In his latest blog for Caerphilly Observer, Caerphilly AM Hefin David talks about a recent spell as a delivery man, a bright future for Caerphilly businesses, and a return to the Senedd.
Keeping busy
“You must be enjoying your long holiday,” a few people mischievously said to me during August. The truth is, while I did get a week away with my family and managed a precious day or two to spend with my one year old daughter, the rest of the time I used to catch up on constituency work that is otherwise squeezed into a hectic working week.
Over the last few weeks I’ve been following up on some complex and deserving cases for constituents and I’ve been able to get out and about in Caerphilly. I spent a morning at the Royal Mail sorting office in Caerphilly, going on the delivery round in Trecenydd. Royal Mail are a key employer in our area and there is a good relationship between management and trade unions.
I also attended an ‘Open Doors’ event in Draethen, run by the Ruperra Castle Preservation Trust. The Castle is in a state of disrepair and is in urgent need of refurbishment. The Trust have been working for many years to try and save the building. We have many tourist gems in the Caerphilly constituency and I want the council to put tourism at the heart of their economic strategy.
Positive business prospects
The First Minister said last week that he wants to promote Wales to the world like never before. During August I met with owners of small businesses in Caerphilly. From north to south we have many innovative companies capable of growth and expansion. Alongside existing world class companies like Norgine in Tiryberth and Nuaire at the Western Industrial Estate in Trecenydd, we have a good base for economic growth in our community.
Good employers need skilled employees and I’ve also held meetings with the National Training Federation Wales, the representative body for all those organisations or individuals involved in the training industry. They told me that we can deliver high level skilled apprenticeships so that our Caerphilly workforce is ready for meaningful and rewarding employment. The Welsh Government has a key role here.
Contact
It’s back to Senedd business next week but, if you want to meet with me or if I can help you, give my office a call on 01443 838542. We can book you in to a surgery or discuss on the phone how we can help. I’m also contactable via email- hefin.david@assembly.wales, on www.facebook.com/HefnDavidAM or Twitter @hef4caerphilly. Please keep in touch.
If Carwyn Jones wants to promote Wales to the world he firstly needs to start promoting Wales to the Welsh, then needs to tell local councils to stop being so narrow minded and start helping local business people, local producers and local entrepreneurs. If it isn’t a pet project, their own idea or a money making exercise then local councils don’t want to know, they constantly put up barriers and always begin negotiations from the position of ‘no you can’t do that’.
You are correct, Paul, but it should also be said that such enthusiasm or lack of it, of Council`s supporting businesses, by, perhaps sometime thinking outside the box, is clearly down to Officers of the Authority.
Sometimes, more often than not, elected members may not even have applications for support drawn to thier attention, not even ward members in who`s area the business operates, the system of officers making early decisions ( before elected members can get anywhere near such applications) is helping to maintain the situation you have identified and highlighted.
I am sure, no, I am certain, that there are elected LABOUR Councillors in Caerphilly Council, who are perfectly capable, and in some cases more capable, than officers of assessing such application for the development of a business, and for the value and benefits to a business`s employee partners, the business itself and to the wider community, and, each elected member would have the full support of Hefin David Labour Assembly Member for Caerphilly if his recent statements in his blog printed on this site is anything to go by.
Business bosses should lobby, Labour Assembly Member Hefin David, and thier local Councillors, particularly if any local small business leaders feel they are not getting a fair hearing, and officers of the Council appear not to be listening to them and thier proposals.
I think Hefin should have a quiet word with his leader, Carwen Jones, who whilst he is supposed to be “selling Wales” is actually talking down our country. His ridiculous comments to the Americans, telling them that Wales may break away from the UK if we don’t stay in the EU single market are very damaging.
Other countries may not realise that Jones has absolutely no say in this matter. The Welsh voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, and this includes the single market and its free movement of people. It will be actually beneficial for Wales and the rest of the UK to be outside the single market. The EU mandarins then have two choices, trade freely with us or impose tariffs. These tariff levels are limited by international treaty and we could impose the same levels on EU exports to us. As the trade with the EU is massively in their favour the UK would certainly not be the loser here.
Please shut up Carwen, you are a liability to Wales.
I find it quite surprising that nobody has even challenged Carwen Jones over the Brexit vote, as first minister of a country that receives billions of pounds of EU funding he should have been able to convince the people of Wales to vote to stay in the EU if that is what he believed in, but he and Welsh Labour did nothing to persuade the voters that Wales is better off within the EU. How has he gotten away with it?
The truth is that normal Welsh people did not benefit from EU ‘funding’, it was syphoned off for pet projects of the Cardiff Bay crowd.
Tim Martin, the owner of J D Wetherspoon, backs up what I mentioned about the single market in my last post. Tim Martin has built up a company with a profit in excess of £60 Million. Something that none of the AMs would be capable of doing. Perhaps they should take note of what he says, below.
“Mr Martin also suggested that the UK did not need a trade deal with the EU, adding that an unsigned agreement with a major supplier had worked perfectly well for his business for a number of years.”
“Common sense … suggests that the worst approach for the UK is to insist on the necessity of a ‘deal’ – we don’t need one and the fact that EU countries sell us twice as much as we sell them creates a hugely powerful negotiating position.”