To wonder what can be done about ex mining towns in Wales?

[WelshDragon999]

I'm welsh, lived in Wales since I was born. Have lived in a variety of areas from Swansea to Cardiff and also abertillery, aberdare, Pontypridd, Blaina...
The cities do OK, and some of the small towns and parts of the valleys do ok if they're on a certain travel route, commutable or near a uni. But large areas of ex mining towns are suffering...
mental health issues, addiction issues, unemployment and a lack of amenities.
In one area (cwmbach, outskirts of aberdare) I was one of the only people in my block of flats that had a job - not for the lack of trying but there weren't many going. The local asda had over 1500 applicants for a temporary position and there wasn't much else going in the area. There still doesn't seem to be but I dearly hope things have improved.
I don't know if other areas are like this but Everyone seems wrapped up in London and the south of England because of how expensive it is
Aibu to wonder if anything can be done and if anyone ever really cares? Sadly I don't see many politicians giving much of a shit.

I don't think it's just Wales- there are many areas of the country with a lack of jobs/only seasonal jobs/no careers, and it can become a vicious cycle.

I don't know what the answer is, but with improvements in technology, there ought to be more scope for people working remotely, and businesses/large organisations not needing to have everyone together in on physical office.

Tax breaks for small companies sounds like a good idea in theory, but many of those companies won't employ anyone for years- or if they do, it may be seasonal and part time. Subsidies and tax breaks for large employers to move out of the south east could work in some cases- but for any business that does need good transport links, obviously a central location is better.

Ultimately, though, I do think the world has changed and there are a lot of small rural towns that exist where they do for historical reasons e.g. mining towns, old market towns- and trying to bring jobs to them would be very artificial and hard work. A lot of young people from these sorts of towns go to uni and never come back. Perhaps it would help if young people who aren't capable of going to uni were given grants/loans to help them re-locate to a nearby city too?

And yes, Cornwall voted leave, despite being dependent on EU funding, EU farming subsidies and EU tourism for having any sort of economy at all. Even the CLA (Cornish Landowners Association) was trying to persuade people to vote remain.

There are reasons for this, though-

-Firstly, a lot of Cornish people tend towards insularity, not just racism or Xenophobia but not even liking people from other parts of the UK. In some towns, if your family haven't lived there for generations, you'll always be an outsider.

-Decline in traditional industries of farming, fishing and mining due to cheap imports. For some people, if we could "go back to the way it was" in the 1920s or whenever, things would be better (personally, I don't think they would be, but to some this is the answer).

-Relating to this, specific issues relating to the fishing industry (which is still an employer) politicized and blamed on the EU by certain local politicians. The actual situation is a lot more complicated, and the government could do a lot more to help small fishermen, but they won't, and until recently, the EU has been a convenient scapegoat. Things won't get better, but I can see how people think they might.

-We do get a decent amount of tourism from some other EU countries (like Germany) which obviously does help the county a bit. However, most tourism jobs aren't great (usually highly seasonal and poorly paid) and a lot of people resent the idea that the county is fine because tourism. They also resent the attitudes of some tourists who e.g. struggle with driving down small lanes, aren't good at dealing with livestock etc.

-Demographics. Less young, well educated people, as there aren't the jobs/careers for them. Less professionals. More older people/retirees. If you look at the demographics of Cornwall and those who voted leave/remain, the demographics of Cornwall reflect the type of people who were more likely to vote leave nationwide.

-Lack of publicity about how EU funds have been used. People are sort of aware they exist but often think they only go to farmers, or just disappear into a black hole. Lots of projects have been done with EU help, but (I guess for political reasons) this has never been well publicized.

So I can see why people voted leave, even though I think it will cause the county to suffer more in the future. I guess that similar factors affected parts of Wales?

It's odd because the obligations on projects to publicise the fact they are EU funded are quite strict. I can't walk 5 paces in Merthyr without seeing an EU sign. That's before you start thinking about people who have received free training or other forms of support.

It's really hard to imagine a situation where schools would close if EU citizens had to leave. If you're talking about Bishop Hedley, isn't that one of the better secondary schools?

There is a twinning programme at the moment which is linking up post industrial towns so council's can share best practice. Merthyr is with North Shields.

www.welovemerthyr.co.uk/public/blog_post/merthyr-tydfil-one-of-ten-uk-towns-selected-for-twinning-partnership#sthash.cGmqeb4e.dpbs

It’s hard to know exactly how much money we pay to the EU compared to how much we get back from the EU but it seems that roughly speaking we pay in £9 billion pounds more than we receive back from the EU. I truly hope that this £9billion filters into the communities we are taking about on this thread.

It would be nice LarLarLand but I'm not sure it will.
I don't think deprived communities are on the govs agenda at all.

Hopefully we will vote in a Labour govt to change that!

I'm a labour voter (have voted labour in every single election since I turned 18) the Conservatives chip away at us and Labour leaves us alone. Neither is really help, so I have to say I don't share your hope on that.

I think Corbyn would try to make a difference to the deprived areas of the North, SW and Wales. Milliband and Blair had no interest in the UK outside of London.

It's not just ex-mining communities either. The deprivation in many parts of Wales is shocking.

I'm a teacher and the education system has gone rapidly downhill due to cuts and backtracking on flagship policies. Without a decent education system at the base of it all, there isn't much hope.

Then there's the withdrawal of EU funding, the diabolical health care, the closure of shops and shopping centres, the lack of care, the "Jeremy Kyle" generation and the drug abuse.

