Category: Community Council

Bypass: end of the road

Posted on By admin

The plans to build a bypass at Llanbedr have been scrapped by the Welsh Government. The reasons for doing so are clearly set out in an excellent report by Dr Lynn Sloman, chair of the government’s Road Review Panel. Anyone interested in the wellbeing of our community will find it well worth reading:

Roads Review Panel: Llanbedr access road and bypass [HTML] | GOV.WALES

Her assessment of the political pressures which, over the last 6 years, have led to a vast amount of public money being spent on preparations for this vast scheme, extends far beyond the problem of occasional congestion in the village at the peak of the tourist season. Her grasp of local affairs is impressive.

As well as making an unequivocal case for cancelling this project, Dr Sloman identifies various relatively inexpensive ways in which traffic problems in the village could be alleviated. She also makes it clear that she thinks these should have been considered as low cost, environmentally friendly, alternatives to a massive road scheme at the planning stage.

This blog has never been against either development at the airfield or measures to improve traffic flow in the village. It is to be hoped that the local politicians, at both community council and county council levels, who have so vigorously campaigned for a bypass, will accept the Welsh Government’s decision and now devote the same energy to implementing relatively low-cost solutions to address congestion:

  • Proper walkways for greater pedestrian convenience and safety
  • Adequate off-street parking for both visitors and residents
  • A footbridge over the river, like the one at Tal-y-bont, so that the full width of the bridge can be used by vehicles, which would greatly improve traffic flow
  • Improved public transport along the coast and connecting to Shell Island

It is up to all of us to hold decision makers to account over this.

 

Edited 05/11/2021: bullet point added.

From Community Council Minutes 1

Posted on By admin

Isn’t the custom of publishing minutes of meetings a really wonderful thing? It means that if you didn’t happen to be at a meeting, or can’t remember much about it, or think that someone else’s version of events might be a bit highly flavoured, you can grab the minutes and find out exactly what went on.

Of course minutes don’t have to describe everything that happens at a meeting. Do we really need to know at what point in a particularly impassioned appeal for peace, universal love, and harmony the chairman choked on his dentures, or why an elderly council member left so suddenly when the name of a certain young lady was mentioned by his aunt’s second cousin’s nephew (once removed) in connection with a controversial planning application for a new erection at Menhir Fawr? But of course proper minutes will aways describe the business under discussion in an accessible way, and keep those who were not fortunate enough to be present fully informed.

This is particularly important where a community council is concerned. After all Welsh Government guidelines require that councillors take steps to acquaint themselves with all shades of option in the community they represent, even those they may disagree with. They are also supposed to ensure that everyone’s views get a fair hearing, and obviously everyone should be able to find out if they are doing that. Continue reading “From Community Council Minutes 1” →

Bypass consultation NOT!

Posted on By admin

As previously mentioned here, Gwynedd Council claims that they are carrying out a public consultation about their plans for a bypass. This is a statutory requirement prior to making a planning application for a major project and for the first time all the relevant documents are available for inspection, but only on the internet.


The question is whether this is a consultation at all. To begin with, Gwynedd Council refer to their project as the ‘A496 Llanbedr Access Improvement Scheme’, which does not describe the proposal accurately. The plan is, and always has been, to build a bypass. Far from improving access to Llanbedr with all that it has to offer, this will divert traffic away from the village. It cannot possibly be described as improving access to Llanbedr, and how can you claim that you are undertaking a consultation when you don’t even describe what you are doing properly?

But that’s not all. Surely for a consultation to be anything more than a sham, you have to make sure that the people who will be affected by the proposed scheme know that there is a consultation taking place, so that they can make any representations they wish? In this case that would be every one who lives in the Llanbedr Community Council area as a bare minimum. Continue reading “Bypass consultation NOT!” →

Community Council non-election

Posted on By admin

 

Well the good news is that two vacancies on the council have been filled by Caroline Evans  and Robin  Ward.

Caroline, whose family home is Plas Gwynfryn, has a first class honours degree in industrial management from Nottingham University and Robin, who has lived in the village with his Welsh wife for over thirty years, has a first class honours degree in physics  from Aberystwyth University and was head of Radiological Protection, Environment, and Emergency Planning at Trawsfynydd nuclear power station.  So they have quite a range of skills that they can contribute public affairs in Llanbedr.

With plans for a bypass and a spaceport signalling the biggest change that Llanbedr has faced since the bridge over the River Artro was built some 400 years ago, they would seem to have just the kind of skills to bring some kind of sanity to the Community Councils deliberations on such matters. With luck they may also be able to undo some of the harm that has been done by the  council’s appalling failure to keep the rest of us informed about these plans and act as a conduit for the views of both those who welcome these developments and those who wish to oppose them. Continue reading “Community Council non-election” →