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.

There's also the "crazy" solution that the government hires people to construct and then staff the infrastructure, healthcare, education, community projects etc... I mean it would create jobs. And people having wealth in an area then tends to lead to innovation and entrepreneurship.

It costs quite a lot to relocate.

The only thing that really needs to move is a single adult carrying one suitcase. That costs virtually nothing. Havin said that, a benefit to cover relocation costs would be fine, if it were going to reduce long-term costs.

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

I'm not saying we should never try to bolster deprived areas, but as a general rule, that is the exact opposite of how things should work. Communism has failed, market forces contain infinitely more wisdom than a few politicians and civil servants can muster between themselves.

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

I think in practise you would start off with young single people. If nearly all those leaving full-time education immediately left the area that would solve the problem, over time.

The only thing that really needs to move is a single adult carrying one suitcase

Eh?

I live in rural South Australia but grew up in Wales.

The answer here is tourism and farming. The tourism works and the farms do well.

Because the government has invested in both. That's all...the two are comparable because both have a lot to offer tourists....

welshDragon It seems government has already had the same thought regarding moving parts of HMRC to Wales -
Though only to Cardiff, not the Valleys.
Apologies I don’t know how to do proper links from my phone.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.walesonline.co.uk/business/commercial-property/biggest-ever-office-deal-wales-13445410.amp

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

I think this "conventional wisdom" only exists in places that have comprehensive social security. I don't think there's any "wisdom" involved, it's simply what people want, or feel entitled to. People in the UK do seem to feel entitled to stay in the area where they were born, even if that means they spend most of their life on benefits.

I don't agree that they are right to think that. I don't think giving people the right not to move should be one of the things the benefits system aims to provide.

I may be biased, as my father's job required us to move house to somewhere hours away, every several years. So for me it is completely normal that you move for work. (And that was not even a case of changing employer, but of of his employer having a policy that for the benefit of the organisation employees should not stay in one place for too long.)

Watching with interest.

Isn’t improving prospects for towns in Wales something that the Welsh Assembly would/should be focussing on?

I completely understand that the WA don’t have an unlimited budget for this, especially now, with the government wanting to make savings in public spending. I also understand that the WA have lots of other equally important things to focus on.

Having said that though, this is a really important issue that we need to solve - or at least proactively work towards solving - especially now that these towns most probably won’t receive funding anymore from the EU once Britain leaves the EU.

Eh?

Well, obviously more than one single adult. I meant that's the unit that needs to be moved, a single adult and (optionally) whatever they're capable of taking with them. Repeat that for as many adults as necessary and the problem is solved.

I came to the UK at the age of 22, carrying one suitcase full of clothes. It's quite normal for people to move permanently to the other side of the world carrying no more than can be fitted in their luggage allowance, so I find the idea ridiculous that it's so complicated and expensive to move from one part of the UK to another that it's better instead to live your whole life on benefits.

@Firesuit but the places with jobs tend to be more expensive to live in, and your one person with one suitcase? What if they have furniture? Are they all going to move to fully furnished, affordable accommodation?

The situation in the valleys has no chance of really improving as long as we have a conservative government as there's no votes in it for them and only a slight chance of improving under a labour government. There's a limit to what the Welsh Government can do given that most solutions will, no doubt, require a lot of money.

It's definitely a focus for the Welsh Government. The Talk Valleys initiative, Enterprise Zones, the Cardiff Captial Region Deal, electrification of railways, metro, loads and loads of policies around it.

This is a problem in many ex-industrial towns up and down the country. The lack of jobs has resulted in at least two lost generations - those aged about 50-60 who lost their jobs 30 years ago and have been unemployed ever since, and those aged 30-40 who grew up and had no jobs waiting for them so have probably never been employed. I agree it is partly facilitated by benefits which make long term unemployment possible.

The situation is starting to change now in some places. Decent transport links and house building allow commuters to move into these places, and local service industries such as cinemas, restaurants and supermarkets etc are being built to serve the commuters, thus creating jobs (in most cases min wage jobs, but jobs at least). This of course creates a new problem where the existing residents who work locally are poorer than the new residents who commute! Also in some places regeneration is helping small businesses move into premises that are cheaper than city centre locations.

