PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

In his latest budget last month, the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed that the UK Government would be scrapping the Severn bridge tolls by the end of next year. This follows considerable pressure from various business groups and a vote by all political parties in the National Assembly for Wales for backing the abolition of tolls on the crossings between the West of England and South Wales. This will finally bring an end what many businesspeople see as a tax not only on entering Wales but on future opportunities for greater investment and access to key markets by Welsh firms. When the first Severn Bridge was opened on September 8th 1966, the charge for crossing into Wales was set at two shillings and sixpence (or 12.5p in today’s money). Not surprisingly when Government gets a chance to tax the public (and despite the building of a second Severn crossing in 1992), this fee has gradually increased over the last fifty-one years and now stands at £6.70 for cars and £20 fo...

Last month, I left the University of Wales after five years to take up a new chair in entrepreneurship and strategy at Bristol Business School. It will be a fascinating challenge but not one that means that I will be leaving the world of business and enterprise in Wales. I will remain as a business columnist for the Western Mail and its sister paper in North Wales, the Daily Post. The Wales Fast Growth 50 – which is in its fifteenth year – goes from strength to strength and we have a full house for the award ceremony in October. I am also continuing to work closely with the Welsh Government to complete the second part of the access to finance review by the end of the year. More importantly, of course, I will still be living in Wales and spending my income in the restaurants and pubs of Cardiff! In fact, having been employed within the Welsh university sector since 1996 when I returned from Ireland to take up my first chair at the University of Glamorgan, a number of friends...