Geraint Talfan Davies, IWA Chair:

The more you look at Ofcom’s proposals for reducing ITV’s programming for the nations and the regions of the UK, the more you sense that the endgame for ITV is approaching. And it’s happening just when the clouds are gathering over our newspapers, too. These are unprecedented crisis years for the media in Wales.

Braced for some months past for a reduction in general programming from four hours a week to three hours in January 2009, shocked ITV Wales staff at Ofcom’s press conference in Cardiff last week were desperate to know when the decision was taken to reduce the requirement still further to one and a half hours. According to the Ofcom team it was ‘within the last six weeks’.

This underlines how quickly events are moving and raises the most pressing question of all: how long can even this new deal last? ITV is on course to realise savings of £40m in this financial year, but has already said it wants another £35m cut out in 2009-10. One thing is absolutely certain – especially given the prospect of a few glum years for the economy – the deal will not last until 2014, when the current licence period ends. Indeed, I would be surprised if Michael Grade isn’t knocking on Ofcom’s door within six to nine months asking for a further renegotiation. Tragedy being replayed as farce.

Of course, it might not be Michael Grade at all, but a new owner attracted by one or two ITV assets, such as Coronation Street, and taking advantage of ITV plc’s desperately low share price. You can bet your life that such an owner is going to want to be rid of public service obligations altogether, and even more urgently than Grade.

In newspapers, Trinity Mirror, the biggest newspaper owner in Wales and the largest regional publisher in the UK, is closing three local papers in North Wales, and its printing base in Liverpool. The Daily Post will now be printed in Oldham instead. The circulation of the Western Mail from Monday to Friday is now less than 35,000 – only the higher sales on Saturdays brings the weekly figure up to just over 37,000.

In the first half of this year, across all Trinity Mirror’s regional titles, advertising was down 6 per cent, but the figure masked the accelerating trend – 3.1 per cent down from January to April, 11.3 per cent in May-June, and 17 per cent in July. Operating profits were down 21.7 per cent, and operating margins were down by 4.6 per cent although this still left a profit margin of 21 per cent that many businesses would regard as quite healthy.

Despite its substantial investment in a multi-media newsroom in Cardiff, ghoulish rumours started to circulate last week that Media Wales – publisher of the Western Mail and other titles – had been given two years to turn itself round. Although the use of Trinity’s new regional and local websites is rising sharply, digital revenues account for less than 10 per cent of revenue, and 13 per cent of profit.

The newspaper industry is starting to argue for relaxation of competition rules to allow further consolidation of ownership in regional newspapers, although consolidation of itself does nothing for quality of output. Arguably, consolidation killed off ITV’s regional mission.

Without the passing of a new Communications Act before the next General Election, in Wales we face the baleful prospect that there could be no-one left in ITV Wales HQ at Culverhouse Cross to cover the General Election itself in 2010, the Assembly elections in 2011 or a possible referendum on law-making powers for the Assembly. Viewing voters in Wales would be entirely reliant on BBC Wales – a prospect that would be deeply embarrassing for Ofcom, a regulator that has made so much of the need for plurality in broadcasting.

Ofcom itself brought forward its review of public service broadcasting by two years because it saw how quickly the existing business models were breaking down. The Assembly Government should now be insisting that the Westminster Government delivers on the promise made by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Andy Burnham MP, in a speech to the Royal Television Society last week, to bring forward its own legislative timetable.

The devolved Assemblies could make common cause on the issue, starting by insisting on representation on the DCMS Convergence think tank, that has been operating in parallel with the Ofcom PSB review. Wales should take the lead because its media crisis is, for a variety of reasons, substantially deeper than that facing Scotland or Ulster.

