The Rhondda’s Next Step

by Leanne Wood 2 The Rhondda’s Next Step

Introduction

There is a lot that we can do for ourselves.

In the past, when people here had very little, communities came together and built the miners’ institutes, the libraries, the clubs and the hospitals. They created a safety net before they had a welfare state.

In 1912, following the bitter industrial disputes of 1910/1, ‘The Miners’ Next Step’ was published. The pamphlet, written in the Rhondda, represented a move away from their previous liberal leadership and called for “decentralisation for negotiating, centralisation for fighting”, “elimination of the employer”, “against the nationalisation of the mines” and “for industrial democracy”.

It is time again to move on from previous leadership, to find new ways to organise and run the communities we live in and the local economy that sustains us. We can lead ourselves.

The Rhondda’s Next Step 3

Covid Recovery The Rhondda’s economic deterioration was steady and long‐term, and Covid has highlighted inequalities built up over decades of underinvestment and more than a decade of austerity. Not only did 2020 give us Covid, but the year began with a threat to the future of our local hospital, with consultant‐led emergency medicine mooted for closure and horrendous, life‐changing floods. A plan for the Rhondda to recover from Covid could cover all policy areas, but here, four are prioritised. Our Covid recovery plan aims to strengthen our health and social care system; address our long‐term economic weaknesses; prepare our communities for climate change and equip our people with the skills needed to do the work that needs doing here.

Health and Social Care We owe it to our exhausted and depleted workforce to ensure there are enough people with the right skills, space and kit not only to run good and effective services, but also to withstand future pandemics. The vast health inequalities exposed require a concerted effort to tackle them, with better health prevention measures and investment in mental health, wellbeing, disability and neuro‐diversity services.

The Workforce Wales is the only nation in the UK not to publish NHS vacancy rates. Recruitment and retention of health and social care staff was a problem before the pandemic.

The effects of austerity – a health example

When Wales was first hit with Covid, we were behind most of Europe in terms of numbers of Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) beds (6.6 per 100,000 of the population, compared to Italy’s 12.5 and a European average of 11.5 – Western Mail report, 12.3.20, Mark Smith). Each ITU bed is staffed by seven nurses. We must be better prepared for the next pandemic.

Decent pay and better care for health and social care staff would help to reverse the numbers leaving the profession, which are expected to be higher after Covid.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Train and recruit a 1000 new doctors and 5,000 new and mutuals to provide local care, cutting out middle nurses and other health and social care costs.

professionals. This would mean 175 new health and • Make wellbeing and emotional support available to all

care apprenticeships and jobs for people in the health and social care staff. Rhondda. • Make lower cost social mutual housing available for • Make personal care free and ensure carers are paid a social care workers. minimum of £10 per hour. • A Plaid Cymru Government will not downgrade The • Provide support for the setting up of care cooperatives Royal Glamorgan Hospital

Keeping Well High prevalence rates of diabetes, obesity and respiratory conditions have left people more vulnerable to Covid and need to be tackled.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Expand recreation schemes which enable walking, that will promote and deliver sexual health services, cycling, horse riding, gym and sports participation and addictions services, liver testing, smoking cessation swimming, and encourage more GPs to prescribe programmes, diet advice, health visitor and child outdoor physical activities. health programmes, mental health and community

• Establish a multi‐agency Rhondda Public Health team nursing services.

4 The Rhondda’s Next Step

Cancer Before the pandemic, the high numbers of Rhondda people diagnosed with cancer in A&E showed many people’s reluctance to check suspicious symptoms with their GP. Covid has worsened the situation. Prior to Covid, an average of 2,248 people each month entered cancer treatment in Cwm Taf Morgannwg, falling to 1,722 in March 2020 and 893 in April. Across Wales, Macmillan estimates at least 3,500 missed cancer diagnoses in the first year of the pandemic.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Open one of a network of cancer diagnosis centres in the Rhondda, with investment in the right equipment and staff. Our preferred location for this would be in the Porth / lower Ynyshir area.

Mental health, Disability and Neuro‐Diversity As well as the health and social care workforce, many families have been left traumatised by Covid. More have been affected by the floods too. There is need for more specialist support, talking therapies and mental wellness services.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Establish a network of Youth and Wellbeing centres for neurodiverse conditions and physical disabilities. young people who may not require advanced psychiatric • Introduce a rights‐based Autism Act to make it easier for

treatment, yet still need help. One of these should be people with Autism Spectrum Disorders to get a based in Rhondda Cynon Taf. diagnosis and support to maximise education, work and • Invest in training for carers of those with learning disabilities, life opportunities.

