Cantref - Round Two and another letter - Updated

Update 24 August 

At a second EGM last night, shareholders voted 27 to 5 in favour of the merger with Wales and West. The result of the vote was featured on Newyddion 9, although rather oddly the news report contained a statement from the Welsh Government claiming that the shareholders had voted "unanimously" in favour of the merger, a claim which was unsurprisingly repeated as fact by BBC Radio Wales in an English language news bulletin.

Speaking on behalf of the campaign group Ble ti'n mynd i fyw, Osian Elias warned that Wales and West had made no firm commitments to back up promises it had made to safeguard the position of the Welsh language or use local contractors. Shareholders could only hope that Wales and West kept its word.

One of the shareholders, Peter Davies, expressed sadness at what had happened. Shareholders had little choice but to back the merger, he said, because Cantref's creditors had threatened to withdraw their lines of credit, and that would have pushed Cantref into the hands of the receivers. He went on to call for an independent investigation into what had happened and the publication of the secret report commissioned by the government.

Jonathan Edwards MP again pointed to the lack of consultation with Cantref's tenants, and warned that there could be a judicial review of the decision.

_______________

Events at Cantref are moving rapidly, and so this is the third post on the subject in 48 hours.

A second special general meeting of the association's shareholders has been called for 23 August at its headquarters in Newcastle Emlyn to ratify the decision taken on 9 August to "merge" with Wales and West Housing.

Ble ti'n mynd i fyw?, an independent group set up to give a voice to young people in Ceredigion on housing matters, is calling on shareholders to overturn the earlier decision.

Here is their statement.Welsh first, followed by an English translation:

Ail gyfle i achub Cantref rhag ei draflyncu

Rydym ni, grŵp annibynnol lleol Ble Ti'n Mynd i Fyw sydd yn cynnig llais i bobl ifanc yn y Gorllewin ar faterion ynghlwm â thai, eisoes wedi mynegi ein pryderon am yr uno arfaethedig rhwng Wales and West Housing a Chymdeithas Tai Cantref.

Yn dilyn cyfarfod cyfranddalwyr Cymdeithas Tai Cantref (nos Fawrth 09/08/2016), mae Ble Ti'n Mynd i Fyw yn pwysleisio bod ail gyfle i achub Cantref rhag cael ei draflyncu gan Wales and West Housing mewn cyfarfod cyfranddalwyr ar nos Fawrth 23/08/2016. 

Amlygodd y cyfarfod cyntaf nifer o ddiffygion y broses o uno Cantref a Wales and West Housing, gan gynnwys:

• Diffyg ymgynghori gyda thenantiaid, cyfranddalwyr, rhanddeiliaid a'r cyhoedd.
• Diffyg sicrwydd i denantiaid.
• Diffyg sicrwydd swyddi yn y Gorllewin.
• Diffyg dealltwriaeth o werth y Gymraeg, a diffyg sicrwydd mewn perthynas â'r iaith.
• Diffyg tryloywder a chyhoeddusrwydd mewn perthynas â'r datblygiad lleol pwysig hwn.
• Bod nifer o gyfranddalwyr yn anhapus gyda'r diffyg gwybodaeth o flaen llaw, ac wedi codi pryderon am hyn a'r diffyg ymgynghori yn y cyfarfod.

Mae pryder difrifol mewn perthynas â'r diffygion hyn, yn enwedig o ystyried y broses uno arfaethedig hyd yn hyn. Mae nifer o bobl wedi sôn wrth grŵp Ble Ti'n Mynd i Fyw am y bygythiad i swyddi a gwaith lleol a'r diffyg llwyr o ymwybyddiaeth iaith a amlygwyd trwy gynnal cyfarfodydd yn uniaith Saesneg.

Pwysleisiwn fod gan gyfranddalwyr Cantref ail gyfle i wrthod yr uno arfaethedig hyn, ac i osgoi traflynciad ased dai lleol gan y cawr yma o'r brifddinas sydd yn dangos dim dealltwriaeth na gwerthfawrogiad o anghenion lleol.