Media in Wales: Serving Public Values by Geraint Talfan Davies and Nick Morris, published in May 2008, is available from www.iwa.org.uk in electronic form (PDF, 1.1MB) or hard copy (£10 - with a discount to IWA members). Email wales@iwa.org.uk or telephone 029 2066 6606.
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Tom Williams, Cardiff, one of the Assembly Government's Climate Change Champions for 2008:

I am writing as the leader of a campaign to get more trains on a Sunday on the Arriva Trains Valleys Lines Service. This is a campaign well underway – and this blog is to recruit more people to the cause and update the public on the campaign’s progress.

This campaign is needed because the service is just so poor on a Sunday. Demand for Sunday trains is greater than ever, and as a Climate Champion I realised the environmental impact of the reduced service. This campaign has a lot of support, because the poor service is something that affects almost everyone these days, even if it’s just going to town! It is socially inconvenient, but through this campaign I hope to be able to send out an environmental message, because the cars we have to use instead release unnecessary carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. With the trains and the track already there and with increases in public transport needed, this is such an easy option.

The facts: there is no Coryton train at all on a Sunday, and the Bargoed Service, running through Heath High Level in Cardiff, is once every 2 hours. This is the only train to run through Heath High Level on a Sunday, and the once every 2 hours compares with once every 15 minutes from Heath High Level Monday to Saturday. In addition, the Pontypridd service runs at erratic times on a Sunday, averaging once every 45 minutes.

I have been in contact with the Rail & New Roads Division Business Unit, and they say fewer trains on Sundays compared to Monday-Saturday are for “historical reasons”. But history’s history, and I am campaigning because things are different today. Shops have been open on a Sunday in the city centre for well over ten years now, with extended opening hours and sales even on Sundays. Even if you believe Sunday should be a religious day then note that there are 16 churches in town alone!

I also wrote to The Echo and they ran the story last week. As they mention, I wrote to Sewta, a transport consortium for 10 local authorities in South East Wales, and they say my call for more Sunday trains “will be considered when they compile their new Regional Transport Plan”. A spokesman said: “We are delighted to hear from Tom and his ideas on the future of transport in South East Wales. We will consider his input as part of the consultation process for the Regional Transport Plan.”

So, I have to wait for a response after the Regional Transport Plan, but while I do that, I am trying to get people on side, and spread the word on this issue. There is also a Facebook group setup in support of this campaign. Currently there are 98 members. Please get everyone you know to join this. I am also on the Youth Editorial Team for the new "what's-on" site for young people in Cardiff – www.thesprout.co.uk – and I ran a small poll. 28 voted yes, there should be more trains running on a Sunday, and only 1 voted no. The results speak for themselves!
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James Foreman-Peck, Cardiff Business School, Director of the Welsh Institute for Research in Economics and Development

Amid the choking of the financial system on the ‘toxic’ assets it has created, no-one has pointed out the silver lining of this poisonous cloud. This is the income gap between Wales and England – particularly the south east, which will almost certainly narrow over the next few years. Welsh incomes per head will be less far behind. Much of the past economic divergence has stemmed from the precocious growth of financial services and incomes in the City. These will now enter a more sober phase of expansion, even after recovery from the latest crash. By contrast, with any luck the rest of the UK economy, including Wales, will plough on much as before.

Why then has there not been widespread rejoicing in Wales? Maybe we needed this natural experiment to show us that, actually we do not care very much about divergences in Gross Value Added per head – even though the Welsh Assembly Government once attached importance to these numbers. What matters more to people perhaps is their absolute and year-on-year living standards, which until the latest price squeeze, had on average been good.

Where the present financial crisis will be unwelcome in Wales is in falling house prices and the seizing up the housing market. House prices have risen in almost every year since the end of the Second World War. For sustained periods of decline we must look back to the 1930s. The forecast by the Nationwide Building Society’s Chief Executive that house prices are likely to fall by one quarter over the next two years therefore takes some digesting. Is he right?

