rational way would change hearts and minds.

On the subject of the River Wye, Fay Jones talked about the work she has been doing on cross-border co-operation between the different agencies and authorities involved.  One of the big problems for the River Wye is the phosphate pollution from intensive chicken farming, and she mentioned a pilot scheme on a farm near Builth Wells.  The chicken manure is fed to flies, which are then ground up to make animal food. 

Matthew Dorrance welcomed the announcement of bathing status for the Warren.  He also talked about enforcing tough measures against polluters, and taking away bonuses from the people in the companies responsible for pollution.

David Chadwick said that Ofwat needs 60 extra staff as an emergency measure, and 240 more staff for the agency to work properly to protect rivers.  He also wanted to see representatives from environmental groups sitting on the directors' boards of water companies.

Most people seemed to be against wind turbines, apart from Labour, which has a policy of encouraging offshore wind farms.

All the candidates were concentrating on local solutions to the climate crisis, so none of them really answered the question from  Françoise and Pierre quoting the UN and pointing out that global warming is already heading for 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial norm, and the next eighteen months are crucial for our response to that.  Drastic measures need to be taken, and that means a lot more than trying to educate climate deniers or encouraging sustainable farming.

Hustings - the Candidates and the Benefits System

 There were two main topics that came up in the question session, and rather than plod through the questions one by one, I thought I'd do a general round up of the points that came up.

Fay Jones, for the Conservatives, was working hard to make people believe that people who need benefits are going to be safe in the hands of a future Conservative government.  She mentioned a new payment, energy support payments for people who need to use more electricity than normal (or gas, I suppose), and she also said that the Conservatives have no intention of abolishing PIP, the payment to help disabled people.  She claimed that the Tories have compassion in mind when it comes to benefits and they believe in supporting people in difficult times.*

Matthew Dorrance, for Labour, said that the bedroom tax is a problem for families, and talked about reducing energy bills by a Labour government setting up a new renewable energy company.  Later he talked about the need for a proper living wage.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal, for the Greens, talked about her time volunteering at the Citizens' Advice Bureau, and seeing the sort of problems people are facing from that perspective.

The erosion of public services over the last fourteen years was a running theme, as was the increase in the number of food banks.  Matthew Dorrance pointed out that work is no longer a route out of poverty, and there are working people who are forced to use food banks.

The candidates also talked quite a bit about the NHS.  One of Matthew Dorrance's previous jobs was as a care assistant, so he's seen the system from the inside.  He said that health and social care need to be linked.  

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal also said that a more holistic approach was needed, with health and with the benefit system.  She was worried about the way contracts were handed out in the NHS, the recent scandals around PPE during the pandemic, and the increase in privatisation in the health care sector.

David Chadwick for the Liberal Democrats wanted to see more generous benefits, and more money for carers.  He had ideas about how to fund that, involving a wealth tax and a windfall tax on big corporations.

Fay Jones said that funding for the NHS in Wales was a matter for the Welsh government, but wanted to see the systems of record-keeping harmonised across the border for patients who need healthcare in both systems.

Tomorrow, I'm going to cover what was said about the climate crisis and nature, which was the other main topic of the evening.

*[I'm sorry - I'm really trying hard to be objective and report on what the candidates said, but I'm amazed that Fay Jones was able to say this with a straight face.  'Compassion' is the last word I'd associate with the Tory benefit system.]

Hustings at the Globe

 It was a very interesting evening at the Globe last night.  The hall was packed, and fifteen people had asked written questions before the session started.  There wasn't time to get through them all, even though the session ran over time by half an hour.

There are eight candidates for the new constituency of Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, but only four of them were able to make it.  Some of the others sent letters of apology, which were available to see at the back of the hall.  I didn't manage to see any of them, because there was quite a crush.