Mae Ble Ti'n Mynd i Fyw yn gwrthwynebu'r uno arfaethedig ar sail tair prif ddadl:

1. Gwasaneth lleol – mae Cantref yn sefydliad bach sydd wedi'i leoli yn y gymuned, ac yn rhan naturiol ac allweddol o'r fro y mae'n gwasanaethu.
2. Swyddi – mae Cantref yn gyflogwr allweddol sydd yn darparu swyddi o safon uchel trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg yn lleol.
3. Iaith – mae gan Cantref werthfawrogiad unigryw o werth yr iaith, mae hyn mewn cyferbyniad ag unieithrwydd Saesneg Wales and West Housing.

Rydym o'r farn y byddai'r uno arfaethedig yn golygu bod nifer o'r manteision o gael ein gwasanaethu gan Cantref; megis yr elfen leol, swyddi, a'r iaith; yn cael ei golli ym maint a diffyg dealltwriaeth Wales and West Housing.

A second opportunity to save Cantref from perilous takeover

We, Ble Ti'n Mynd i Fyw? – an independent local group providing young people in the west of Wales a platform to discuss housing matters – have already expressed our concerns regarding the proposed takeover by Wales and West Housing of Cantref Housing Association.

Following a meeting for Cantref Housing Association's shareholders (Tuesday 09/08/2016), our group (Ble Ti'n Mynd i Fyw?) stresses that shareholders still have a second opportunity to save Cantref Housing Association from being swallowed by Wales and West Housing in a second meeting held on Tuesday 23/08/2016.

The first meeting highlighted a number of shortfalls in the process of merging Cantref and Wales and West Housing, including:

• A lack of consultation with tenants, shareholders, stakeholders and the public.
• A lack of certainty for tenants.
• A lack of employment security in the west of Wales.
• A lack of understanding of the value of the Welsh language, and a lack of assurance regarding the language.
• A lack of transparency and publicity with regards to this important development to the local area.
• The fact that many shareholders were unhappy with the lack of information provided beforehand, and had raised concerns regarding this matter and the lack of consultation during the recent meeting.

There are serious concerns regarding these shortfalls, especially considering the background of this proposed merger. A number of people have raised concerns with the Ble Ti'n Mynd i Fyw? group regarding the threat to employment and local contracted work, and the complete lack of language awareness highlighted when the company started holding meetings in English only.

We stress that Cantref shareholders have a second golden opportunity to reject the proposed merger and to avoid the takeover of a local housing asset by this giant company from the capital, which has showed no understanding or appreciation of local needs.

Ble Ti'n Mynd i Fyw? opposes this proposed merger based on three main arguments:

1. The local factor – Cantref is a small organization rooted in the community, and a natural and key part of the communities it serves
2. The employment factor – Cantref is a key employer which provides quality employment opportunities locally through the medium of Welsh
3. The language factor – Cantref has an unique appreciation of the value of the Welsh language, which contrasts drastically with the English monolingualism of Wales and West Housing.

We believe that the proposed merger will lead to the loss of the local element, employment and the Welsh language, which Cantref provides, due to being swallowed by the sheer size and lack of understanding of Wales and West Housing.

DIWEDD / END

Mushrooms

Both Ble ti'n mynd i fyw? and the Tai Ceredigion Tenant Monitoring Group have made strenuous but largely fruitless efforts to contact Cantref's shareholders who, it is clear, have been treated like those proverbial mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed a diet of manure. Even the manure was strictly rationed.

Here is an extract from an open letter sent to Cantref's tenants from the Tai Ceredigion Tenant Monitoring Group, dated 1 July 2016:

"At the Annual General Meeting on the 16th of July last year your CEO signed off the annual accounts for Cymdeithas Tai Cantref, as audited on the 31st of March, 2015.  The accounts stated Cymdeithas Tai Cantref Limited had a surplus in funds for the year of £978 thousand, increasing the total funds available to the company to nearly £6.6 million.  Yet, by the end of the same month of July, 2015, there were reports that the company was in serious trouble.