Tighter housing finance must mean lower prices for a while – defaults on mortgage payments will increase, first time buyers will be scarce, ability to take on larger mortgages will be constrained – and, no less importantly, downwards revisions of house price expectations pull in the same direction. Surely some demand for housing has been fuelled by the belief that house prices will rise strongly. How much will the price adjustment hurt? Negative equity – a greater debt than resale value of the house – only matters if you are obliged to sell up. Those that must move or can no longer afford their payments will suffer. But in due course the upward climb of house prices will resume and equity will become positive again.

Another source of disquiet is that since the run on Northern Rock, and perhaps exacerbated by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the shotgun marriage of Lloyds TSB and HBOS, and the sudden absorption of the Derbyshire and Cheshire Building Societies by the much larger Nationwide, quite a few people have been jumpy about the safety of their savings. However it is clear that neither the UK nor the US governments are going to allow a financial failure that disrupts ordinary customers.

Of course the Scots will bemoan the loss of their national bank to London, but probably without much sympathy from Wales. For the (admittedly much smaller) Bank of Wales was acquired by the Bank of Scotland and in due course disappeared some years ago. Although about the same size as the Derbyshire and Cheshire Building Societies, Wales’ Principality Building Society is weathering the storm well. The reason seems to be sound management, as reflected in the high and rising proportion of their loan business financed by members’ savings – in accordance with the original model of the Building Society Movement. In their latest report the Principality indicated that their ratio was 88 percent, while the Cheshire had thought they were doing well with little more than 60 percent. Reliance on financial markets in times of panic is to be avoided as much as possible. But accessing these markets was how, for instance, Northern Rock grew so rapidly. The 3-6-3 model of banking was apparently then popular (‘borrow at 3 percent, lend at 6 percent, on the golf course by 3pm’). Bankers should know about the creditworthiness of those to whom they grant loans and the reliability of their own sources of funds. Wales, or at least the Principality, has opted for slower but more secure growth.

One other possible cause for concern about the current financial crisis has not been much discussed. With one third of the work force in the public sector, we might expect the economy of Wales to be reasonably insulated against much of the demand shock. But the City reputedly provided one quarter of corporation tax and more generally the downturn is likely to hit government finances hard. This could put pressure on the public sector and thus on Welsh central government funding.

No doubt a sense of responsibility not to trigger panic – coupled with historical ignorance – has limited discussion of analogies with the world financial crises of 1929-1931. Were such an informed conversation to take place, it ought to be reassuring. Before 1929 the Welsh economy, and to a lesser extent the British economy, were over-dependent on export industries that were demonstrably uncompetitive, which is not now the case. Then financial crises struck both the US and European economies. Instead of bolstering confidence in their financial system, the monetary authorities in the US undermined it, continuing to publish a monthly index of numbers of bank failures that they permitted. In both the US and Europe cooperation was inadequate to prevent the breakdown of the international monetary system, the US quickly went its own way, followed by the larger European economies. Inevitably, export economies like Wales and the UK suffered badly with the disruption and collapse of world trade. In contrast we now see massive concerted efforts of major governments and central banks to return the world economy to normal, with so far apparently reasonable success.
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John Osmond, IWA Director

This week’s survey from the Institute of Welsh Politics at Aberystwyth University, showing that most people now favour moving ahead to establish a legislative Parliament for Wales, confirms a trend that has been under way for the best part of ten years.
Until the 1997 referendum, and during most of the previous decade, around 40 per cent had been opposed to an Assembly, and only around 20 per cent had been in favour of a Parliament. By now, however, these positions have been reversed. Since the early 2000s around 40 per cent have favoured a law-making Parliament and by today those opposed to change have fallen to just 15 per cent - see Table 1.


What has accounted for this shift? A major reason must be the creation of the Assembly itself, albeit by the slimmest of majorities in the 1997 referendum. Once it was under way the Assembly became the new status quo and most people, conservative as ever, have come to see it as part of the landscape, with a plurality supporting it having more powers in order to operate more effectively.

