To think wales is a huge problem that no one ever talks about?

[Cocklodger]

Right now Theresa May is cracking down on no win no fee solicitors
Mainly south Wales, in particular the valleys.
Back years ago when the mines were shut down rightfully there was nothing left to replace it. Nothing at all, it killed thousands of jobs, which was to be expected, but in exchange there was no new businesses, no back ups, nothing. And it's only gotten worse since, poverty is high, benefit claimants are quite common
Public transport is awful to say the least and if you can't commute to Cardiff by some means, you're screwed, most can't afford cars and if you're in a public transport black spot then you're severely limited to warehouse operative positions which have over 100 applicants in one to three days. Meanwhile house prices in Cardiff are rising, I think in 40 years we will have a new London.
In the valleys most looks grey, worn out and pretty dead to be honest. Where I live there are a few car dealerships and a train station, which is more like a bus stop with tracks next to it than an actual station and the nearest station with people actually manning the booths is pontypridd (45mins away by train) I spent years working as a volunteer for an agency that helps people with problems (poverty related) such as MH issues, finding work, food bank referrals and the like. I saw it every single day, people wanting to work but seldom getting anywhere.
There are articles and documentaries about it, but I never see them talked bout on here or elsewhere really, aibu to think that Wales is a big problem that no one really talks about?

I think some places have a very strong sense of community. For people who have little else in their lives this is very valuable, and difficult to give up for a gamble (that mythical Good Job elsewhere) that might not pay off.

I know this is true in former industrial / mining towns in the NW that nowadays some consider "rough" , like Blaenau Ffestiniog or Bethesda... maybe it's like that in the Valleys, too.

Much talk about lack of jobs but I know of one employer that needs to recruit around 20 people a month and ends up with agency workers because they can't get the applicants - this is in Swansea.

I am Welsh, (live in one of the areas you mentioned) and I don't recognise these descriptions of Wales...yes there are poor areas, as there are everywhere, but your statement is blanketing to say the least!

A lot of this conversation is around south Wales. I live in a town in Snowdonia.

We have no dentist, no recycling service, infrequent and unreliable public transport, terrible emergency service response times and effectiveness (I had to phone the police two years ago and they turned up about an hour too late and they were all special constables - or something along those lines, so had no power to arrest). It's close to impossible to get a doctor's appointment and schools are miles away.

We live here for my partner's job and the beaches/ mountains make up for it. But I do wonder exactly what our council tax pays for. We don't even have street lights where we live.

jelliebelly what terms are these employers offering? What qualifications do people need to apply? Is the salary commensurate with the job?

I would assume there is a mismatch somewhere. Coming off benefits onto a zero hours contract with no guarentee of hours or shifts, for example, is a hell of a risk. Esp if your new employer forbids you taking on a second job. Or another example - care work. If you do home visits you generally need a car and if you are not paid for travel time you can end up loosing money.

Also think about how people can practically move to other areas. Contact a London borough and get on the waiting list for social housing? They won't even consider you. So then private rental - you need a deposit plus all the associated money for moving - where do you get it? How do you afford SE rents on housing benefit whilst you look for work.

Obviously people, esp young single people, do move. But it's not so easy for families in poverty.

there are also lots and lots of young people that have been raised by 2 generations of adults on incapacity benefit.

Do you still get incapacity benefit in Wales?

how many of you outside Wales heard about the horrific stabbing of two young shop workers on Cardiff's main shopping street this week? If it had happened in London, there would have been massive rolling coverage.

I heard it mentioned on the brief 6 music news summary, so no, it wasn't completely ignored.

Blaenau Ffestiniog was one of the places that shocked me actually. It really felt like a ghost town in the middle of the day - closed and quiet to the point of almost feeling quite menacing.

It's interesting how expectations have changed over the years though. We talk about tight knit communities spanning generations but I don't think it's ever been the case.

My ancestors were miners and by tracing the family tree, I discovered that my great grandparents lived in Wales, Durham, Yorkshire and Canada as they went where the work was. We somehow seem to have gotten into the mindset that the work will come to us. I'm not sure what the answer is but I can't imagine uprooting my family every five years to start a new job in a new town or even a new country. I suppose the influx of foreign workers shows that this is still going on though.