The Welsh Government called in a consultancy to conduct an inquiry into the company.  Before it was completed, on the 15th of August, 2015, CEO Lynne Sacale stated to the BBC  that:

"We want to reassure our tenants that Cantref is fully compliant with all financial and regulatory requirements to date.  We have recently undergone a robust and successful statutory audit and our performance indicators show we deliver high quality services to our customers.  We welcome the inquiry on the basis that any findings will be to the benefit of the association going forward."

It was another four months, until the 10th of December, before your CEO took their leave of absence.  But this did not appear in the local press until the 11th of February, 2016, when it was announced that Hilary Jones of Bro Myrddin Housing Association and Doug Elliott, a former head of regulation in the Welsh Government, had been parachuted in to take “temporary charge.”

The article also mentioned that the inquiry by the consultants acting on behalf of the Welsh Government had been completed.  There was no mention that David Wilcox had “stepped down” as chair of the board.  (The date of this is still a mystery to us.)"  

The letter goes on to describe at length the many attempts the Monitoring Group made to obtain a copy of the shareholder register, as it wished to contact Cantref's tenants and offer them advice. Normally, shareholder registers are public documents, but Cantref is regulated not by Companies House but the Financial Conduct Authority, and the group was sent on a wild goose chase which ended up with Cantref declaring that they could not have a copy because of Data Protection.

In the end, the Monitoring Group decided that its best hope of contacting those tenants who were also shareholders lay through publishing its appeal on Facebook.

Cantref - a bombshell

Since publication of the previous post, a copy of a letter from the Tai Ceredigion Tenant Monitoring Group has come in, dated 16 August. The letter, signed by Jim Scanlan, chair of the monitoring group, is addressed to Carl Sargeant and deserves to be reproduced in full.

It is not clear what Carl Sargeant's reply of 26 June said, but a great deal of water has since passed under the bridge, and the rest of the letter speaks for itself.

Dear Cabinet Secretary,

Thank you for your letter of the 26th of June, in reply to ours of the 9th of June.  We found it most encouraging.

It is with regret we have to report that our efforts to contact the shareholders and later the tenants of Tai Cantref, to advise them as fellow tenants of some of the safeguards they should expect following any merger, has not been successful; the forums we had hoped to hold were never called. 

We have made some contacts and we hope to extend these now the vote has been passed.  We, as a group, are still willing to show how an independent tenant body can actively participate and assist a Registered Social Landlord (RSL), to improve a landlord's understanding of tenant concerns.  In this respect we are still willing to hold, under supervision, training sessions with any Cantref tenants interested in forming a tenants' group.

But following the vote our concerns for the tenants of Tai Cantref have increased.  These are:

1.         If, following an investigation which was so sensitive it could not be published, suggesting a failure of governance, why was the same board which created this situation allowed to dictate the conditions of the transfer?

2.         Despite pronouncements, such as, “The board, senior management and staff place the interests of tenants... at the centre of all we do” (Cambrian News, 11th of February, 2016), and “Our tenants are our number one priority...” (Kevin Taylor, interim chair, Cantref web site, 11th of August, 2016), there has not been any genuine consultation with the tenant body regarding the fact the landlord of said tenant body is about to change, or of the possible ramifications thereof.  We believe this to be a breach of their statutory duties as a RSL and may be a violation of the Housing Act 1996.  Even so, surely a majority of the secure tenants will have to agree to any transfer before it can proceed?

3.         Following on from the pronouncements, why then, from the time they decided on their chosen partner, did the board actively block tenants from becoming shareholders?  We understand there is a rule which allows for not allowing individual applications, but surely not for a blanket ban on something that directly affects all the tenants of the company?

4.         When we transferred from Ceredigion County Council we were all given a legally binding Offer Document, outlining the reasons for the transfer, what it would entail and what guarantees there would be to protect the tenant's interests, including provisions for tenants on the (senior) board and the active participation by a scrutinising group, able to have access to the senior management.  Furthermore, the council held forums across the county to consult directly with as many tenants as possible before the transfer.