Present on stage were Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal, for the Green Party

                                    David Chadwick, Lib Dem

                                    Fay Jones, Conservative

                                    Matthew Dorrance, Labour

The ones who couldn't make it were Emily Durrant- Munro, for Plaid Cymru, Jonathan Harrington for the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, Adam Hill for Reform and Lady Lily the Pink for the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Fay Jones, the Conservative who has been our MP for the last four and a half years, said she was disappointed that the Reform candidate hadn't turned up, because the audience might hate him slightly more than they'd hate her!

Each candidate gave a three minute presentation on what their party stands for, followed by the question session.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal spoke about the nature and climate crisis, and tackling pollution, but also local facilities like libraries and sports facilities.  The Green Party wants to increase Universal Credit, abolish the third child cap on benefits, provide food for school children even during the holidays, improve disability benefits, fund the NHS properly and abolish the right to buy council houses so that more social housing is available.

David Chadwick started with the need to beat the Tories.  He also mentioned the climate, stopping pollution in our rivers, and concern over cuts to public services and the NHS.  The Liberal Democrats would fund public services by raising tax on the wealthy and big business.  He also talked about the need to abide by International Law.

Fay Jones talked about her accomplishments while in office, such as obtaining funding for the Judge's Lodging in Presteigne, Talgarth's Victorian school and the New Radnor Arms at New Radnor.  She identified access to banking services as a problem, and talked about the problems with the River Wye as a cross-border problem, involving several different agencies, which she has been working with.  She is against wind farms.

Matthew Dorrance greeted the audience in Welsh, and emphasised that he is a local boy born and bred, and the amount of experience he has already in serving the local area.  He is the Deputy Leader of Powys County Council, and has been responsible for the council house building scheme across Powys.  He wants to increase the living wage and have a child poverty taskforce.

Matthew Dorrance also mentioned the new part of the Brecon and Radnor constituency - there are seventeen thousand voters in the Upper Swansea Valley, and historically that area has voted most for Plaid Cymru, which should make for an interesting election in an area which has traditionally swung between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.

During the questions, we learned a lot about each candidate's background.  David Chadwick was paralysed for three months, so has personal experience of the disability system, which he wants to be more generous.  His mum was a single parent from Maesteg, so he grew up hearing about the closure of the local mines.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal is trained as a lawyer.  Her family is Sikh, and she also has a lot of experience volunteering locally for the Citizen's Advice Bureau, and working as a substitute teacher in local schools.

Matthew Dorrance's father was a Grenadier Guard, and his mum was a dinner lady, and he said something about doing things to help military veterans that I wasn't quite fast enough to write down, during his work with the County Council.  He's also a friend of the First Minister of Wales, Vaughan Gething.

Fay Jones has a background with the National Farmers' Union, which is why she wanted to represent a rural constituency.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about some of the issues that were raised by the questions from the audience.

Local Elections

 According to Wales247 and Powys County Times, although there is a local election on Thursday, Hay polling station at the Bowling Club will not be open.  Gareth Ratcliffe is standing unopposed, so will automatically return to the County Council.

Gareth is one of seven councillors who are standing unopposed.  The others are mainly Welsh Conservatives and Independents, with one Plaid Cymru councillor.

There are also fewer seats on the County Council this time - 68 rather than 73 because of boundary changes, and 60 wards rather than 73, with eight of those returning more than one councillor.

Advice and Support from Gareth Ratcliffe

 As our County Councillor, Gareth Ratcliffe will be holding an advice and support surgery at Tomatitos on Thursday 7th October from 6pm to 7pm.

So if anyone locally needs help with any issues that Gareth can do something about, he'll be available to chat.

Senedd Results

 James Evans, the Conservative, has won Brecon and Radnorshire, with over 12,000 votes.

William Powell, the Lib Dem, came second, with over 8,000 votes.

The turn-out for Brecon and Radnorshire was higher than the average - 58%.  The turnout overall for the Senedd elections this time was a record high of 46.6%.

Not all the regional list votes have been counted yet, but overall, Labour remain in power in Cardiff with 30 seats, with the Tories on 12 seats and Plaid Cymru on 9 seats.  Although the Lib Dems lost Brecon and Radnorshire, they have gained one regional list seat.

