PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

One of the major issues facing economic growth within rural areas in Wales is the fact that a high number of young people are leaving to find jobs elsewhere. Like many, I left the county of Gwynedd to gain employment, and my first academic job was at Centre for Enterprise in Derwentside , County Durham with the aim of producing more enterprising young people who are confident and competent in the life-skills that will afford them a more stable future. With the emphasis by Gwynedd County Council on the development of the young people in the county through its “ Llwyddo’n Lleol” (Succeeding Locally) programme, it seemed that this was the ideal project for us to run from Bangor to support enterprise in the local environment. Therefore, working with four local schools in a pilot, we adapted the material developed in Durham and established our own Gwynedd Enterprise Project. The key to the success of the programme has been the involvement and commitment of teachers at each school. In Count...

Having first highlighted the dangers of the proposed ‘bed tax’ in the Daily Post and Western Mail on the 14th June , I am delighted that business and tourism organisations in North Wales, such as the FSB and North Wales Tourism (NWT) are now backing the call against yet another burden on those businesses that make up the backbone of the North Wales economy. Esther Roberts of NWT (with the author in the picture above) has e-mailed a petition to all its members and I am pleased to see that a number have these on hotel reception desks to sign. Whilst some have naively stated that the Lyons review is only considering the possibility of the bed tax in England, it is absolute nonsense to think that local authorities in Wales will not be examining its recommendations for raising council finance, especially as the Beecham Review of public services in Wales did not even touch on the subject of council tax reform. Indeed, the Welsh Local Government Association – representing all councils in Wa...

Last week, we had the annual debate over the A-levels, with some questioning their decreasing value to businesses whilst others applauded the improvement in grades amongst hard working students. In the midst of all this, a report was released by the University of Buckingham which made for disturbing reading, especially for those of us who would like to see a more knowledge-based economy in Wales that can compete with the best in the World. According to the report, entries to study for A-level physics since 1990 have fallen by 35 per cent as opposed to general rise of 12 per cent. As a result, one in four UK universities, that previously had a significant number of undergraduates studying physics, has stopped teaching it since 1994. As a physics graduate from Cardiff University , I feel enormous dismay at the results of this study, especially as the existence of more scientists in the workplace can only be good for our economy, especially given the increasing competition from China and ...

In May, a stretch of the A5 Trunk Road to the west of Corwen in North Wales was closed amid fear of a rock fall . As a result, a diversion was put into place which added half an hour to the original journey whilst the Assembly tried to make deals with local landowners to open an alternative route. Not surprisingly, many local businesses were affected as traditional commercial traffic using the road avoided the area and used other roads to get in and out of North Wales. When first examined, this looked like a case of bad luck which was dealt with quickly by the Assembly which, in the interest of safety, rightly closed the road. However, during the last week or so, it has emerged that this may not have been an emergency after all , and that the Assembly knew about problems with the road as long as four years ago. More importantly, officials had plenty of notice to close the road and develop an alternative route, something they singularly failed to do until it was too late. Not surprising...

Two weeks ago, the Jones-Evans clan spent a marvellous seven days in Tenby, staying in a flat a few steps from the North Beach. In fact, we parked our car on Saturday afternoon and did not go anywhere near it again until we were packing to leave. For most of our stay, two sets of buckets and spades on pristine sands kept both my sons very happy - that, and dragging their poor old dad into the water every morning for a swim! On the one day that it was cloudy, we jumped on the bus to Folly Farm - a working farm that has been converted to an award winning holiday attraction - where the kids spent the entire day feeding animals, riding on the attractions at a traditional fairground contained within an agricultural barn, and running and climbing about on different climbing frames around the grounds. As for food, when we occasionally ventured out with the two little monsters, my wife and I enjoyed excellent meals in the different restaurants dotted around the town. However, we also went shop...

A complementary letter today in the Western Mail , from a Mr DY Evans of Swansea who proposes that I should be involved in putting together the next Objective 1 programme. Flattery aside, I think I have said enough during the last few years to ensure that certainly will not happen, and I think the recent Finance Wales furore has definitely shown where I stand with the "great and good" in Wales. It is far more likely that the Eagles will do another farewell tour before anyone from the Ministry for Enterprise (an oxymoron surely) picks up the telephone. Ironically, it is followed by a letter from Jeff Cuthbert, Assembly member for Caerphilly and Chair of the Objective 1 Committee, who states that he wants "all sections of the Welsh economy to give us their responses and particularly the private sector". Well, Mr Cuthbert, given the track record of WEFO on backing private sector projects under the last Objective 1 scheme (i.e. around 50 out of 1300 projects) and the in...

Last week, a very interesting report emerged from the thin tank Reform . Entitled “ Whitehall’s last colonies ”, it reflected what an increasing number of economists have been thinking about the widening prosperity gap between Wales and other regions of the UK, namely that regional economic performance has become increasingly imbalanced over the last ten years between dynamic regions such as the South East of England and the rest of the economy. According to the authors, the main reason for this is the high dependency of certain regions on the public sector, a situation which has been accentuated as a result of the recent unprecedented increases in public spending. Only last month, another study from the CEBR suggested that the proportion of public spending in Wales was far higher than the average for other parts of the UK, a finding that was denied vehemently by the Assembly Government in the press. Interestingly, the Reform report uses the government’s own statistics to show that the...