What have the tenants of Tai Cantref received?  Nothing but a note stating their tenancy agreements might change.  What of those who were deemed as acceptable as shareholders?  What have they seen prior to the vote on the 10th?  The Annual Report for the previous financial year, which might have shed some light on the extend of the mess and what needs correcting, has still not been published.  No written reports one month prior to the vote, giving the reasons for the merger, nor any written prospectus from Wales & West on how they are to resolve the issues; just private, individual, verbal briefings, which therefore cannot be collaborated or substantiated.  From the reports we have seen, these documents were not even made available to the shareholders at the Special General Meeting (SGM); all they were given was a verbal plea for the resolution to be passed.  On this basis alone, we wonder if the vote has any standing in law?

Instead, the shareholders had Penri James, vice-chair of Cantref in the Cambrian News of the 4th of August, 2016, witter that, “If the merger isn't voted through, we just don't know what would happen.  But it could be as extreme as Cantref being dissolved if the merger doesn't go ahead.”  This was at least disingenuous disinformation.  As a senior member of a company board he must have known that all mergers are a form of takeover; any merger where they are the junior partner means the company will be dissolved.  A sub-division of Wales & West might retain the name of Tai Cantref but the tenancy agreements will be with Wales & West, the rents will go to Wales & West and the strategic decisions affecting the tenants in this region will be determined in Cardiff, not Newcastle Emlyn.

5.         The same reports state the current board is so incompetent they had not negotiated any guarantees from Wales & West prior to the vote, including those on future rents.  So much for the tenants being “at the centre of all we do.”  From what we have heard, Carmarthenshire County Council have already offered such, including the underwriting of any current debts which Tai Cantref may have, a rent cap and in some degree the guaranteeing of jobs and offices.

6.         Then there was the SGM itself, where three interesting details came to light.  Firstly, Tai Cantref had already announced in 2013 that they were up to the WHQ standard.  Then there was the revelation that Wales & West would not be able to bring the Cantref properties to WHQ standard until 2024.  That is a delay of another eight years.  Another eight years the tenants of Tai Cantref will have to wait until their homes are brought up to the standard; eleven years after they were told the standard had been reached and four years after the Welsh Government's deadline!

7.         But it was the third detail which seemed to clarify the situation regarding the previous two and gave a possible reason as to why the consultant's report was not published.  Apparently, at the meeting, both the interim chair, Kevin Taylor, and a former board member, Cynog Dafis, blamed the regulator for the company's catastrophic failure.  For what reason?  For reminding the board they had a statutory duty to bring their properties to and maintain them at the WHQ standard, instead of spending their rental income on empire building?  If that is the case then we at TCMG are very angry: the regulator is one of the few active safeguards social tenants have against obstructive landlords.

We regret having to raise these concerns but suspect that anyway, sooner or later, they will land on your desk.  We humbly suggest this situation cannot continue.  To us, it appears both companies have been behaving like private-sector corporations, not as social landlords.

We fear that if the situation is allowed to continue to a second vote then it will make a mockery of the whole social housing programme, completely undermining it and allowing other housing associations to absolve themselves from all aspects of it.

Wherefore then tenant participation?  Affordable rent protection?  The protection of secure tenant's rights?  The duality of both the Welsh and English languages in this part of Wales?

Wherefore then the future of building homes which are affordable to rent?  Over the last thirty years the private sector has singly failed in this regard.  Instead, we have seen a proliferation of three-to-four bedroom houses built for sale, often as second homes, or for letting at holiday rates, thereby undercutting the Welsh economy by restricting where local workers can afford to live.

Therefore we request you intervene, to investigate how these two housing associations have been allowed to get to this position: of pretending to be acting on behalf of the Cantref tenants while totally ignoring said tenant's interests; for ignoring all tenant's interests.  We request you act soonest to resolve this issue on behalf of the Cantref tenants and to protect the concept of social housing.