The argument now moves on to when it will be the most opportune time to hold the referendum on moving to Part IV of the 2006 Act to give the present Assembly legislative powers without going cap in hand to Westminster to ask for them via Legislative Competence Orders. Judging the timing is one job of the Convention under the chairmanship of Sir Emyr Jones Parry that has been established as a result of the One Wales coalition agreement between Labour and Plaid Cymru.

The One Wales agreement specifies that the referendum should be held “as soon as practicable, at or before the end of the Assembly term”, in May 2011. Since the Convention will not complete its work before the end of 2009 this leaves very little room for manoeuvre, especially given the complication of the timing of the Westminster General Election, which is most likely to take place in the Spring or early Summer of 2010.

This will leave the Autumn 2010 or Spring 2011, at the same time as the next Assembly election, as the only feasible options for holding the referendum if the terms of the One Wales agreement are to be met.

It seems, however, that the Electoral Commission has ruled out the prospect of holding the referendum at the time of the next Assembly election. This is how Glyn Mathias, the former Electoral Commissioner for Wales put it, writing in the Summer 2008 issue of the IWA’s journal Agenda:

“There might be a temptation to combine the referendum with the elections to the Assembly in May 2011, but the Electoral Commission has made it clear that they would oppose such a combination. The issues at stake in an election for seats in the Assembly would be far more wide-ranging than the issue at stake in a referendum. To combine elections with a referendum could leave the electorate very confused.”

However, it may be worth considering some counter arguments. Is the electorate are so ill-equipped to differentiate between two very distinct matters when voting? Combining two plebiscites in this way are common in other democratic jurisdictions, not least in American Presidential elections when voters also choose senators and congressmen, and often local office holders as well. It is noteworthy that Schedule 6 to the 2006 Wales Act expressly allows for the referendum to be held on the same day as the 2011 Assembly election, in the following terms

“An Order in Council under section 103(1) may make provision for and in connection with the combination of the poll at the referendum which it causes to be held with that at an election or at another referendum (or both).”

Other reasons that might be advanced for holding the two votes on the same day would be:

1. It could maximise democratic engagement with the issue of more powers for the Assembly.

2. The case for more powers would become an integral part of the Assembly election campaign - with candidates obliged to lay out their positions and argue their case. This would lead to greater public awareness of the issues.

3. It would maximise turnout for the referendum - thereby underpinning the democratic legitimacy of the result.

4. It would also maximise turnout for the Assembly election - with the Yes and No campaigns amplifying the messages sent out by the parties.

5. Having the two votes on the same day would save money.

It will be interesting to see whether the Convention will take issue with the Electoral Commission on this question of the timing of the referendum

John Osmond is Director of the IWA.
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Chris O’Malley, IWA Trustee and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Regional and International Development), University of Wales, Newport

The recent IWA report proposing a new Mayor for the Valleys has once again drawn our attention to the decades-long struggle for the region to overcome the decline of the coal and steel industries and to recover its confidence and prosperity. The report – and especially some of the reaction to it - has also reminded us of how difficult the challenge is.

There have indeed been some fairly spectacular examples of successful regeneration. We have seen a mini-Manhattan rise from the Isle of Dogs in London, while Cardiff Bay has become a magnet for tourists and a hub of government. These are both cases where former hubs of commerce have re-positioned themselves as new kinds of hubs. Nonetheless the track record of regeneration efforts has so far been quite patchy – mainly because those efforts themselves have been partial and fragmented.

Sometimes the focus is simply on new buildings – but it is a lot more difficult to regenerate whole communities than physical spaces. We can see countless examples of apartment blocks and other buildings that were bright and exciting when first built, but have gradually decayed, while the circumstances of the people living in them did not change in any other respect. The alternative picture we have also seen in regenerated areas is that the buildings have stayed in good condition, property prices have soared and the original community has simply been displaced by more affluent arrivals.

Sometimes the focus is on promoting jobs and economic investment. The results here have been mixed also. Where a largely generic approach is followed – notably involving grants for inward investment – it can have short-lived results. A good example of this is the case last year of LG Electronics, whose links with Newport were not sufficiently strong to prevent simple cost considerations from dictating closure of its plant there.

