Letter to the Western Mail today (unedited version).
SIR – A few months ago I attended a meeting to look at the feasibility of completing the cycle track between Gowerton and Pontarddulais. I’d always wondered why the link was never completed, and the answer shouldn’t have surprised me. The project was started by the old Lliw Valley Borough Council in the 1990s. When the new “City and County of Swansea” Council took over in the late 1990s, the project was kicked into the long grass.
No surprises there, then.
Now we hear that the Labour government in Cardiff Bay wants to resurrect West Glamorgan County Council through merging Neath and Swansea. It’s rather telling that Swansea leader Rob Stewart refers to this proposed entity as a “City Region”. What he’s talking about is the Swansea Bay City Region, which is where all the focus (and hence the money) will be. What about the outlying areas?
With this in mind, is it not time, then, that we also brought back the old Lliw Valley district council too? One way to do this is by merging community and town councils in the area to make a bigger entity. Still small enough to reflect an area with a distinct identity – but big enough to have a real strategic focus and not be swallowed like Jonah up by the big whale the Welsh Government are going to drop in Swansea Bay.
Jim Dunckley. (Lliw Valley resident),
Heol Alexandra, Gorseinon, Abertawe