We look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully, 

Jim Scanlan

Cantref - judicial review?

Readers of the Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire Heralds, and more especially followers of Jac o' the North, will be aware of the slow-motion disaster which has overtaken Cantref, the housing association based in Newcastle Emlyn which serves large parts of Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and a bit of Powys with a portfolio of 1,800 properties.

Rumours that all was not well have been circulating for at least a year, and those who rely on other local newspapers would have been blissfully unaware that anything was amiss until a couple of weeks ago.

Anyone unfamiliar with the story so far should turn to this piece by Jac o' the North, but in a nutshell something went very badly wrong at Cantref leading to a government-appointed investigation and the resignations of the chair and chief executive. Precisely what went wrong remains a closely guarded secret, with the government refusing to publish the findings of the report it commissioned, but major factors were probably a string of bad investments in student accommodation in Aberystwyth and flats elsewhere, and very poor relations between staff and management.


The upshot of the review was that the association's lenders allegedly threatened to call in their loans, triggering a fairly chaotic scramble to find new "partners". The victor was ultimately Wales and West, a much larger housing association based in Cardiff, and Cantref's shareholders or members voted by a large majority to merge (i.e. be swallowed up by) Wales and West at an EGM on 9 August.

In the weeks and months running up to the meeting there were complaints from various interested individuals that their applications to become members had been vetoed or were ignored, and Cantref appears to have engaged in an almost total news blackout, with no mention of these events on its website or its newsletter to tenants, apart from a brief article saying that the chief executive had left and that they wished her well.

As news management goes, that is on a par with the old joke about Harold Wilson which said that if he had been captain of the Titanic, he would have announced to passengers that there was no cause for alarm - the liner was merely stopping to take on ice.

It is fair to say that political reaction to this debacle, at least in public, has been a long time coming, but Jonathan Edwards MP and Adam Price AM have now called for the merger process to be halted, and warned that the decision is open to judicial review.

Their reasons for intervening include,

 * A questionable tender process for which bidders were expected to submit applications within just 7 days, in addition to "preliminary merger discussions" not being available to all potential bidders;
*    Tenants being expected to live in sub-standard accommodation with the Wales Quality Housing Standard not being met until 2024 – an additional 4 years on the current completion expectation on 2020;
*    The dilution of the Welsh language in one of west Wales's largest employers;
*    ​No formal consultation on the merger has taken place with tenants.

It seems that one of the things which swung the vote in favour of Wales and West were last minute undertakings that Cantref's Welsh language policies would be respected and that local contractors would continue to be used for maintenance.

Cantref has an excellent record of using the Welsh language day-to-day and encouraging Welsh learners. In the run-up to the merger decision it is said that Wales and West managers adopted an English only approach to meetings.

Cantref also contributes significantly to the local economy by using independent local contractors, where as Wales and West has its own inhouse maintenance department.

There is no doubt that the merger has been rushed and chaotic. If claims that the lenders were threatening to pull their credit lines are true, the Welsh Government could have intervened to underwrite Cantref's debt pending a decision about its long-term future.

As for the undertakings about the Welsh language and use of local contractors, a key question is how those promises could be enforced and who would hold Wales and West to account.

Wales and West is known to have very close links to Welsh Labour, and ultimately it would be up to a (Labour) minister to step in if those promises turn out to be empty.

The government's track record of intervention, particularly in Labour fiefdoms, hardly inspires confidence.

Leading from the front - an open letter to Lee Waters AM

Lee Waters, the new Labour Assembly Member for Llanelli, is not a happy bunny. There's Brexit, for a start, and then the battle for control of Labour where Lee is backing that chameleon for all seasons, Oily Smith, a man with all the charm and Kaa-like appeal (jusssst trusssst in me) of Michael Howard, but without the brains.

The recipe for electoral success in the Labour Party is, apparently, first to depose a leader elected by an overwhelming majority of party members less than a year ago and then to engage in a bitter civil war to bring about unity. A sure fire vote winner, if ever there was, and on his Twitter feed, Lee notes in despair the loss in a by-election last week of a seat on Llannon Community Council to Plaid.