The map of Welsh constituencies is very blue along the English border, and Plaid Cymru's sort of green in the West, with South and North East Wales solidly red for Labour.

I haven't seen any results for the Police Commissioners yet.

Kirsty Williams Stepping Down

 Kirsty Williams has been the Welsh Assembly member for Brecon and Radnor for twenty two years.  She's gone from new member to leading her party (the Lib Dems) in Wales, and has served as Education Minister in Wales.  Before she became AM, she was involved in the campaign for Welsh devolution.  She's also campaigned for a law requiring a minimum staffing level for nurses in Welsh hospitals.  She was made a CBE in 2013 in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

She's also been very much involved in local matters in Hay - the last time I saw her was on the stage in the new school hall as part of the Silver Jubilee celebrations for Dial-a-Ride.  She also did as much as she could to help the HOWLS Library campaign.

Now she has released a letter - I saw it on the Hay Community page on Facebook - saying that she would not stand for the next Senedd elections.  

I don't know what she's planning to do in the future, but I wish her all the best.

Hustings

There have been hustings happening all over Brecon and Radnorshire because of the by-election (don't forget to vote on 1st August!).
Tonight, the candidates are in Hay, at the Globe.
Normally, I'd be there, scribbling copious notes, but this time I'm afraid I'm at the "Oh God! Just make it stop!" stage. I heard them being interviewed on Sunday Supplement on Radio Wales, and that was more than enough.

By-election

The date of the by-election for Brecon and Radnorshire has been set at 1st August.
So far the candidates are:
Our present MP Chris Davies is standing again for the Conservatives
Jane Dodds, the Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, is standing for the Lib Dems
Tom Davies, presently a Brecon councillor, is standing for Labour
Lady Lily the Pink of Llanwrtyd Wells is standing for The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
and retired police superintendent Des Parkinson is standing for the Brexit Party.

Recall Petition

The recall petition closed on Thursday. This is the mechanism by which constituents can petition for their MP to step down, thus forcing a by-election. It's quite a rare procedure, and the requirement is that 10% of the electorate must sign for the recall to go ahead. In Brecon and Radnor, this was 5,053 people. In the end, 10,005 people signed the petition, which is 19% of the electorate.
The Lib Dems have already been campaigning - I've had several leaflets from them - for their candidate Jane Dodds, who is the Lib Dem party leader in Wales, and there are discussions on Facebook suggesting that the Brexit Party might field a candidate.
So, at the moment, the Brecon and Radnor constituency does not have an MP - until the by-election happens.
I was quite surprised to see that Chris Davies intends to stand as the Conservative candidate in the by-election.
The Labour candidate is Tom Davies who is presently a Brecon town councillor.

Crafts At the Petition Office

The recall petition to remove Chris Davies as our local MP opened yesterday at 9am (one lady was there at one minute past nine!). It's in the Council Chambers, and the last time I was in that room, I was a witness at a wedding. There's disabled access round the back, and they have a magnifying glass for people who need large print.
There are two ladies in charge of the procedure, crossing your name off the electoral register and giving you the form to sign. One of them was knitting a jumper. They're there for six weeks, so she'll probably have finished it by then! So we got chatting about Stitch and Bitch (she already goes to another craft group at Three Cocks), and trying out different crafts.
There's a hotel down in Okehampton that runs craft courses - you stay for a few days (at very reasonable rates) and sign up for as many different craft courses as you wish - she enjoyed the glass engraving, and there were various pottery courses, and all sorts of other crafts, as well as entertainment in the evenings - and Okehampton is in a lovely part of the country. A whole group from Three Cocks went a couple of years ago.
They remembered the fad for yarn bombing, and I admitted to being one of the yarn bombers of Hay - and now there's a new fad of leaving painted pebbles around for children to find. That started last year, and I've just carried on doing it. It's a good way of experimenting to see how different techniques work.