The key to sustainable regeneration is to start with the strengths and potential strengths of the people and places you are working with. In commercial strategy, the concept of strategy based on a company’s core competencies is well established. This means a strategy based on distinctive assets, including skills, reputation and relationships. There is no reason the same logic cannot equally apply to a region in developing a strategy for commercial success.

The same logic applies to social development as to economic development. An increasingly influential line of thinking has emerged around the concept of asset-based community development. This means that, instead of starting by establishing what is wrong with an areas and then prescribing standard fixes to bring into line with what you think is “normal”, you start by looking at a community’s strengths and potential strengths, and work out how to mobilise and exploit these.

A classic example of the former approach at work can be seen in the Five Counties Regeneration Framework (2002), published after the Ebbw Vale steelworks closure. In the report, page after page of weaknesses, whether in employment, education or health, are documented across the region. Nowhere in the document are local strengths or potential strengths identified.
Successful and sustainable regeneration is about building communities and regions starting from the inside – or more to the point, facilitating those communities in developing themselves. It is for this reason that I support the concept of an elected Mayor for the Valleys, if it encourages the development of a representative leadership capable of sustaining a true dialogue with all the community of the Valleys about where they want to go.

The prominent industrialist, Sir John Egan, wrote a report in 2005 about the regeneration challenge, in which his key message was that it is a multi-dimensional undertaking. He identified seven types of skills that are needed for the task. I would simplify this message a little by arguing that successful regeneration requires us to work on three major dimensions: not just the physical re-building and development, but also the economic strategy to sustain it and the social development to ensure that it takes root and benefits everyone.

We also have to take a long-term approach towards it. A challenge on the scale of the Valleys, where two major industries that largely sustained a whole region have all but disappeared, cannot be tackled on the basis of temporary programmes that constantly change focus. While it may be possible to build new buildings or infrastructure in a couple of years, changing patterns of activity, developing new mindsets and skills all take much longer.

The University in Newport is working with Glamorgan University on a joint strategy for how our institutions can best support a wider strategy, and we are also in discussion with the Heads of the Valleys Initiative and other players about how we can do this. Examples of developments we can directly support, that build on strengths and potential strengths of the area, include developing sustainable technology in areas such as construction; developing cultural, leisure and outdoors pursuits; building on the industrial heritage of the area; and building networks to promote the development of local small businesses. We also need to do more to support the development of local leadership in the community and voluntary sector. We need others to join with us in planning how to address all of these challenges and opportunities, and above all there needs to be a sustained approach to pursuing them.
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Denis Balsom forecasts the next General Election:

As the Party Conference season unwinds, the commentariat inevitably analyse leadership, policies and prospects. Against a background where David Cameron’s Conservatives maintain a 20 per cent lead in the polls and the Liberal Democrat’s new leader seeks to make his mark; Labour’s travails are placed in even starker relief, irrespective of global economic and banking crises.

Notwithstanding a change of Prime Minister, the next General Election is not expected until the Spring of 2010. Even so, the parties and candidates are stockpiling their ammunition and staking out their territory. In Wales, in attempting to review party prospects we have the advantage of the results of the Assembly election of May 2007 and the local elections results of May 2008. Both of these elections exposed the current weaknesses of the Labour Party, but also produced results that were ambiguous when trying to identify Labour’s principal challenger.

The coming General Election will, as always, be about electing a Government. This is always a UK contest where history suggests that some of the specific nuances of Welsh politics will be lost under the blanket of a wider British politics. While Labour will undoubtedly remain the largest party in Wales, the configuration of seats held is likely to change significantly. But whether Labour still form the Government or, more likely, the Opposition, overall Wales will remain a minor player in Westminster.

