Policies or pipedreams?

Owain Williams, one of the founders of Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru and the leader of the Llais Gwynedd group on Gwynedd Council appears in today's Daily Post:

The leader surprisingly distances himself from applying any labels to his fledgling party.

“Our councillors come from a wide spectrum of abilities and opinions, and I believe we’re seeing here a historic move away from the London-centric and Cardiff-centric parties towards a more local form of democracy,” he says.

He believes that while it was the schools issue which brought things to a head, there was general dissatisfaction among the electorate with the way Gwynedd was being run. But he denies that his is a single-issue party doomed to fizzle out.

“It’s true to say we were formed on the back of objections to Plaid’s closure plans for the county’s schools, but if we were being seen as a single issue party, how would that explain our success in places like Pwllheli where closures are not on the agenda?

“Our policies are in the process of being put together. During the election Plaid kept challenging us about our policies, but they’ve had 80 years to put theirs together, while we’ve hardly had 80 days.

“The future of our schools is central to our thinking, which is why we can’t contemplate at this time jumping into bed in coalition with Plaid. It would be a betrayal of the thousands of people who voted for us.

“But that’s not to say that we don’t recognise that Gwynedd has a host of other problems that need addressing.”

He cites the economy and job creation as major areas where Plaid are failing locally, as well as the dearth of affordable housing or rented accommodation.

“With the economy, we need to move away from Plaid’s strategy of concentrating developments on the Menai Strait corridor, ignoring the needs of Dwyfor and Meirionnydd and indeed parts of Arfon.

“We need more work, but we’re not going to be attracting a major employer like Ford here. What we do have is a base of small businesses, and we need to target Objective One assistance at them to help them grow, and to help new ones develop.

“Housing is also a major problem. We need the planning department to be more flexible, especially in respect of modular housing – proper wooden houses of the type they use in Scandinavia that cost much less than conventional homes.

“I don’t see why new housing has to be confined to town and village boundaries, as long as they’re sensitively sited.”

Llais Gwynedd's councillors do indeed come from a "wide spectrum of abilities and opinions", which is why they're going to have a hard time trying to come up with any policies other than vague ideas about not closing certain rural schools. They will have the luxury of being in opposition, but once Plaid have addressed the schools issue -assuming that they do so to the satisfaction of rural communities- then there will be little point in voting for Llais next time around. Nevertheless, Plaid will have to look sharp about it if they don't want to see Llais throwing another spanner into the works during the next general elction.