Recall Petition for Local MP

It was front page news in the B&R this week - Chris Davies, MP for Brecon and Radnorshire, has been fined £1,500, plus £2,500 prosecution costs, plus a £120 surcharge, and sentenced to 50 hours unpaid community service to be completed over the next twelve months. The judge added that he could have sentenced the MP to a period in prison, the main consideration in the case being not the financial amount involved, but the breach of trust, as MPs' expenses are a matter of public record - and therefore had to be honest and accurate.

As detailed in the B&R, Chris Davies deliberately forged invoices so that the bill for photographs bought for his office could be split across two funds he was eligible to claim from, as there was not enough money left in one of the funds. He also wanted his office manager to assist him in the fraud. She is currently taking the MP to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal, and she reported the fraud to the Conservative Party.

The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has now confirmed that there will be a recall petition. This is to determine whether the constituents of Brecon and Radnorshire want Mr Davies to continue as their MP. If 5,303 people (or more) sign the petition, a by-election will be held.
The petition will be available to sign at six places around the constituency, including at the Council Chambers in Hay, from 9th May, and will be open for six weeks.

Local MP Found Guilty of False Expenses Claim

Chris Davies, MP for Brecon and Radnor, has been in court about a fraudulent expense claim he put in when setting his offices up back in 2015.
It's a sufficiently serious offence that the magistrate at Westminster Magistrates' Court said he didn't consider his sentencing powers to be sufficient to deal with the case, so it's gone up to the Crown Court for sentencing.
In other words, they're going to throw the book at him.
Reading through the report on the BBC website, the issue seems to be the deliberate nature of the fraud, rather than the amount involved (£700), considering that a Member of Parliament should be held to a high standard of conduct.
This could mean that Brecon and Radnor will be having a by-election soon.

Public Meeting - This is a Rainy Day

Talk of the reserves of money led to discussion of what those reserves are for - surely the Council is saving for a rainy day?
Alistair pointed out that this is a rainy day!

However, Trudy said that half the funds in the Town Council reserves were earmarked for a project. She didn't want to say what it was for to begin with, claiming commercial sensitivity, but after a brief whispered conversation with Rob Golesworthy she said that she could say what it was for. The Town Council have been trying for some time to find suitable land to extend the Cemetery, and time is running out. There are only enough new grave plots left for a couple of years at the current rate of expansion. So the money is to buy a new plot of land.
A question from the back of the hall was - what about the living? Aren't the services for the living more important than the dead?
Trudy replied that the cemetery was a service for the living, because it is where the families of the dead go to find solace. There was applause at this.

Someone else asked if there was enough money to build a new Youth Club, which is badly needed.
There isn't enough money for that.
A chap from the Scouts stood up. He said there were 300 Scouts and Explorers in the Hay area, and they are looking for a base to operate from. They actually have funding for this, but need backing. He was told to talk to HADSCO about it (so some positive networking came out of the meeting).

The County Council are meeting on 21st February to discuss the new budget, before all the relevant groups can react to the proposals - but there is a bit of time after that until the full County Council considers the budget.
One lady asked if the County Council meetings were open to the public. They are, and members of the public can even ask questions at a certain point in the proceedings. Some meetings, like the Cabinet meeting where they discussed Hay, are online as a webcast.
The member of the Cabinet said that the Cabinet had been discussing other, even more extreme measures, such as scrapping the subsidy for every bus service in Powys! He also said that they can't cut the children's and adult services (the County Council has been having severe problems in this area) or education.

The last, and possibly most important question, was - What does the County Council need to hear from Hay to communicate to them what the people of Hay want? What will convince them to change their minds?
There is a serious lack of trust between Hay and the County Council at the moment.
The Cabinet member was asked about this, and he said that as far as he was concerned, his word was his bond. That may well be true, but Hay has discovered to its cost that the Cabinet as a whole is quite happy to go back on agreements.

So the meeting came to a close without anything much resolved. Really the only ideas for raising money for the town were to increase the price of the toilets, and Hay needs rather more than that.