At the General elections of 1997 and 2001 the Conservative Party failed to win a single Parliamentary seat in Wales. It is often forgotten however, that the Tories had won 14 seats in Wales at the 1983 election. Granted, this achievement was part of the post-Falklands Thatcher landslide. Yet the Conservatives have had an appeal in Wales and are likely to do so again. This is especially likely when the prevailing current in British politics is for change and only the Tories offer the realistic prospect of single-party, majority Government.

At the Assembly election last year the Conservatives only gained one extra seat overall. Crucially, however, they won four new constituency contests. Preseli, Monmouth and Clwyd West consolidated successes from the 2005 General election while Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire and Cardiff North were fresh scalps. The adoption of current MEP Jonathan Evans as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Cardiff North suggests a further consolidation of Tory success. With significant swings in May’s local elections, further Tory prospects would include Montgomery, the Vale of Glamorgan and, following a remarkable increase in their vote of 19 per cent, an additional seat in Denbighshire.

Plaid Cymru made some gains at the Assembly election, yet failed to match their spectacular successes of 1999. At the next General election Plaid will certainly seek to retain their control of mainland Gwynedd – the newly redrawn constituencies of Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Arfon and Aberconwy. Ynys Môn will remain a target seat but the Plaid Cymru challenge is likely to be resisted by virtue of Albert Owen’s strong base in Holyhead. Elsewhere, Plaid’s highest priority will be to re-capture of Ceredigion currently held by the Liberal Democrats with a tantalisingly small majority of 219 votes. Plaid Cymru will also seek to follow on from Helen Mary Jones’s restoration in Llanelli, but will require a swing of more than 10 per cent to dislodge Nia Griffith.

As ever, the Liberal Democrats will be vulnerable to being squeezed as the electorate follows the British national swing. The party however, currently enjoys considerable influence in local government and lead coalitions in three of Wales’s largest towns and cities and share power in the fourth. The Liberal Democrats have made a safe seat out of Cardiff Central and, following the local elections, may also have had aspirations in Cardiff West. However, the Labour MP Kevin Brennan appears secure as he is insulated by a divided opposition made up of an established Conservative minority and the concurrent growth of both Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats. At the Assembly election, Ed Townsend of the Lib Dems caused a major upset in Newport East when he reduced Labour’s John Griffiths’s majority to less than a thousand. Ed Townsend is now the Parliamentary candidate and Jessica Morden may well have a real fight on her hands. In Swansea, where the Liberal Democrats have also enjoyed considerable local government success, the retirement of Alan Williams, an MP since 1964 and the present ‘Father of the House’, the Lib Dem challenge will almost certainly give Labour a fright and a fight.

Is there any consolation for the Labour Party? Even without the potential losses suggested here, Labour appears destined for a poor result. Almost the only opportunity for Labour to save face would be to re-capture of Blaenau Gwent from local champion, Dai Davies. However, the resilience shown at the local elections in Blaenau Gwent by the ‘People‘s Voice’, suggests no easy return for Labour to the days of holding most Valley seats with Albanian-sized majorities. Taking all these factors into account, the table below gives a prediction of possible seats that would radically re-draw the political map of Wales following the next General Election:


The Table suggests that on current trends:

• Plaid Cymru should win Ceredigion from the Liberal Democrats and Aberconwy from Labour.
• The Liberal Democrats could lose two seats – Ceredigion to Plaid and Montgomery to the Conservatives, but possibly gain one, Newport East from Labour.
• The Conservatives should gain Cardiff North, the Vale of Glamorgan, the Vale of Clwyd, Delyn, and Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire from Labour, and Montgomery from the Liberal Democrats.
• Labour risk losing Cardiff North, the Vale of Glamorgan, Vale of Clwyd, Delyn, Aberconwy, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, and Newport East.
  

Of course, these are just predictions. If there were to be a Labour meltdown of the kind being suggested by some commentators, Labour could, conceivably, lose even more seats: Bridgend to the Conservatives; Anglesey to Plaid Cymru; Swansea West to the Liberal Democrats; Clwyd South to the Conservatives and Llanelli to Plaid Cymru. A shake-up of this kind might even see Brecon and Radnor falling to the Conservatives.