Unfortunately there is still a hard core of uneducated people in some of these places who want the mines to reopen and don't want to engage with soft skills in the new service industries. Unemployment and substance abuse seems to be rife among this group. I have no idea how to deal with it other than waiting for time to reduce their numbers.

You can't live out of a suitcase forever. You need a house, which involves deposits, agency costs and then the cost of moving or repurchasing your possessions and furniture. That's what I meant by expensive, particularly for a family as opposed to a single young adult who is prepared to rough it for a bit.

Also, though - you can't realistically jobhunt without an address, or regular access to a shower and a place to wash your clothes and store them between washes. The cost of eating out or buying ready prepared food because you have nowhere to store or cook it will also mount up. If you find a job before you move, you'll still need a place to stay and facilities for washing, cooking, etc. Hotels aren't free, and sleeping on a park bench isn't practical, safe or a reasonable expectation. For fleeing danger, perhaps. For relocating, no.

If you have children or other dependants you can't simply leave them, and you can't drag them around hotels or park benches for weeks or months while you find a job/house either.

@hopelessandhopeful
Search this in rightmove if you can go a little higher. It's lush.
3 bedroom apartment

Cardiff Road, Llandaff, Cardiff

Firesuit, that happened in Wales already. Back in the 60s the grammar school children went off to university or to a city for a good white collar job. Some stayed for white collar jobs in or indirectly reliant on the coal industry.

Ignore the school checker though. It's wrong.

Different corp. tax rates for different areas. Most expensive in London, cheaper in Blackpool/Wales/Cornwall. Obviously monitored to ensure the head office work and employment actually takes place in those areas.

Boom - jobs and higher wealth to the area, & London is relieved of some of its pressure. London would obviously remain our capital as most companies, especially large multinationals, wouldn't want to leave. If you up the rate in London and keep it same or lower in poorer areas, we get some more revenue too.

Germany already has this system I believe.

My mil lives in Blackwood. She works in the tax office in Llanishen.
In 2020, they’re moving the tax office to the centre of Cardiff. She plans on retiring before then as at her age she just can’t face the commute.
The Valleys are forgotten about. No one seems to care. They’ve had lots and lots of EU funding which will just go now because locals voted out ffs 🤦🏻‍♀️

There are some beautiful areas around there. They really need to invest in the area and concentrate on the beauty of the place and attract tourists imo.

Market forces need regulation. It's not about communism as an alternative, but capitalism alone doesn't work either. If you go simply with market forces there is nothing to stop monopolies and stagnation of progress, corruption and artificial inflation of prices.

Market forces combined with regulation to protect the vulnerable is usually the best combination, IMO. Of course different people will have different ideas of what "protect the vulnerable" means. I think it's important to protect communities where possible.

I agree with others that sometimes the best answer is to give people funds and encouragement to move, instead of to stay put, especially younger people without families and ties that make it harder, and particularly to make sure that the children in these areas are getting a good education to give them these options (abd maybe to make it more desirable for employers also).
Yes, it's hard to move without family, but like other people on this thread, I left my home country in my early twenties with very little money, a suitcase, and no support network. The big advantages I had were decent education (so after a while in bar work I got a job in a bigger company and could start working my way up) and in some ways, by having no 'net' to catch me, when things got rough I knew that there was no real option but to continue.

do you think there is a sort of collective dispondency in these areas?

To those saying that lack of infrastructure is the reason some places cant be developed or thrive, look at cities such as stoke on trent; great infrastructure but no companies will invest and the reason is the poor education of the local inhabitants. Amazon planned to build a watehouse there but went further south instead. All the old mining towns seem beyond hope, certainly for the next few decades.

It seems to me that there's plenty of £ in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan and Porthcawl, but other areas in South Wales are like a different world.

I think these areas could be helped by massively stepping up building houses around the country with factory-built methods (you can actually build nice houses this way now) and using former industrial/mining areas as centres for manufacturing them, then shipping out to where they are needed.

OTOH, it won't be long until this sort of work is almost entirely mechanised.

I was told that they have a small village mentality. If the last place of work closed they would not be willing to move or travel to find something else. Living 2 doors down from your Mam, across the road from your Auntie and cousins who live around the corner keeps them where they are.