Scraps for Llanelli

Dear Editor, I am not surprised at all with the devastation that Llanelli has descended into, as it all began to manifest itself when Llanelli’s destiny was placed in the hands of Carmarthenshire County Council, ever since that day, Llanelli’s ability as a Unitary Authority was lost and was looked upon and treated as a second rate town.

What I am disgusted at is that Llanelli has been represented by Labour M.Ps. ever since I can remember and now we have the honour of having a deserved “Damehood” upon our present Member of Parliament, Nia Griffith.

We also have an Assembly Member who is also a Labour politician and is the Deputy Climate Change Minister in the Welsh Government in Lee Waters.

Seeing as Llanelli has such high Labour representation and has been a bastion of support for the Labour Party for what seems forever, why has this deterioration been allowed to happen, why did our representative stand back and do nothing.

Both representatives will no doubt argue how much they have done for this Labour loyal town, then who is responsible for our economic growth being the worst in the United Kingdom and certainly the worst in Wales at 3% when Greater Llanelli has a population nearing 90,000 and Carmarthen (the hive of prosperity and activity) has a meagre population of around 13,000.

Llanelli is the 4th biggest town in Wales, with the largest population outside of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, all our council taxes go to Carmarthenshire County Council and now probably because of their guilt complex this money grabbing County Council are giving us a poultry £9.3 million in scraps off their dining table. .

Investment in businesses is severely restricted because of the lack of a good road access infrastructure predominantly to the West of Llanelli. Our Deputy Climate Change Minister refuses to support a much needed safe and accessible route into Llanelli from Burry Port, in other words a by-pass relief road.

If anyone doubts this last paragraph, contact the many business people that constantly fear for the future of the town because of the short sightedness of our representatives who are adopting a damaging “Green Washing” career enhancing attitude to ensure a safe, healthy environment for all people including Sandy Road residents, these people are the ones suffering most and all of a sudden it emerges that Llanelli is the most deprived town as mentioned in a local news outlet.

Llanelli has been an outstanding town for producing world class scrum and outside halves, but this development has rubbed off on our political representative in passing the buck/ball of blame on others.
Soon a Labour Government in Cardiff will stand by and allow the citizens of Llanelli that require serious health care to travel of 80 miles (one way) West to be treated at a new super hospital and they will still expect Llanelli people to support their Government in the polls.

Mr Waters has stated “he” will not allow any more roads to be built, even though his boss Climate Change Minister Julie James has plans to built thousands of new “Clean Air” homes without the proper road infrastructure in place first, so how will these people travel to and from these homes.

The rail and bus services in Wales and especially Llanelli are, poor, unreliable and expensive and Mr Waters believes that we should walk and cycle more or use the non existing wonderful services above he professes to be creating, again out of thin air.

His attempts to create a Wales full of 20 mph areas, with a system that has failed miserably in other European countries, but one he hopes will discourage the use of cars, take away our human rights of freedom of choice and movement, whilst cyclists have more autonomy on the roads, and endanger pedestrians by cycling on our pavements, with no M.O.T. Insurance or Road Tax to regulate them. Encouraging pedestrians to regularly breath filthy pollution well over WHO limits of 40 ugm-3 in Sandy Road.

Llanelli’s Labour Councillors will argue that the County Council have Plaid leadership and control over them, what they fail to say is their Labour controlled Welsh Government has control over the County Council.

Ray Jones

Sandy Road

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