The Rhondda Economy – Jobs, Income, Regeneration A higher proportion of the Rhondda workforce were unable to work from home during the pandemic and so faced higher risks from Covid. This, coupled with heavy reliance on family for informal childcare, goes a long way to explain the high death rates from Covid in RCT. For people working from home, juggling work and home schooling with poor broadband connection has seen some give up work or reduce their hours. Some sectors have had to close for extended periods and some workers are being advised to retrain. Childcare, skills, transport, broadband, local work premises, appropriate housing, small business support and local procurement all need greater attention and investment. People working locally are more likely to spend locally, helping to build a healthy local economy.

Creating Local Jobs Work that needs doing in the Rhondda requires people working as builders, renovators to refurbish and future‐proof homes, food growers, flood prevention workers, childcare workers, green energy producers, transport workers and manufacturers. We also need artists to brighten up our communities and provide us with entertainment and we need nature conservationists to preserve our amazing scenery and natural environment.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Provide support for cooperatives, mutuals and social and we will be pushing for at least 20% of people enterprises as part of 60,000 Green New Deal jobs working there to have to live within a five‐mile radius of throughout Wales, focussing on housebuilding, the headquarters, in line with the trade union supported retrofitting of homes and renewable energy creation. Work Close to Home ethos.

This will include staffing a programme of works to • Make the Rhondda a hub for electric biking. We will use

counter the impacts of climate change and the flooding economic development funds to support the creation of risks. This means 1,500 new jobs for the Rhondda. an electric bike manufacturing facility, specialising in • Locate the Valleys Development Corporation (VDC) producing e‐bikes for wet climates. This will be located headquarters in the Rhondda. The remit of the VDC will near the Rhondda Tunnel, with a view to linking up with be to drive the development of the Metro and increase the tunnel, the Skyline project and mountain paths with

business opportunities. Our preferred site for this is the electric bikes for sale, low‐cost hire and repair all in the Ferndale / Maerdy area. Around 150 civil service full‐ upper Rhondda Fawr. time equivalent jobs will be located in the headquarters

The Rhondda’s Next Step 5

• Provide funding for the development and expansion goes on in our schools. It will employ seven staff of the Park and Dare Theatre to house a satellite of including three youth outreach workers who will also the new National Contemporary Art Gallery. As well work with schools and existing community arts as housing contemporary art from across the Valleys organisations. region, this project will provide an opportunity to expand and build on the work of existing initiatives • Guarantee a job or training for everyone aged between like the Workers’ Gallery in Ynyshir, the Rhondda Arts 16 and 24 who doesn’t have a job or training place. Festival, local arts groups and the fantastic work that

Cooperative Jobs – Rhondda Mutual A Plaid Cymru government will support the creation of local cooperatives that will work to cut costs of care provision (childcare and adult personal care); retrofit houses, build social homes and bring empty homes back into use; create renewable energy and grow and distribute food under one Rhondda Mutual cooperative umbrella. Cooperatives or mutual models of business enable the workers to own their means of production and are much less likely to relocate to places with cheaper labour, creating high quality local jobs and keeping profits in the local community. We will establish formal links and connections to learn from other place‐based cooperative movements like the Mondragon cooperative movement in the Basque Country and Bro Ffestiniog in the north of Wales, who are initiating ‘Community Movement Cymru’ (CMC). CMC aims to bring together people and community groups to form a network of similar cooperative and mutual communities of interest to share information, skills and resources. In their words, “CMC’s vision is a Wales of a community of prosperous and sustainable communities; the integrated development of the environment, economy, society, and culture of our communities”. (Cwmni Bro Ffestiniog, 2020) Cooperative or mutual housing, for example, can be used to provide lower cost accommodation. Cooperative or community‐owned renewable energy generation can also benefit local communities with lower bills and shared ownership. Plaid Cymru will also work with Banc Cambria to establish a branch of the new Welsh bank in the Rhondda, preferably in the Porth area. Under the banner of ‘Improving the Rhondda’, we have already seen the successful establishment of the ‘Rhondda Food Share Campaign’, which distributes food supermarkets cannot sell to people who can use it. At the beginning of the pandemic, Leanne Wood’s office in conjunction with Rhondda Plaid Cymru councillors set up the ‘Rhondda Community Network’ which saw almost 600 Rhondda people sign up to look out for those who needed help with shopping and essentials in their street or community. These are community and cooperative initiatives, set up because we saw a gap in societal provision. This has shown that our communities can pull together, we can act independently and we can do the things that need doing for ourselves. We will develop a Rhondda foundational communities’ strategy which will expand this community work into care and environment projects and link in with Plaid Cymru’s newly proposed National Volunteer Service which will also be committed to working on these projects.

