The leader of the Labour group in Merthyr has set out what its priorities would be if chosen to run the council at the elections this year. Darren Roberts, who has served as a councillor for Merthyr Vale since 2012, explained the areas that a Labour-run council would focus on, including education, leisure services, bus services, parks and play areas, and clean streets.
Labour ran the council before the independents took control of the authority after winning the 2017 vote. Labour has a total of 29 candidates standing at this election in all of the county borough’s wards.
He said the party has set out six main priorities ahead of the council elections on May 5, which are fundamental goals that it wants to achieve over the next five years.
Education
The first is to raise education standards and Mr Roberts said: “The local authority’s come on over recent years but it’s our thought that there’s still a hell of a lot of work to do.” He said although the tables are not liked they used to be and they had a fairly decent Estyn inspection, which is showing improvement, there’s still a lot to do.
“We want to make sure that we move up the rankings in Wales. For far too long we’ve been down the bottom and down in the doldrums of Wales as a local authority so we want to make sure that we actually improve education.”
Playgrounds and parks
Mr Roberts also said Labour would look to provide better playgrounds and parks. He said this is something that has been addressed by the council with work done on four or five playgrounds but he said his party has identified that too many of Merthyr Tydfil’s playgrounds are old and need updating.
He said: “But more importantly we’ve realised that a lot of them haven’t got apparatus or facilities which are suitable for people with disabilities. There’s not that many parks that people with disabilities can access.”
He said over a five-year term, it would replace as much of the apparatus as possible. Mr Roberts said it would look to protect green spaces and make sure they’re being used appropriately.
Leisure services
On leisure services, he said: “The leisure trust was set up for all the right reasons. It was to open opportunities for the leisure trust to apply for funding and save on VAT and things like that.” But he said: “The world has moved on and we’re being approached by councillors and as candidates all the time by residents saying ‘what’s happening with our leisure services?’.
“Now that’s not a slur in any shape or form on the leisure trust or its staff who do an absolutely amazing job. It’s just the link between the local authority and the leisure trust may not be working as efficiently as it should be.”
He said Labour would consult with the public and the leisure trust to explore options such as bringing services back under council control or keeping it as it is but making changes. He said: “There needs to be a new open dialogue now between the trust and the local authority to see if we can go forward because at the end of the day it’s the public that need these services and deserve these services.”
Scrapping pitch maintenance fees
Moving on to helping sports clubs, Mr Roberts said when there were years of negative settlements from Welsh Government and austerity was biting really hard, some difficult decisions had to be made and one of those was to charge sports clubs for the maintenance of their pitches. He said: “We think now with the positive settlements that we’re getting, and obviously post Covid, that we need to address that because things have changed.”
He said Labour is not looking to just suspend sport pitch fees for three years – it is looking to do away with them all together so sports clubs can count on that support for the benefit of their members and players.
Safer and cleaner streets
Speaking about safer and cleaner streets, Mr Roberts said: “We need a tougher approach when it comes to fly-tipping. It seems to come up every election. But the biggest problem is private-owned land and unregistered land.”
He said that no one is responsible for unregistered land but that doesn’t mean fly-tipping should just be left there. “We need a strategy and a plan to make sure that any fly-tipping is not only reported quickly and investigated but removed as well,” he said.
He added: “It’s been a blight on our landscape for far too long.” Turning to dog fouling and pest control, he said in austere times, the dog warden was taken away and a charge was put in place for pest control.
He said Labour would either like to see that reduced or taken away altogether, depending on how much the council can do. He said: “It links in with the fly-tipping because if there’s less fly-tipping and less rubbish on our roads then hopefully there will be less vermin and less pest control so less of a burden on the local authority.”
Bus services
Mr Roberts said bus services are in need of improvement. He said: “Unfortunately we’re seeing routes cancelled and services taken off day in day out.”
He said that there’s an issue with there not being as many drivers at the moment but with the new metro service, new bus station and electrification of the railways, Merthyr Tydfil needs a bus service that’s fit for purpose and if new services are needed, Labour would look to try to do that.
Other areas
In terms of other things his party would like to address, Mr Roberts said it would be looking at supporting public transport legislation via the Welsh Government, protecting vulnerable people through social care services, supporting initiatives to improve mental health and well-being, reducing domestic violence and building on the work the Welsh Government is doing around free school meals. He said the cost of living crisis is a big one and it’s going to need Welsh and UK Government support but it’s always local government that has to deliver on support for local communities.
He said: “It’s a tough one. There’s a lot of challenges ahead but with a strong Labour council I think that we can overcome those challenges and hopefully make Merthyr Tydfil better.”
The candidates and the campaign
In terms of the Labour campaign and the candidates in Merthyr Tydfil, Mr Roberts said: “We’ve got a good cohort of candidates. Various skill sets in there. We’ve got a mixture of experienced and new, youth and older candidates, male and female. We’ve got a good mix and we’re very happy with the positive response that we’re getting on the doorstep at the moment.”
The other candidates in the Merthyr Vale ward are Lynne Colston (independent) and Scott Thomas (Labour).
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