Culture & Leisure

Flintshire People’s Voice supports our library service. We will vigorously oppose any attempt to downsize it, and will not support the closure of any library. We were strong advocates for the award-winning, employee-owned model as implemented by Aura, which was shuttered by the Labour-Independent coalition, and we will give strong consideration to reimplementing this model should we gain power.

We recognise the creativity and talent of children in Flintshire, and would create a library of children’s own stories at one of the libraries, so that children can share their creativity with their peers.

Flintshire deserves access to high quality regional facilities, and we will provide these in the form of a redeveloped Deeside Leisure Centre when the current building needs replacing. The new centre will be built so that the existing one can remain open during construction, minimising disruption to service users. We firmly back the retention of the ice rink, and we will oppose any attempt to close it. Instead, we will look to enhance its potential, such as by capturing extracted heat to warm other buildings and nearby homes, and working with Aura to ensure the facility is suitable for use by a wider variety of clubs.

The rebuild of Theatr Clwyd is an opportunity to expand the use of this important regional facility. FPV believes that theatre and culture should be accessible to everyone, and we will ensure that these are not just the preserve of the middle class.

We will support schools to enable their facilities to be made available outside school times for leisure use by the local community, whether that’s sports facilities in the case of secondary schools, or school halls as meeting places for local groups in smaller communities.

Flintshire’s rights of way provide a wonderful means to access the beautiful countryside of our county. We will ensure these are well-maintained, and will seek to expand access rights wherever possible.

Our county’s rich history is an asset for everyone who lives here, and for its tourism potential. We will work with community councils and Cadw to provide a high-quality and consistent network of information boards at sites across Flintshire, ensuring a high quality visitor experience.

We will also work to enhance tourism by using best practice from other local authorities. Flintshire has amazing potential for tourism, yet this is severely underdeveloped. We will draw up a strategy to encourage green tourism centred around a few key strengths of our area – history, landscapes, and the arts – and promote this to potential visitors across the UK. This will prove a boost to smaller, rural communities and Flintshire’s towns alike.