Also it'd be a hell of a culture shock to go from a valleys village to living in London - even without all the impracticalities (and I think it'd be very impractical unless you had a job waiting for you). I went to London on a school trip a few years ago and hated it; it was far too busy. I'm sure that the people who live there love it but moving to London wouldn't be an option for me, or lots of other people I know. Imagine going from a quiet sleepy village in a country of 3 million to a city where the population is almost triple that of your country - the answer is not simply 'move'. Aside from the practicalities why the Welsh have to move to England just to get a job - Wales would cease to exist if everyone did that! Money needs to be spent on Wales, not just tell its people to move to London!

Schools are awful in Wales - at least the part I went to school in. No aspirations for anyone.

Reading this thread has made me feel lucky with where I live in Wales. There are plenty of jobs, good schools and a reasonable transport structure. It's near the boarder though, so perhaps that makes a difference.

My post is about the 130th and so far as I can see, only WankersHacksandThieves has put her/his finger on the point.
First, of course there are gorgeous parts of Wales an people making good living, but there are big, big problems and they are not going to get better by pretending there aren't. But those problems are not a result of Thatcher (may her name live in infamy) but because of history.
My family lived in the Somerset Levels for 400 years until the 1840s when the coming of railways and the enormous mineral wealth of South Wales drew them across the Bristol Channel. It was boom time. The population grew something like five-fold in a couple of decades and though the work was hard, mining paid. And education was valued: there was adult education throughout the Valleys and children were encouraged to read (not least by the tradition of the Chapel). There was music, culture (both Welsh and global via, for instance, art talks at the Miners' Educational Trust), social reform and mutual insurance funds to cover injury and illness. But the minerals were worked out.
Successive governments have given tax breaks, subsidy, loans, you name it to try to find something else to do for such a large population but it is in the wrong place. Unlike Liverpool, which shrank by 200,000 people between the 60s and the 90s because there is no Atlantic shipping trade anymore, the people of South Wales have stayed put. It cannot be a surprise that a population that settled to take advantage of a specific opportunity cannot be sustained at the same level once that opportunity has passed.
Which is where WankersHacksandThieves comes in. The reason the sort of jobs that are demanded in the Valleys aren't sustainable is because we live in a global economy. It costs as much to transport goods from China to Tilbury (on the Thames) as it does to get them from the supermarket home. So unless we produce at a cost way, way below anything possible in Europe, we can't compete and the jobs will stay away.
What's to do? Well just as in the 1840s when my family went to Wales, since the 1920s they have been slowly moving out to London, Canada, Spain, Slough, Wolverhampton, Somerset, you name it. We had roots too, but what good are roots when you can't feed your children properly or give them the opportunities you could elsewhere? The fact is South (not North) Wales has a population bigger than it can sustain. The exceptionally talented will remain and prosper, but for the majority the choice is to remain and be contented but with fewer resources and opportunities, or to leave. Man has migrated to find food, water and so on for thousands of millions of years. I don't understand why in the 21st century it is thought reasonable for him to stay put and insist that someone else brings opportunity to him.

The whole issue of wondering why Wales voted for Brexit when there is such massive investment by the EU into the area is an interesting one. I read some analysis that suggested that the votes for Brexit from this area were coming from people who felt entirely disenfranchised from the whole system. Why worry about house prices when your house has stayed at rock bottom price for the past generation? Why care about EU funding when you can see no real benefit to your life from such funding (the popular perception is that it is all spent on roads and huge building projects that do little for anyone except those building the roads etc)? Why worry about an economy you feel you have no stake in? Why feel grateful for EU handouts when you would rather not be reliant on a handout at all?

I don't claim to have any answers but I have lived in the valleys for five years and now live in Monmouthshire, which is a comparatively rich area who voted Remain. The differences between the two places are stark.

Name-checking TheHiphopopotamus. You posted while I was typing. You get it too.

I agree many of the problems Wales is facing are shared by other parts of the UK especially where traditional industries were huge providers of so called 'blue collar jobs'. I think Wales does not get huge media coverage because the Welsh Assembly gave it a provincialist label.