6 The Rhondda’s Next Step

Transport

Car use Many homes have multiple cars and most streets have parking‐related problems which can cause disputes between neighbours. We have some difficult questions to answer about car use in the Rhondda. Can we keep growing the numbers of cars we have here? A debate is needed about a strategy to reduce the Rhondda’s car usage, which would have to include big public transport improvements. With the production of diesel and petrol cars coming to an end, the Rhondda also lacks the infrastructure to switch to electric vehicles.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Install Electric Vehicle charging points in public and • Explore options available for community car sharing supermarket car parks and will provide advice to which can be promoted as an alternative to individual enable people to take greener transport options. car ownership.

Rail

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Use investment in the Valleys Metro to regenerate railway stations to create additional nearby workspaces, where possible. Ynyswen station would be a perfect candidate for pop‐up office space for hire, ultra‐fast broadband and facilities for cyclists.

• Seek local employment quotas, apprenticeships and travel to work distance clauses for the jobs created by the Valleys Crossrail that will link Pontypool with Treherbert. • Build an additional railway station in Tynewydd.

Buses

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Where there is demand, reinstate the

bus link from the Fach to the railway line

in the Fawr.

• Work to increase the frequency of buses servicing workers. • Provide a young person’s free bus pass for all 16–24‐year‐olds.

The Rhondda Tunnel, Trails and Skyline

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Continue to work with the Rhondda Tunnel Society to reopen the Rhondda Tunnel and develop a network of trails linking the tunnel with the Skyline Project, the hub for electric biking, the zip wire in Hirwaun to the Afan valley and onwards to the coast.

The Rhondda’s Next Step 7

Broadband

A Plaid Cymru government will: • Introduce ultrafast gigabit broadband to all homes by 2026.

Childcare Plaid Cymru’s new national early years’ service, Meithrin Cymru, will provide free childcare for children aged 24 months until they are eligible for full time education. The programme will start in Wales’ most deprived communities and the requirement for parents to be in work to access the existing free childcare will be removed. This means that thirty hours of free childcare will be available to all children, regardless of their family’s work status.

Universal Basic Income Plaid Cymru supports a universal basic income and will work towards it by supporting pilots, starting with the arts and entertainment sector. We will continue to campaign for a local pilot in RCT.

Climate Change In February 2020, the Rhondda felt the full force of extreme weather. Almost four hundred homes and businesses saw water enter their premises as well as the movement of numerous coal spoil tips from unprecedented storm‐based rainfall. High numbers of people were uninsured. The people affected are still waiting for answers. A Plaid Cymru government will instigate an independent inquiry to make recommendations that will protect people in the light of further extreme weather events that we can expect to see as a result of the climate crisis. Our post‐covid recovery plan has to consider the various measures needed to mitigate the effects of flooding, switch from fossil fuels to more renewable energy and transform food production, improving our nature and biodiversity.

Flood Prevention and Protection There is plenty of climate change work that needs doing in the Rhondda. As well as protecting people from the immediate risk of flooding, there will need to be a vast programme of tree planting, securing the tips to make sure they are safe as well as other works to manage land and watercourses to ‘slow the flow’. The full extent of the works needed will form recommendations of the various reports and inquiry. We will ensure that the Skyline project is provided with the maximum available Natural Resources Wales land to manage the woodlands in the upper Fawr and to introduce community businesses and beneficial projects. We also want to support Welcome to our Woods to provide and help manage the broadleaf tree planting work on our hillsides and a network of bike trails. A Plaid Cymru government will increase the funds available for flood mitigation by £500 million over the course of the Senedd term. This amounts to £12.5m for the Rhondda.

8 The Rhondda’s Next Step

Recreation and Biodiversity Flood prevention measures have to work with the grain of nature, protecting and enhancing our precious and in some cases rare biodiversity. A healthy and thriving natural wildlife and open‐air scenery is not only good for our local population in terms of providing opportunities for improving health, but also attracts visitors. Plans to create and better link up our mountain walking, horse‐riding and cycling paths, install signage and create recreation maps that will link up with online information about local nature and history, will be of interest to the local population as well as visitors.