However, there was a petition going round the hall, and a lady said she would take more sheets onto the Thursday market, setting out what the Town Council wants to put before the County Council. I don't have a copy of the wording here (I was busy trying to read it, sign it, and carry on taking notes!) but it does give the Town Council something to go to the County Council showing that a large body of the population support their proposals.
These include fighting to keep the toilets open, fighting to keep the new library open, and trying to gain possession of the old library building to use for the town, in exchange for the money that is already in the reserves.

Public Meeting - Questions from the Floor

So now it was roving microphone time....

One person pointed out that Powys County Council were in a difficult position because their funding has been cut - leading to comments about the huge salary of the chief executive which was reported recently (set nationally) and a suggestion to save money by reducing the number of county councillors.
And while I'm thinking about this, later in the meeting it was pointed out by James Gibson-Watt that the formula for deciding how much money each county council gets is based on the population. Powys is big, and thinly populated - in fact the population is going down. There is low unemployment in Powys, but this is because we export our unemployed - young people move away so they can get jobs. In turn, this means there are fewer young families, and fewer children going to local schools - so the education funding is cut, and so on down a slow spiral to oblivion. What we need is a way of encouraging inward migration to Powys to boost our population and get more funding!

Volunteering was mentioned as a way to keep services - but why should people volunteer to run services they are already paying for out of their council tax? (Which will be going up next year).
In the case of the Library - volunteers can't run a library. They can assist, but a library needs a trained librarian, and it's the trained librarians that are going to be cut.

Several people said that Powys County Council do not have a coherent policy - they stagger from one crisis to the next. One example of this was the building of the new Museum/Library complex in Brecon, which keeps going over budget and for which there seems to be an open cheque book. This was, said the speaker, "ineptitude", and "they couldn't run a bloody bath!"

It was pointed out that Hay is important to the economy of Powys as a whole, as a tourist destination and base, and if Hay was supported the town could generate more income for the county. Hay deserves a more coherent policy from Powys - and Powys doesn't have a strategy!
The problems that we are facing now, said another speaker, are only going to recur. Can there be an agreement that Powys County Council don't renege on?

James Gibson-Watt took the microphone here, and said that the original agreement worked out between Hay Town Council and the County Council was a good one, and he doesn't understand why the County Council went back on it. It's important to stick to agreements or trust is destroyed. Smaller councils around Powys are being called on to deliver services that the County Council used to deliver, and so trust between them is essential, and needs to be restored. It is shortsighted to close down facilities now because once they're gone, they're gone for good. If we could keep going through this rough patch, retaining our facilities, we would come out of it into a much better position in the next few years.

The Town Council said that it was difficult for them, because very few members of the public turn up to council meetings, and when they did have a Meet the Councillor event only 20 people turned up even though they'd distributed over 2,000 leaflets, to every house in Hay.
To which the reply was - they've got a room full of people now.
Trudy said that, when dealing with the County Council, they felt like ten people in a room - and they needed the evidence that the people of Hay were supporting them, which would give them more power in negotiations.
The Town Council is also restricted by legislation in the way it chooses to spend its money. They can't just give a grant to the Library to keep it going. Again, the total amount they are allowed to give in grants is based on the electoral roll of Hay.

One of the ideas the Town Council do have involves the pot of money which has been sitting quietly in reserve for many years, and which is supposed to be used for a community initiative (this is from the days of the old District Councils, I think). The Town Council basically want to do a swap. The County Council gets that money - about £200,000 - and the Town Council gets the old Library building. The Town Council could then use the building for meetings and a variety of groups, and it would save Powys County Council money in the long term. The Town Council are meeting on Friday (today!) to discuss this.

So I'll end this post on that thought, and wrap up the report tomorrow.

Public Meeting about County Council Cuts - Here We Go Again!