I agree with the lack of aspirations.

I'm from one of the valleys towns mentioned, I went to University and moved away. I don't think I was as well prepared for University and Professional Life as many of my friends from middle class backgrounds and better schools. I don't think I necessarily appreciated that till much later though.

That being said I have never felt like I belonged anywhere else as much as my home town,.

Scotland is the same with the loss of the shipbuilding industry around the Clyde. I think that's a lot of the reason behind the independence movement. They want to get control so they can solve their own problems. I had no idea that Wales was struggling too. Just goes to show how invisible it is for those who are not right there seeing it.

jelliebelly I don't consider prospects for my children poor. It's a poor area, but that doesn't mean there are no prospects.

I grew up in this village, on the council estate. The difference is that my mother encouraged me to better myself. She listened and encouraged me when school told her I had potential for university.

I went to a local university, did a degree and then professional exams. I got a good job. We bought our home here because this is where our family and friends are. I love where I live. The difference is I now live in the "nice" part of town on a private estate rather than the council estate where I grew up.

I encourage my kids to work hard at school, I tell them they can be whatever they want to be if they work hard enough. I have been saving for university for them since they were born.

The difference I think is that I'm not caught in a poverty trap. My mother worked 12 hour night shifts in a local factory to support me when I was growing up rather than claim benefits.

As soon as I turned 16 I got a job working evenings and weekends in a factory packing Christmas chocolates so that I could afford to go to college/university.

I did that because my mother encouraged me too, the problem with a lot of the families here now is that they are 2nd or 3rd generation of their families that are reliant on benefits and they don't know any other way of life.

They work out that a factory job wouldn't leave them any better off than being on benefits so they see no point in doing it. For me education was the answer, but for many here that simply won't have occurred to them, especially since school attendance/results are so low here that it's unlikely they'll achieve high enough grades for college.

I can tell you why I think people in wales voted for brexit is because they didn't feel they were benefitting from the EU and only saw jobs moving to eastern europe. It's all very well getting EU funding for a boulevard and other aesthetic improvements but it doesn't provide jobs. There is a perception (real or not) that EU funding goes on vanity projects.

What is happening in Wales is very similar to the situation in England - the money appears to stop at the capital city. The south east/london always seems to get everything at the expense of the north. Cardiff always seems to get the majority of funding, to the detriment of south west, mid and north wales.

Also it'd be a hell of a culture shock to go from a valleys village to living in London - even without all the impracticalities (and I think it'd be very impractical unless you had a job waiting for you). I went to London on a school trip a few years ago and hated it; it was far too busy.

London is not the only option. I grew up in a small town in the north sandwiched between two pit villages. I got my O and A levels, went to uni and I moved south- Surrey- which could not have been more different to living in a mining community. I loved it. My job came with accommodation - cheap- and in time I moved out to a house share.

The solution is , if you want work which is not on the doorstep, to train in something professional so that it open doors and can work almost anywhere.

It has to start in the schools; improve the quality of teaching, raise expectations, encourage kids to aim high, be prepared to re-locate. Get rid of the poverty of aspiration.

And the government can help by encouraging tax breaks for people willing to start their own businesses, or for businesses to invest in these locations.

People need to take responsibility for their own lives and not blame other people.

Do you still get incapacity benefit in Wales?
No. Benefits policy isn't devolved.

But many in the valleys lost mining and manufacturing jobs and discovered bad backs that stopped them ever working again. Their children left school and discovered they had depression that prevented them working. Their children have more hoops to jump through for their benefits but it wouldn't cross their minds to look at jobs 30 mins down the road in Cardiff.

he said like a true daily mail reader

The places I mention are some of the places I've lived in in the valleys, I've seen it in some, I'm not saying every town/village/area has the same issues, they don't, thats a simplistic view. But the whole county(Of rct) has got worrying levels of unemployment, poverty, alcoholism... One of the worst in the UK in fact.
Its a bit worrying to see I've lived in x place and never seen this... well, good for you, but plenty of places have them as evident in the statistics and experiences of others.
I've been off MN for a little while will read other comments

he said like a true daily mail reader

Or ex-civil servant with an economic portfolio. 😉