CASE EXAMPLE Cwm Clydach Countryside Park is on the site of the former Cambrian coal mine and surrounding tips. The area has been reclaimed and transformed into two lakes, recreation space, football ground, industrial units, a cafe, a hydro‐electric plant, a memorial to the miners who lost their lives there and a network of well‐maintained paths leading up the mountains and past waterfalls. This has all been supported by the local authority’s conservation team and volunteers providing information about local wildlife and the history of the area.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Introduce a Nature Act to ensure our biodiversity and natural environment are protected and improved year on year.

Renewable Energy As well as planning for and mitigating the effects of climate change, we also need to do more to reduce both energy consumption and the need for fossil fuels, replacing as much as we can with renewable energy. We have some excellent hydro power examples with the Skyline project / Welcome to our Woods and the Cwm Clydach Country Park, both partnered with Green Valleys. These projects need expanding and extending.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Provide financial support in the form of grants to kick start

cooperative, mutual or social enterprise businesses to further develop renewable energy opportunities in the Rhondda under the umbrella of a new national public energy company, Ynni Cymru, which will provide cheaper energy to the local population.

• Reinstate the financial support that was previously available

for hydro power. Plans for projects in the upper Rhondda Fawr will be supported and lessons learnt for other similar projects elsewhere. • Work with the Metro to install solar power generation along the railway line. • Push for legislation to ensure that all new wind farms must have a community ownership element before developments

are given the go‐ahead.

Full land stability surveys must also be provided in the light of the floods and moving coal tips to provide assurances to local communities. The costs of all works to coal tips — which were created well before devolution — must be covered in full by the Westminster government. The legacy of the past cannot be paid for by today’s generation.

The Rhondda’s Next Step 9

Rhondda Food Share Campaign In the summer of 2019, Leanne Wood and her staff set up Rhondda FoodShare Scheme with the aim of eliminating food waste in the Rhondda. After teaming up with some local supermarkets, the unsold fresh surplus produce was distributed from Leanne’s office in Porth. Due to the social distancing rules that came with the pandemic, the office had to be shut and the FoodShare scheme suspended. The scheme was restarted as a box delivery scheme after a team of volunteers was built up who could collect the surplus food from the supermarkets, pack it into boxes or bags and deliver it to anyone in the Rhondda who makes a request for it. There is no means testing, no asking for proof of benefits — no questions asked. It is a food waste scheme, so we are happy people can take the food and use it. The Rhondda Food Share Campaign also works with the Rhondda Foodbank, making regular donations to their non‐perishable food stocks. Our aim is also to change the circumstances that cause food waste and hunger. No one should be hungry in 2021. The Rhondda FoodShare Campaign also takes up wider food and poverty related issues like free school meals, benefits, low‐cost food provision and more.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Support sustainable food projects as well as projects • Encourage cooperative food‐growing businesses which safeguard and improve the Rhondda’s with business start‐up grant support as well as help

biodiversity. to win public contracts.

• Immediately extend free healthy and nutritious • Establish an ‘edible communities’ programme that school meals to all children living in families reliant will connect with community groups and schools to upon Universal Credit. We will then expand to all introduce a fruit tree planting programme in our children in primary school. communities. We will also work with the community • Link school meal provision with local production and to identify parcels of land that can be made available for allotments, raised beds and community food sale, using local suppliers and growers where possible to provide school meals, taking advantage growing projects. of new rules on local procurement to include local / • Distribute surplus community grown produce low food miles clauses in public food contacts. through the Rhondda Food Share Campaign. We will • Provide support for community mutual meals on also support the development of food growing land wheels initiatives. at the Tappers site in Treherbert.

Green Housing It is a scandal that there are so many empty houses in the Rhondda when there are so many people who need a home. Our aim is for publicly owned housing to become a mainstream option for those on average incomes, not just those on the lowest incomes.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Create low‐cost rent cooperative / mutual homes for • Create a long‐term energy efficiency infrastructure health and social care workers and other key plan to retrofit all Welsh houses to higher workers. environmental standards over the next thirty years. This will contribute to reducing energy bills, fuel • Create 50,000 additional affordable homes for rent and purchase, which will include some of the 26,000 poverty and excess winter deaths.

empty homes. In the Rhondda, our preference • Offer every household a free energy audit and

would be to start with the empty houses. That’s recommendations for a conversion plan.

