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Disaster not disappointment for Rhyl

According to the BBC this week, the decision to axe the Communities First scheme in Rhyl at the end of this year has been described as 'disappointing'.

Disastrous would be a more apt description and it reflects badly on the Welsh Assembly Government and its commitment to regeneration.

As this blog pointed out just over a month ago, three of the five most deprived wards in Wales are based in Rhyl.

Yet the decision has been made to scrap the Communities First programme, with everyone to blame but the Assembly Government.

If WAG cannot get its act together here in the poorest parts of our nation, what hope is there for the rest of Wales.

Comments

Anonymous said…
thanks for posting on this, the poorest can't fight back can they and since when has WAG taken responsibility for failure or anything for that matter, keep on blogging Prof.
Anonymous said…
Yes - I was also amazed to read this and would like to know more about the reasons for the failure of Communities First in Rhyl. I have seen this unhelpful quote:

Mark Webster, who represents Rhyl West on the town council was not surprised at the news.

"Communities First probably caused more trouble than good in West Rhyl," he said. "There are a hell of a lot of people out of work and below the bread-line and they all saw pound signs.

"Every street wanted to set up a group and they were all fighting and people who actually owned businesses were going to the meetings and wanting money for being there.

"It should have been called Money First instead of Communities First.

"A few groups did really well but most just fought against each other. It was just too much money for people who couldn’t handle it."


Was no-one in control of the overall project? Would it not have been their job to co-ordinate and set guidelines etc? And if I was a West Rhyl resident I would be feeling very insulted by my "representative"!

Apparently the new arrangements to support regeneration will be in place by April 2009 - that's some delay for the underprivileged in such a run down area. It just drags on and on....
Anonymous said…
WAG is only interested in supporting Cardiff and the White Elephants that draw endless funding on a yearly basis. The Plaid lot are only interested in the Plaid interest. Why spend £20k on a .cym web address when the official reports show that the trend is away from local (.co.uk etc) and towards global .com) Anyway, bilingually in English announciation, who would want a .cum address. Plaid .cum.
sounds about right to me !!!!
Anonymous said…
Yes it sounds like a disaster Prof. So what do you think needs doing to put it right?
Anonymous said…
may be an evaluation of what was achieved in reality would be good, usually less than 20% gets through to the community.
The scheme is often devisive and causes more hassle than good in the way it is set up
It could be so productive if it was focus properly and run with out all the commitees
Anonymous said…
Its needs to be better funded!
Anonymous said…
Colin W - how much more money do you and DJE want to throw at this problem?!
Valleys Mam is right.
This is just not necessarily an issue of more funding but of the way the whole scheme is organised. The best schemes work when the communities are fully engaged in the process i.e. a bottom up approach. Instead, it would seem that the dead hand of public sector bureaucracy at a local and Assembly level is stifling any development within this area. When the blame game starts amongst the different agencies, then you known that they have all buggered up spectacularly, to use an academic phrase.
However, if we are discussing funding regimes, then I have argued, on numerous occasions that a proportion of the billions of European funding available should be linked directly to the prosperity of an area. This, if done properly, could encourage private and public sector investment into the poorest areas such as Rhyl West, and ensure that we begin to resolve some of the long term problems of our poorest communities. It should be the priority of the Assembly Government, over the next three years, to improve the relative wealth of our most deprived communities.
Anonymous said…
So are you saying no additional money is needed then Prof?
Colin W. I think you need a fully costed approach that involves the local communities. I don't know how much money was made available under Communities First for Rhyl West but is certainly seems to not have been used properly. I would be supportive of the principle of focusing some of the billions from Europe on addressing the issues within our most deprived communities, including Rhyl West but again, I as I have said, that should include the people of the area as they are the ones who have a stake in their local communities
Anonymous said…
So, if local people in the area said "we believe we need more money to make this work" from say, a Conservative-led Welsh Assembly Government, you would recommend that money was made available, yes?
Yes, I would make more money available, probably through spatial targeting via Convergence Funds to the most deprived areas in Wales such as Rhyl West.
Anonymous said…
Given that you say not enough is being done and also, you would make money available - in Rhyl's case, how much do you think it would take to put right? £5 million? £10 million?
Anonymous said…
I don' think anyone can say how much money is needed but certainly Dylan is right in saying that more funding needs to be commiteed from european funds to our poorest areas, something which the Assembly has failed to do so fra

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