A FUTURE FOR ANGLESEY?

Last week, Anglesey suffered a major blow when the plan to build a major retail, business and leisure park on the island, and create 1300 new jobs, was cancelled by developers when the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) decided to call the scheme in for a public enquiry.

This came after Anglesey Aluminium had decided to shut its Holyhead plant with the loss of 500 jobs, the earlier closure of large firms such as Eaton Electronics, and the rejection of the opportunity to build a sustainable job-creating marina at Beaumaris.

Whilst some local economies could cope with such disappointments, it must be remembered that Anglesey remains the poorest county in the whole of the UK, where the average prosperity is £10,560, roughly half the national average.

You would therefore have thought that in an economic situation where Anglesey is faring worse than any other part of the UK, WAG would have now stepped in with some serious long term financial support. Yet, apart from the £15 million provided for the so-called “Mon and Menai” plan, much of which will go to Bangor and its university, no real cash has been put together to support the island.

Whilst officials within both the North Wales branch of WAG and Anglesey Council are passionate about supporting the local economy, their efforts will ultimately be wasted if politicians won’t make the money available to make a real difference to the economy.

Of course, those in Government would argue that they are already making a difference but their only real tool for coping with the recession, namely the ProAct scheme, has had little impact on supporting industry on the island. In addition, the hundreds of small businesses on Anglesey are still wondering what happened to Plaid Cymru’s election pledge to cut business rates, a promise that somehow disappeared once the party entered into coalition with Labour.

Worst of all, whilst there is £2 billion of European funding available to support poor areas such as Anglesey, very little of it (with the exception of the new £5 million coastal project) has gone to help the local economy.

So what can be done about Anglesey’s economy?

As I mentioned earlier, the island is the poorest county in the whole of the UK and given such an exceptional situation, there needs to be an exceptional approach.

At the very least, the Assembly should break with its current policy of ignoring local demands and devote a significant amount of support directly for the island, guaranteeing at least £100 million from European Structural Funding over the next five years and matching that directly from its economic development budget.

This would ensure that officials could begin to plan the economic recovery of the island knowing they have money available and develop an offer to private businesses that could be unrivalled in the whole of Wales.

Of course, if the politicians wanted to be really visionary, they could press to ensure that Wylfa B is commissioned as soon as possible and ensure that a proper infrastructure is created around the new power station, such as a new science park focused on supporting the nuclear industry and the energy generating sector as a whole.

Indeed, there would be no reason why Anglesey couldn’t assume the tag of “the energy island”, especially given the massive potential of other types of climate friendly energy sources, such as wind, solar and tidal, all of which could also be prioritised for development to create several thousand sustainable well-paid jobs.

Wales is currently the poorest region in the UK and Anglesey the poorest county in Wales. If we are to address our long term economic problems across the nation, then there is no better to start than with Mon, Mam Cymru.