The loss of this "parish by-election" is Jeremy's fault. "I campaigned in this one, he wasn't (an) asset", says Lee.

To make matters worse for the new AM, most of the movers and shakers in his constituency party, including Jeff Edmunds (Labour leader on the County Council), Tegwen Devichand, her daughter, Sharen Davies, and Jan Williams (all county and  Llanelli town councillors) are backing Jez, with Lee and Nia Griffith looking a little lonely on the other side of the great Labour divide. Worryingly for Lee and Nia, the most prominent supporter of their stance in Carmarthenshire is Kevin Madge who has done so much in the last ten years to reshape the party's fortunes in the county and put it where it is today - in opposition and an increasingly distant second to Plaid in Carmarthen East and Dinefwr.

Taking up her knitting and her seat in the viewing area at the foot of the guillotine, Tegwen Devichand told the Carmarthenshire Herald this week that, "Nia is entitled to her opinion. When it comes to re-election, if people want to re-elect her, only time will tell". Ouch.

"Let them eat bara brith"

But Lee is not without his admirers. He recently contributed a piece to the IWA's Click on Wales, entitled "Labour's problems go way beyond Jeremy Corbyn", and this attracted a rave review from another electoral asset, Leighton Andrews, formerly of Rhondda parish.

"Brilliant piece by @Amanwy [Lee Waters' Twitter handle, Ed.] on the challenges facing UK Labour and why it has to be Owen Smith", thunders Leighton.

What the piece says over and over again in the course of nearly 30 cliché-ridden paragraphs is that a chasm has opened up between the party and "our people", i.e. the voters.

The solution is to elect Owen Smith who will restore party unity and credibility among the electorate.

In the unlikely event of a Smith victory, how would Oily restore party unity in the smouldering ruins when huge swathes of the party's membership loathe him and consider him to be a traitor, even before he sets about the herculean task of persuading Joe Public that he is not yet another privileged, besuited Blairite and would not sell Granny Smith for a chance to ride around in a ministerial limo?

It's all about leadership, or rather Leadership, says Lee. But what is Leadership?

Every political party faces the tension between furthering their own set of core values and responding to public opinion. And that’s where Leadership comes in, to balance these tensions, and persuade people to follow a course of action which honours the values of the party and chimes with the priorities of the electorate.

It all sounds a bit vague and misty, but fortunately Lee Waters has given the people of Llangennech in his constituency a demonstration of what this means in practice.

The County Council is proposing to merge the infant and junior schools in the village to create a new Welsh medium primary school, phasing out the English stream in the junior school as it does so.

Children who have started in the English stream would continue to be taught through the medium of English until they go on to secondary school.

As is always the case when the language category of a school is changed, there are mixed views among parents. There are those who couldn't give a toss either way, those who support the proposals, those who oppose them and those who have an open mind.

The latter group is important. They will have questions and will be looking for reassurance, but what they have got from Lee Waters is this headline from last week's Llanelli Herald:

AM SLAMS COUNCIL'S SCHOOLS PLAN

As has happened elsewhere when English streams have been phased out, opposition has been extremely vocal and is driven by a small group of parents. Their individual motives vary, but as always seems to be the case, the more extreme objectors have set the tone and the agenda of the anti-campaign.


This has involved vitriolic attacks on staff, governors and councillors on Facebook, and a website which is full of badly written, rehashed myths, distortions and downright lies. The message which screams out at readers is that this is all an evil conspiracy to deprive children of an English education.

 Here's a flavour of the sort of thing being dished up:

Currently English Stream pupils are exposed to a very high level of Welsh during their school day and it has been expressed that this is just manageable level for pupils and parents.

Currently English Stream pupils have struggled and been upset to be excluded from such celebrations at the school, such as St David’s Day Assembly as it was all in Welsh and they could not understand it all.  

