(Caernarfon & Denbigh Herald - 18th July 2013) I am certain that most of us will have been alarmed by your leader-headline, “GWYNEDD CASH CRISIS INTENSIFIES - It’s worse than we thought”: Especially when we hear that there is likely to be a funding gap of between £34m and £43m by 2017, and that yet further cuts could be made to Social Services and Education budgets. There’s even a suggestion by a Senior Councillor that Council assets could be sold off, as they desperately struggle to balance the books. It would be easy to simply blame the situation on an additional 4% reduction of annual grant from the Welsh Government: The Council claims this was unexpected, but surely it should have come as no surprise at this time of austerity. We are told, “This Council has been facing significant financial challenges since 2006/2007” which are “… set to intensify over the coming years”. In the same edition, we also learn that schools inspectors consider the county is “Failing pupils who under-perform”. Education Portfolio leader Sian Gwenllian tells us, “There is always room for improvement…”, and indeed there is! In March 2007, Councillor Dafydd Iwan (the then Senior Portfolio leader of Development) accepted a 350 signature petition from parents of pupils at Ysgol Groeslon, saying ‘the Council had recently finished a review of all its school buildings within the county - 106 primary and 14 secondary schools’: He added, "Groeslon is among the six in the most need of attention. We will be costing the work needed before prioritising the timetable to improve the six schools". The following year, Dafydd Iwan became a political ‘victim’ of Gwynedd’s failed School Reorganisation proposals. Six years on, and the Council’s unpopular, ill-conceived and thoroughly flawed proposal for a new Area School at Y Groeslon hangs in the balance and the disgraceful situation at Ysgol Groeslon is still no nearer being resolved. Throughout their struggle, all that the staff, pupils and parents of Y Groeslon have ever asked for is a community school that is ‘fit for purpose’, not a so-called ‘State of the art’, ‘one-size-fits all’ super-school. Perhaps if this Council got back to basics and focussed on prioritising necessity rather than pursuing idealistic ‘visions’ and overly-complex and expensive solutions, we would all have a little more confidence in their leadership. Let’s face it, this constant ‘crisis management’ is not the way forward, and if we can’t ‘keep our own house in order’, how can we ever expect to aspire towards an independent Wales? Cynan-ap-Barbariad
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 12:57:49 +0000
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