To me, there isn't any hope at the moment.

He says that, much like those who came before him but would he follow through...? Who knows. That's not to say I won't vote for him (best of a bad bunch and all) but I don't have much faith in him either.
I feel the same Icantcope

Thanks for this post. We were considering moving to not too far outside of Cardiff and now this has really made me rethink. I've asked for advice from lots of people/places and no one has mentioned any of this. The plan was that as my husband works in insurance he was going to apply to work at Admiral and I was going to study SLT at Cardiff Met.

Where were you looking at going hopeless ?

It is Legs and probably have outed my self a little but it has been something that was mooted when the leave result came in.
Perhaps I am wrong and it won't come to fruition but we were initially worried.
We have had several families move back to Europe recently (for what ever reason)

Capacity building takes a lot of time and effort. not just money but a bottom up approach to asking communities what they think they need to help them. not parachuting in some jobs or some businesses which also usually coincidentally parachute in staff as well not take from the local community and train up.

it takes generations of time to regenerate an area because its about aspiration, attainment, what your parents are doing, role models etc.

there have to be other schemes in place to replace the EU funding and there will be but I don't think they will have anything like the flexibility and will be based on targeting specific industries with funding.

its not really a political issue, or it shouldn't be. it should be about taking the time to first engage with the community and then slowly build the capacity. things like wraparound child care can make a massive difference as can extra funding for schools and colleges and apprenticeships.

as for Corbyn and May - my worry is that both will just fund where they need votes and it wont be based on need but on power.

the indices of multiple depravation make interesting reading.

In all honesty I can’t remember Blair, Milliand etc ever saying anything much about the plight of deprived areas of the UK. They were all so incredibly metrocentric in their outlook. I hope that once the EU debacle is sorted out the money which doesn’t have to be earmarked for EU membership is redirected to Wales and other deserving areas of the UK.

I don't know these places, I only know of them from hearing about the problems over the last 30 years.

I think these problems are a side-effect of social security, which keeps economically obsolete locations on life-support instead of allowing them to die/shrink.

One solution might be to set a life-time limit for claiming benefits for any local authority area that has joblessness in say the top 5%. Meaning that in 1 in 20 locations, where unemployment is worst, people would be forced to leave the area before they would be eligible for benefits.

I realise it's a little counter-intuitive to say that you shouldn't pay unemployment benefits in the places with most unemployment. Probably a better way to frame it is that you should only pay job-seekers in places where there are actually jobs...

I have just found the figures from the Office of National Statistics. Annually the UK pays £13.1 billion to the EU. We receive £4.5 billion back.

hopeless it really depends on where you go. I'm planning to buy in the valleys in a few years. The areas are very different. Rhondda, Rhymney and cynon valley have better infrastructure than the Gwent and Ogmore valleys. Even in the better areas location is everything.

The infrastructure badly needs to improve. Trying to get anywhere in South Wales is a special kind of nightmare. Without infrastructure, companies are unlikely to move there. Unfortunately without anything to draw large amounts of people there, there's nothing to push the development of infrastructure either. It's a shame because they are beautiful places and people are just being pushed out (if they can even manage to get out) and the culture is dying with the older generations. Plus crippling poverty traps people into patterns of deprivation and all of the social problems which come with that.

Selling off the railways and public transport didn't help because the transport links are appalling as well as the roads. It's not profitable for companies to run better services there, so they don't.

Firesuit - how are people supposed to leave an area when they have no money? It costs quite a lot to relocate. Not to mention being incredibly destructive to communities.

Surely a better plan would be to offer incentives, maybe tax breaks, to companies which set up or relocate in areas with high unemployment.

@WelshDragon999 we looked up around Pontypridd, but it was just dependent on rental price to be honest. We can afford about 720pcm max.

Firesuit - really, do you think that this is a solution?

asking people to uproot their families, leaving behind their support network, moving their kids away from schools etc.

how would the areas that they are expected to move to cope in relation to things like school, health care? how would the transport network cope with a sudden influx of more people on the roads or more commuters.

you are suggesting that the people move to the jobs. this is against the conventional wisdom that you move the jobs to the people.

how would you force people to leave an area? would you lay on trains for them and ship them out in some sort of journey of shame?

You can capacity build and you can bring jobs to where the workforce is but it takes a lot of time and effort on the ground to make this happen and it takes long term planning and long term commitment. you don't just solve the problem in a few minutes.

we have to look at trying to deal with the issues all together and not piecemeal. its no good funding a new business if you haven't trained the workforce beforehand with the skills that business needs. its no point providing education and training if there are no jobs to go to. you have to do both and you have to invest time and money, lots of money in the short term to make it happen.

trouble is, everything is about short termism now. bung the unemployed a bit of money, not too much, just so they can eat and live because who wants to invest millions in helping with childcare, upskilling the parents etc.

(I currently live in an affluent town in the Stockport borough but we can't afford to rent here now the market has gone crazy!)

For 720 a month (presuming you only need 1-2 beds) you could stay in Cardiff itself, in some of the less prestigious areas or a flat.
Pontypridd is also a safe bet, Pontypridd itself isn't too bad. Up and coming and due to the university of South Wales in trefforest has a large student population. It's further up the valleys that the issues get worse and worse.
Pontypridd is one of the places that's an easy commute into Cardiff, so does ok. calm down

Thanks for that Welsh, very much appreciated. We need a 3 bed, and the prices here are 800-900 :(