Best wishes to all Leader readers for New Year 2017.
I met up with the North East Wales-based Network Director of the brilliant Co-Production Network for Wales, working for an approach to public services which enables people and professionals to share power and work together in equal relationships to make public services more effective and relevant, helping people and communities identify the strengths and assets they already have, in order to tackle the root problems preventing them from reaching their potential.
In this context, it was great to visit the British Red Cross Abergele office to hear more about their new ‘Community Connectors’ service, designed to tackle loneliness and isolation by identifying people’s individual needs and concerns and then helping them to reconnect with their communities through activities, interest groups and communication with appropriate service providers. Without the right support at the right time, protecting an individual’s independence and supporting their strengths, feeling lonely or isolated can affect their well-being, contributing to poor health and pressure on public services.
I met the Cambrian Rally Clerk-of-the-Course to discuss the urgent need for the Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales to deliver a solution with the Motor Sports Association and Welsh Association of Motor Clubs that safeguards the 62nd Cambrian Rally in the forests of North Wales and the contribution this makes to the local economy.
Other engagements have included the Deeside Business Network and FUW (Farmers Union of Wales) Anglesey.
With Labour Welsh Government in charge of economic development in Wales since 1999, new economic prosperity figures measuring the value (GVA) of goods and services produced per head of population show North Wales is trailing even further behind the rest of the UK.
West Wales and the Valleys, including four North Wales counties, Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy and Denbighshire, still has the lowest GVA per head of all UK sub regions, down again to just 63.3% of the UK average. Worryingly, even GVA per head in Wrexham and Flintshire, which stood at 99.3% of the UK average in 1999, has fallen again to just 84% of the UK average.
The Welsh Government must enable North Wales to achieve its potential by giving it the powers called for by the North Wales Economic Ambition Board.
If you need my help, please email [email protected] or ring 0300 200 7217.