The school hall was full when I got there - several of us latecomers ended up on a low bench by the wall. Most of the Town Council were there, along with Gareth Ratcliffe, James Gibson-Watt, and another local County Councillor who is also on the Cabinet - he's the one who was recently involved in a bit of controversy because he was in New Zealand, but he's back now.
There was a bit of faffing around to start with, because the tech didn't work, so they couldn't show the presentation they'd put together. Instead it was Mayor Trudy Stedman with a sheaf of notes and a microphone in her hand.

And here's a plea from someone who has been in many public meetings - if there is a microphone, USE THE MICROPHONE! And don't just hold it, bring it up to your mouth, and speak loudly as well, so that those of us at the back or with less than perfect hearing can follow what's being said!

So, Trudy introduced the County and Town councillors, and gave a brief run down of the story so far.
Starting around 2015, the Town Council spent two years negotiating with the County Council to save the public toilets and other public assets for the town. This involved the County Council giving the Town 20% of the car park takings, on the strength of which the Town Council took out a £70,000 loan to improve the toilets, which they took over the running of.
Then there was an election in May 2017, and the new Cabinet refused to honour that agreement.
In the September, Hay Town Council had a meeting with the new Cabinet which was described as "acrimonious". They could not come to a new agreement.
In December 2018 the Cabinet finally got round to discussing the matter at County Hall. The Town councillors watched the live webcast of the meeting, which is the only way they found out what decisions the Cabinet had made - there has still not been an official letter telling them the outcome.
The Cabinet decided that Hay would have no car park income.
The County Council would write off the £70,000 loan, which the Town Council were supposed to be paying back at £10,000 a year (no money has yet changed hands).
This looked at first sight to be a good deal, until the Town Council worked out that, under the original agreement, they should have had £95,000, and repaid £45,000 by now, so the Town Council would lose out. They have taken legal advice and been told that they have a strong case against the County Council, as the original agreement has been operational, so the County Council should give Hay the money they originally agreed. However, the cost of mounting a legal action against the County Council has to be considered.

The County Council has given Hay two options about the toilets (at the Clock Tower and Craft Centre). The first is that the Town Council continues to run them, and the second is to give them back to the County Council, but with no guarantee that the County Council would keep them open. Currently the County Council only directly run two sets of toilets - the ones in Brecon and the ones at Ystradgynlais bus station. All the other toilets in the county have been hived off to be run by smaller councils and groups of volunteers.
The toilets cost £30,000 a year to run, and bring in an income of £18,000. This is 90,000 people paying 20p a time (slightly more people than that used the toilets last year, but that's how many paid for it).

This was the first appeal to the public - should the Town Council fight to keep the toilets open?
Alistair Shaw (who didn't need a microphone!) said that a town with no public toilets was crazy - Hay would lose all the tourists who come here.
Trudy also said that the Town Council had considered raising the precept to cover the cost (this is the amount of money Hay Town Council gets to run the town, presently £42,000 a year), but they thought this would be unfair, as it is visitors who use the toilets, not locals.
Sean O'Donaghue asked if there was a Disability Rights issue here? There is legislation to say that a town needs to have a toilet for the disabled, with level access for wheelchairs.
The Deputy Chair of the Chamber of Commerce was also present, and he said that the Chamber of Commerce has no income, apart from a small amount of membership fees, and that most of the money they raise goes towards the Christmas Lights, so they can't really help.

Other areas of concern include the Sports Pavilion. Here there is qualified good news - the town has been offered a 99 year lease of the building, and the bowls club have been given permission to build the pavilion they want. However, without the income from the car park, the Town Council cannot give as much money as they would like to the running of the sports facilities, so the sports clubs have to do more fund raising.

The Council Chambers were also discussed at the Cabinet meeting in December, where it was decided that the Town Council would be given 12 months notice to leave the premises. The County Council were apparently surprised to discover that the Town Council has tenants in the building (from whom they gain income for the town), including Dial a Ride. Apparently someone at the Cabinet meeting said that "We will make sure the tenants are okay," but the Town Council has no idea what they mean by this. They also don't know when the 12 months notice starts from, because the County Council have not contacted them officially yet. Trudy was asked where the Council would meet when they lost the building, and answered: "No idea!"