In this scenario Labour could be left with just 18 seats. The Conservatives would be the second party with 12, 13 or 14 seats – in the latter case bringing its tally back to 1983 levels. Plaid Cymru would be third, with 6 or 7 seats, and the Liberal Democrats would trail with 2 or 3. Whatever the results we can confidently predict that, as it is fashionable to say in America just now, ‘Change’ is coming to Welsh politics.

Denis Balsom is Editor of The Wales Yearbook and an IWA Trustee.
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The Western Mail's headline about a new report from the London-based Centre for Cities, UK Cities in the Global Economy: “Globalisation means Wales must forget its rivalries and forge links” with the following opening paragraph: “Cities such as Cardiff, Newport and Swansea must work together as part of a Greater Cardiff to prosper in an increasingly globalised world.” The paper’s editorial went on to opine, “It comes as a shock to learn that a London-based think tank believes the greatest of rivals – Cardiff, Newport and Swansea – need to market themselves as one ‘great’ city to deal with the challenges of globalisation.”

Well, it might be a shock, if that was what the report advocated. In fact, the report does not deal with Wales at all; its focus is almost entirely on England.Cardiff and Swansea do get a brief look in as part of Heathrow being “a major driver of growth along the M4 corridor connecting a chain of cities: London, Reading, Swindon, Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Swansea” but that’s it. Its talk of using clusters and niches of economic activity around regional centres, and deploying Universities to project the development of cities undoubtedly has some relevance to Welsh circumstances. But its central message of developing a critical population mass to project the identity of some English cities within the globalised economy certainly does not. Welsh cities are simply too small, and anyway Wales has a different and potentially much more powerful option: to project Wales itself as our premier global identity.

Cardiff is the only city with even an outside chance of achieving recognition as a front-line global city – but the reality is that it is the size of Nottingham. Cardiff’s strength is that, unlike the Nottinghams of this world, it is a capital city with a range of institutions that otherwise would never be found in a city of its size – a National Assembly, a National Stadium, the Millennium Centre, the National Museum and so on.

There is a case for the development of Swansea, Cardiff, and Newport to take greater account of their Valleys hinterlands. Public transport initiatives come to mind, especially the notion of a revamped light rail link to connect the communities of south-east Wales with their coastal cities. Given the entrenched parochialism and localism of existing local authorities, however, we will probably have to wait for the recasting of local government boundaries before we will see any significant initiatives on that front.

Meanwhile what is to be done? The best course is to capitalise on the Welsh Assembly’s plan to project Wales as a “world nation”. This will be a central theme of the conference on ‘Wales in the World’ the IWA is organising in Cardiff’s Holiday Inn on Monday 20 October. A key speaker is the Welsh Assembly Government’s Director of Marketing, Roger Pride who will be addressing ‘The Welsh Brand – Connecting Image with Reality’.

In global terms Wales can be projected as a reality in a way that our cities, whether they be St David’s, Wrexham, Newport, Swansea, or even Cardiff cannot. This is why First Minister Rhodri Morgan is speaking at the conference on the theme ‘Putting Wales on the Map’. One answer will be provided by the Chief Executive of the Welsh Rugby Union, Roger Lewis, in his presentation on ‘Rugby’s role in Projecting Wales to the World’. In terms of our global identity that’s what we should be rooting for. So the Western Mail’s editorial writer can breathe a sigh of relief. We don’t need to combine Newport, Cardiff and Swansea into a mega city – even if we wanted to – and we know for sure that they don’t.
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After the carbon footprint we now have our water footprint to worry about as well. One of the less obvious consequences of Britain’s drift away from being a manufacturing nation and from our increased taste for fruits, vegetables and other foods sourced from wherever in the world they can be most economically sourced – is that apparently that we are exporting drought to large parts of the planet.