1,250 new homes for the Rhondda.

10 The Rhondda’s Next Step

Recreation in Our Natural Environment Lockdown has highlighted the importance of our local environment as a space where people can get outdoors, be in nature, exercise, explore the landscape and find out more about their local history. Our mountains have a network of well‐trodden paths, cycle ways and bridleways for horse riding, but they are not well signposted or mapped and some need maintaining. Funds available for improving physical and mental health invested here would reap great rewards over time in savings for the NHS and benefits to society. Mountain biking centres have been set up in valleys with similar terrain and have proven to be successful in terms of attracting visitors to the area. A network of connected paths, mountain biking centres and tourist attractions like the Rhondda Tunnel and the new zip wire in Hirwaun and the Barry Sidings biking centre would be worthwhile investments that Plaid Cymru in the Rhondda will push for. More people have become interested in outdoor swimming and cold‐water therapy, which is said to have great health benefits. There are a few places where this is possible, but not many. A Plaid Cymru government will provide financial support for a community consultation and a plan to safely open up more places for ‘dipping’ in the Rhondda. We will also provide continued support to our communities to re‐open paddling pools, enabling young children to develop a love of outdoor water in a safe environment, like we have already done in Penygraig, Treorci, and Maerdy.

In 2016, local children in Penygraig told their new Senedd Member that they wanted their paddling pool in their local park reopened. Leanne Wood worked with councillors and volunteers to reopen the paddling pool. This was followed by a group of volunteers led by Plaid Cymru councillors to reopening the paddling pool in Ystradfechan Park in 2018. We supported volunteers in Maerdy to do the same.

The Rhondda’s Next Step 11

Education and Child Poverty According to research conducted by WISERD, 60% of pupils are concerned that they will not be able to catch up from what has been missed this year. Children and young people have been disadvantaged and will be impacted over the longer term because of the impact of Covid and lockdowns on their education. Not every child has been able to learn online and not enough has been done to enable online learning for those without the basic kit or internet access. At the same time, many people who have lost their jobs will be looking to retrain and need to be supported to do this.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Reverse Labour’s cuts to education budgets and — to ensure we have the skills we need to implement

provide catch‐up funding for those children who are this Rhondda’s Next Step plan. We will ensure

at risk of being left behind. apprenticeships and specialist courses are provided

and funded within or as close to the Rhondda as • Work with education providers — schools, further possible. education colleges, and universities

The loss of the Rhondda’s sixth forms has seen student numbers of those studying for A levels in the Rhondda reduce from 913 in 2016 to 495 in 2019 (FOI Request). Many Rhondda pupils will be travelling outside the Rhondda to study as a result of the centralising reorganisation of schools, but travel is putting some off further study altogether. This situation needs to be monitored and consideration given to more A level classes being available closer to home to encourage more people to continue studying after GCSEs.

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Provide a Young Person’s Bus Pass for free travel for • Increase the numbers of people – qualified teachers

16–24‐year‐olds. and other staff – available to help disadvantaged

pupils catch up. • Provide a lifelong entitlement to retrain for everyone who is over 25 years old, worth £5k. • Cut the cost of tuition fees for students who choose to study in Wales.

Tackling Child Poverty

A Plaid Cymru government will:

• Set a target to reduce child poverty by two thirds by to public funds, expanding to cover all primary

2030, with the aim of eliminating child poverty by school pupils by the end of the Senedd term. We will

2035. work towards legislation that ensures no child goes

hungry. • Introduce a Child Payment for the parents or guardians of children living in poverty. • Provide free digital classes for children and adults, • Provide a free school lunch for all children in families with a scheme to support the provision of devices receiving Universal Credit or who have no recourse and lower cost internet access.

12 The Rhondda’s Next Step

Conclusion Many of the measures outlined in ‘The Rhondda’s Next Step’ require local and national government support. Even without that, it provides a template for what need to be done, building on our strengths while planning for the future. There is a lot we can do for ourselves, independently. Let’s do it, together.

Hyrwyddwyd gan / Promoted by Darren Jones ar ran / on behalf of Leanne Wood, y ddau yn / both of Rhondda Plaid Cymru, 45 Gelligaled Road, Ystrad, Rhondda, CF41 7RQ. Argraffwyd gan/ Printed by Caxton Press (Cymru) Ltd., Howard Street, Treorchy, Rhondda Cynon Taf, CF42 6AR