Currently English stream children have been upset to be not allowed to be sung happy birthday to them in English as must be Welsh only.  

The Llangennech objectors' website is not the first example of its kind, and there are some uncanny echos of other sites which have come and gone in other parts of Wales, with the slightly odd, Meerkat English most likely emanating from a notorious Labour activist in North Wales who believes that Carwyn Jones is an evil Welsh nationalist.

Dual stream schools are a classic civil service fudge, designed to give the appearance of producing bilingual children without actually doing so. There are always exceptions which prove the rule, but the fundamental flaw of dual stream education is that English dominates because it is the language that all of the children share.

Welsh medium education produces bilingual children, whereas "bilingual" education doesn't, and if you want your child to reap all the benefits which being able to speak effortlessly in two languages brings - both during their school years and later in life - then Welsh medium is the best way of doing it.

It's not just Carmarthenshire County Council which is saying this, but the Labour government in Cardiff, which Lee Waters supports, and it was while it was still under Labour leadership that Carmarthenshire County Council adopted a policy to move its schools along the language continuum, as the jargon has it. In other words, gradually to increase the use of Welsh in its schools, introducing modest elements of Welsh medium education in schools where there is none at one end of the spectrum, and phasing out English medium streams at the other.

Nobody is advocating doing this overnight, and at the current rate of progress, it will take decades to complete the change.

After staying resolutely silent for months about the row at Llangennech, at least in public, Lee Waters has now come off the fence to say that he supports the government's policy while advocating changes to it which would leave us with the status quo.

In other words, he proposes to pay lip service to bilingual education while opposing it.

His response to the Llanelli Herald can be found on his Facebook page:

The Llanelli Herald asked for my comment on the ongoing controversy in Llangennech about turning the village's dual-stream bilingual school into a Welsh-only one. This is a sensitive issue and I have not made public comment until now:

"The Welsh Government's policy is to increase the number of school places for Welsh language schools. I fully support that policy. Plaid Cymru run Carmarthenshire county council have decided to achieve this by turning all bilingual schools in the county into Welsh-only schools. I am not convinced this is the best way of advancing the language. In villages like Llangennech, where there is no other school, the policy will result in local children being split up and children from outside the village taking their places - in this case children from across Llanelli and from Swansea, even though there are places available in other Welsh medium schools in the area. Meanwhile many of the English language schools they are expected to attend in the area are full, and do not offer the opportunity to be educated in an environment where the Welsh language is vibrant. Until we address the ability of schools to teach Welsh as a second language well I think the children in the English stream of the Welsh schools have a far better chance of learning Welsh than they will by moving them out.

This is a very sensitive issue and I have not publicly commented on it until now. It is causing distress and division in Llangennech and has not been sensitively handled by some local politicians. To safeguard the future of the language we need to take people with us. And there is a real danger of alienating families in the village who want to keep their children within a Welsh-speaking environment. I think the Plaid-run council need to rethink the way this policy is being implemented".

The only reason why children from the village should be split up is if they are unfortunate enough to have hardline parents determined not to accept Welsh medium education in any form, and when the dust settles, there will be very few of those.

As for Welsh as a second language (Cymraeg ail iaith), Lee Waters should be aware of the report his government commissioned from Professor Sioned Davies and the testimony of other leading experts recommending an end to the concept of Welsh as a second language.

Lee Waters' response to policies introduced by his own party boils down to paying lip service to the idea while saying not in my backyard, not now and trying to blame another party. True leadership, as his party colleague Paul Flynn could tell him, often involves taking a stand on issues which some of your constituents won't like, and true leadership, with or without a capital 'L', means that you do your best to calm their fears and persuade them to think again.

One way he could do that is to help concerned parents in Llangennech to take a look at other communities where schools have phased out English streams, despite vocal opposition. They would be pleasantly surprised.

The people of Llangennech deserve better than this opportunistic and cowardly surrender to dogwhistle politics dressed up in nice words about alienation, distress and division.

Small wonder that there is so much cynicism about politicians in the mainstream unionist parties.