It is hard to imagine after the summer but Britain is the sixth largest importer of water in the world after Brazil, Mexico, China, and Italy with only 38 per cent of what we use coming from our own resources. What exactly does importing water mean? Well, it seems that the average household uses about 150 litres of water daily for washing and drinking, but we consumer 30 times as much in virtual water – water used in the production of imported food and textiles. Figures from WWF published in The Guardian newspaper suggests a single cotton shirt made in Pakistan for western markets will use no less than 2,700 litres of water.

We in Wales will clearly have to change our consumer habits like the rest of the developed world, if water shortages in the third world stimulated by our demands are not going to lead to starvation, conflict and mass population movement in the decades ahead. But surely there must be opportunities for as wet a place as Wales to make better use of its abundant resources of an increasingly valuable commodity. Surely now is the time for Wales to be looking to see which water-thirsty processes it can repatriate, though not in such a way as would waste that resource but instead use and re-use it in an environmentally and economically effective way.

The same Guardian article focuses on a factory run by the Albert Bartlett group in Glasgow which washes one in six of all the potatoes, carrots, parsnips and onions eaten in the UK, supplying two-thirds of all Sainsbury’s potatoes as well as other supermarkets. The company does not waste water, however, collecting rainwater and recycling it for further use.

The public now largely expects vegetables to come pre-washed in just this way so the question arises why plants of this sort have not (to the best of my knowledge) been established in Wales. Wales is as close to the main crop-growing areas as Scotland and closer to the main UK markets so surely this is a business we could be in.

Taking the argument further, it would also be interesting to know why Wales is not itself a much bigger producer of the popular fruits and vegetables now seen across Britain’s supermarkets. Adapting to climate change and taking advantage of polytunnels and other similar technologies, Dorset has become a centre for growing blueberries and Cornwall is now producing British tea. Large lorries frequently block the main streets of even the smallest towns delivering flowers grown and delivered from the Netherlands that could equally well be grown in warmer parts of Wales such as Pembrokeshire.

Horticultural production in Wales has, in fact, been in long term decline with fewer than 3,000 hectares now under cultivation for potatoes, field vegetables, small fruit and commercial orchards, compared with double that amount forty years ago. The dominance of the supermarkets with their centralised purchasing and packaging requirements and the consequent decline in local wholesale markets and retailing is the principal reason but the trends might now be more favourable as a report last year by ADAS Wales, the agricultural advisory service, pointed out. Transport costs may begin to make it less economic to transport fresh produce from one part of the UK to another and consumers in Wales, Scotland and Cornwall in particular express interest in buying locally.

We have made some recent strides in Wales - the Really Welsh Products company based in Llantwit Major has been a model in this respect, sourcing and marketing different types of vegetables no longer being grown in Wales under a Welsh brand. It is a rare example, however. Far too much of Wales’s agriculture is committed to livestock, a seriously inefficient use of water which requires crops to be grown first then fed to animals for conversion into protein. We have one per cent of British land devoted to crops and horticulture but one in four of all Britain’s sheep, and almost one in eight of Britain’s cattle.

Perhaps there are fundamental reasons why Wales will never be able to reduce even moderately its demand for vegetables and fruits from elsewhere in the UK (and abroad). The temperate climate of parts of West Wales and especially Pembrokeshire, coupled with abundant Welsh water resources, surely lends itself to much more experimentation into the types of popular modern fruits and vegetables that could be grown in Wales (as well as many other more staple vegetables we have stopped growing), creating employment, reducing the demand for imports and helping to stave off the drought we are now inflicting on the rest of the world, while at the same time helping us to cut our water and carbon footprint.

ADAS came up in its report with some recommendations on what might need to be done in investment and facilities and what changes need to be made in training and techniques but there is little evidence as yet that its action plan has begun to kick in (though I would dearly love to be corrected on this). To the lay person it looks like another opportunity going begging. Read more...