Plaid Manifesto - Points of Interests for the People of Llanelli - 08/04/08

Plaid Cymru launched this week its Carmarthenshire Manifesto for the  County Council elections on the 1st of May. 'Moving Carmarthenshire Forward'. Of particular interest to the people of Llanelli is the commitment to try and alleviate the worst effects of out of town retail parks on town centres, to expand the supply  of affordable homes for local people,  to promote and expand waste recycling schemes. as well as safer communities.

Revitalising the town centre. Plaid will urge the Council  to prepare an intervention strategy and urgently investigate the possibility of obtaining European funding for regeneration of the town.

The Council must also consider introducing free parking seven days a week in the town centre and make an application to the Assembly Government for rate relief for traders in the town centre.

Plaid Cymru will insist that a “think tank” of experts be established to come up with new exciting ideas for revitalising the town centre.

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Affordable Housing  Launching the Manifesto Peter Hughes Griffiths the Plaid Cymru Leader on Carmarthenshire County Council explained how the current planning system stifles the development of affordable housing, but through the ‘One Wales’ agreement, Plaid is giving Local Authorities the tools to tackle the affordable housing crisis in their communities by introducing new planning regulations. “A Plaid controlled Carmarthenshire County Council would support the development of County Land Trusts as they have done in Plaid-run Gwynedd County Council and also free up more publicly owned land for affordable housing developments. We would also retain the Council’s rented stock and investigate ways of increasing provision of social housing,” he said.

Recycling. The Manifesto refers to the need to expand the waste recycling schemes and to ensure that recycling is easy and accessible to every resident. Plaid would also phase out all incandescent light bulbs used by the Authority by 2012.

Safer Communities. Plaid believes that developing youth services & more local job opportunities are the most effective way of promoting safer communities. Supporting and safeguarding the position of community based youth workers to enable them to develop  longer term youth projects within a network of clubs is the way ahead as well as provision of a variety of attractive amenities for young people. "The whole democratic structure of the County Council is unsatisfactory." said the Plaid Leader. "The Cabinet and officers have far too much control. We must take steps to change and  create a fairer system."

Other headings included in the ‘Moving Carmarthenshire Forward’ Manifesto includes – Regeneration of Communities and Economic Development, Planning, Safer Communities, Youth Services, Leisure and Healthier County and The Welsh Language and Culture.

The Plaid ‘Moving Carmarthenshire Forward’ Manifesto is available here...