The Library is also under threat - again, along with the 9 other rural libraries that were threatened last time. However, the big libraries in the county, such as Brecon and Newtown, are not being asked to find savings, even though it is the rural areas that need libraries more. Gareth has asked questions at County Hall about this.

Another loss to the town will be the Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths. At present they only come (and use an office in the Council Chambers) for two days a week, and this will cease. In future people will have to go to Brecon for this service. The Registrar is also being withdrawn from Builth Wells, Knighton and Llanidloes.

Tomorrow, I'll cover the questions from the floor....

Next Council Meeting

Hay Town Council normally meets on the first Monday of the month, but because of the Bank Holiday this month, they will be meeting on Monday 14th May instead, at the Swan Hotel, at 6pm. I saw the announcement on Facebook this time. It's also the AGM for the Council, and the time when the new Mayor is chosen.
I won't be there this time - I'd already promised to go to a friend's poetry reading before I realised the date clash.

Council Meeting -Graffiti, Fly Tipping, Miles Without Stiles and Affordable Houses.

It seems that the Town Council have responsibility for the maintenance of the bus shelters - so the next topic of discussion was what to do about this graffiti. One councillor suggested keeping it for Hay in Bloom! Others suggested a pot of green paint was in order. They also talked about having more town information at the bus stops. Apparently Velindre bus shelter has books in it - no buses, though....

And from graffiti to fly tipping, and the trialing by Powys County Council of imposing fixed penalty notices on householders who fly tip. There's also a warning here for any householders who pay someone to take their waste away - if the person who takes it then tips it, it is the householder who is responsible.

Richard Greatrex was very keen for the Council to get involved with a consultation on how local government should work in the future, from the Welsh Assembly. For instance the Welsh Assembly are asking what community councils should be responsible for. It may seem theoretical, but could change the way things work across Wales in the future, such as combining neighbouring councils. If Hay were to be combined with Llanigon, for instance, the two areas have very different requirements.
One Voice Wales is working on a response to the consultation at the moment, and various councillors said they would be interested in seeing it when it's done. They also agreed that more working together between local councils would be a good thing.

Meanwhile Miles Without Stiles is forging ahead with work on local footpaths. Powys County Council have donated ten gates! And the Lions have donated £1,000, and would like to have plaques on their gates. The next stage is to get grant money - the project minimum is £20,000, which can be match funded with volunteer hours rather than cash, so they're looking for a pledge of 500 volunteer hours, with an additional £6,000 from the Town Council - and I missed the details of the rest of it. The Finance committee was due to meet a few days after the main Council meeting, and they had a lot to discuss!

The councillors were also looking back to last year, when they had a meeting with the National Parks and set out what they hoped to achieve over the year - and the consensus was that they've done quite well!
One area where they haven't been able to make much progress is affordable housing, partly because they were hoping the Affordable Housing Group would do most of the heavy lifting, but the group doesn't seem to have been active recently.
One concern was over the affordable housing in the Persimmon development. One condition for the building to go ahead was that local families in need would get first choice of the housing, but families seem to be moving in from all over Powys, not just the Hay area. There was a point that these families have more points than local families, so were in greater need. There was also concern that some local people have tried to get housing on the new estate, but have been refused, and the councillors wanted to talk to the National Parks, Powys Planning Department and Wales and West Housing Association to discuss this. This was seen to be a matter of urgency, as Wales and West are involved in future developments locally.

Meanwhile, over the border in Cusop, the houses of Booker's Edge are springing up opposite the Co-op, and people applying for affordable houses there have to prove a connection to Cusop. This would include anyone with family already living in Cusop, or someone who is employed in Cusop, which would include anyone who works at the Co-op, or Hay and Brecon Farmers. However, Cusop is unusual in that all the facilities are in Hay. Affordable, in this case, means at a discount of 39% of the full price for the houses. The councillors wanted to publicise this as much as possible, to give local families a chance to apply.