Rebuilding Communities

After years of austerity, vital community facilities have been lost. Flintshire People’s Voice will work to restore these across our county.

It is scandalous that communities in Wales have fewer powers than those in England and Scotland to take over community assets when they become available. The Welsh Government has prevaricated for years on a community right to buy, making mealy-mouthed commitments that they continuously fail to see through. When a local asset, be it a pub, community centre, cinema, library, or swimming pool becomes available or is put up for sale, Flintshire People’s Voice believes local communities should have the power to take control of them. Far too often, when these community assets become available, they are flogged off to the highest bidder, which inevitably ends up with them being bulldozed and replaced with private housing developments. FPV supports a full Community Right to Buy, which would allow communities across Flintshire to have more control over their local assets, and protect them from being destroyed in pursuit of private profit. FPV also supports the expansion of this policy to include land, based on the Scottish model.

We will prioritise locally owned businesses that support communities through our business development department. Village convenience stores serve a vital role within their communities and an FPV-run council will increase the emphasis on protecting these both through recognising their importance through the planning system, making it harder to buy them up, close them, and convert them to flats, and by offering them the chance to increase their income by delivering council services in local communities not served by Flintshire Connects offices.

We will vigorously support the retention of Post Offices within communities, opposing attempts by the Post Office to pull lifeline services.

FPV recognises that for many pubs, the attempts by the Westminster government to redress the balance between large Pubcos and landlords have been welcome, but insufficient, and that the pubs code does not go far enough to protect tenants of large pubcos. While pubs have a notional right to go free of the beer tie, too often this process is complicated, adversarial, stressful. One of the main difficulties with it is the feeling of a David and Goliath struggle against a large pub company.

FPV will take steps to redress the balance and support local pubs. We will set up a local network of pub owners in Flintshire, to provide an industry voice to the council on key issues, and to provide mutual support to each other, sharing experience on dealing with issues like moving away from the beer tie. This will be a significant expansion beyond the current approach, which is limited to discussing licencing issues. FPV will also look to provide affordable legal support for pubs in dispute with their Pubco, protecting local businesses and working to defend Flintshire pubs against a number of unscrupulous solicitors firms which have moved into this area, but which provide a substandard service.

We are not content with simply preventing further loss of community services but will push for an expansion of services available across our county. We will work with local businesses, community centres and our network of Flintshire Connects centres to establish a number of projects to better serve residents:

• Veg bag subscription service, with fresh vegetables from Flintshire suppliers available weekly, together with recipe cards, supporting local producers, reducing food miles and plastic packaging for food, and giving easy access to fresh vegetables in communities where shops currently don’t have a business case to provide these

• A Flintshire Tool Library, enabling borrowing of items such as hedge trimmers, drills and food processors, giving residents access for a low fee to these when required, without having to buy items which are used only very rarely

• Packaging free shops, enabling purchase of a range of staple goods, from rice to herbs and spices to washing up liquid, with residents able to bring their own containers and purchase a weight of goods without packaging.