Solva works cultural miracle

 A remarkable story of community engagement and enthusiasm came to a head last weekend with the celebration of the Edge Festival, Solva’s inaugural carnival of the arts, food, sport, swimming, music, drinking and much else. It is so-called because Solva lies on the rim of Wales, at the brink of the ocean. As our late, great historian John Davies once said, it is “the most delectable place in coastal Pembrokeshire”.

The festival was definitely edgy, and a bit nervous because nobody knew how it would work out. It was ambitious, held over four days in multiple venues with a wide range of participants, from writers, poets and comedians, to actors, surfers and celebrity chefs.

It was certainly damp. It rained everyday, sometimes all day. Yet despite that multiple events went ahead. A high point came with a four-kilometre open water swim from the harbor out to Green Scar rock in St Brides Bay that attracted entrants from across the UK. There was a six-a-side football tournament, rock and folk bands, cookery demonstrations, a pig roast and food of all kinds, plus a concert with Meic Stevens, one of Solva’s most famous sons. In all there were 221 swimmers, 41 musicians, 70 footballers, 40 climbers, hundreds of filmgoers, and drinkers galore. In short, and in defiance of the weather, it was a great success. To the surprise of the pessimistic it even broke even, despite costing upwards of £20,000.

Which is a lot of money for a small community of scarcely more than 1,000 people. How did they manage it? How did the Edge Festival come about and why was it such a success?

In June and July last year Solva was invaded by a film crew remaking Under Milk Wood, Dylan Thomas’s radio play that was first filmed in 1972, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor and using Llangrannog as a backdrop. The new version stars Rhys Ifans, and Charlotte Church, with dozens of Solva villagers hired as extras. For two months the place was transformed. At the end of the shoot, during the wrap party in The Ship Inn, it was decided that Solva’s new cultural profile had to be continued in some way, and so the idea for the Edge Festival was born.

But to make it happen they first had to raise money. Some support came from local businesses and organisations like Literature Wales and the Milford Haven Port Authority, but far from enough. So Solva set to and organised a series of fundraisers including an Italian Supper and a Spanish Feast at the Café on the Quay and a six-course dinner at the Ship Inn to mark the end of the Six Nations tournament. With these and other events, including a raffle, they aimed to raise £10,000. By the end they got to £18,000.

Solva’s Edge Festival has mobilised a whole community and worked wonders for the local economy. It has demonstrated how from small beginnings, with dedication and commitment, something truly ground breaking can be achieved. Watch out for next year.

How about a Pembrokeshire Pound

Here’s a thought: why don’t we launch a Pembrokeshire Pound? The idea would be to have a community-based currency to keep more money circulating in the county for the benefit of local businesses.

If we had a Pembrokeshire pound that could be only used within the county we’d generate more locally-based economic activity. So, for example, a restaurant would be encouraged to buy more homegrown produce. In turn farmers, paid in Pembrokeshire Pounds, would be encouraged to use the currency to pay a local architect, who also dealt in Pembrokeshire Pounds, to design a property renovation. In this way money would keep on circulating locally to the benefit of local independent businesses, producing a multiplier effect. In contrast, economists calculate that for every pound sterling you spend in a M0rrisons or Tesco, more than 80p immediately leaves the county.

The idea is not so far fetched as you might imagine. Local pounds are already operating successfully in a number of English towns, including Totnes, Lewes, Brixton and Stroud, with Exeter coming on stream next month. The most successful local pound was launched in Bristol three years ago. The system works by people exchanging their sterling for paper Bristol Pounds – in single, five, ten and twenty denominations – or by opening an account at the Bristol Credit Union. The currency can then be spent in participating businesses, or between businesses, in return for goods or services.

So far about £1m Bristol Pounds have been issued with £B700,000 still in circulation. More than 800 businesses accept the alternative currency and more than a thousand users have a Bristol Pound account. The rules are straightforward. Businesses have to be locally owned and cannot be listed on the stock exchange. Individuals who participate have to live inside the boundaries of the city defined by the postcode map.

Bristol City Council and other organisations offer their employees part of their salaries in Bristol Pounds. George Ferguson, the city’s mayor, accepts his entire salary (£51.000) in Bristol Pounds. Since June energy bills can be paid in £Bs to the renewable energy provider Good Energy. It claims to be a world first for enabling the paying of energy bills using a local currency.

The Bristol Pound is managed by the non-profit Bristol Pound Community Interest Company in collaboration with the Bristol Credit Union and the city council. Every physical £1 converted to a printed £B1 is backed in a secure trust fund.

The scheme operates through paper notes, which act as local flyers advertising the local economy, and digitally as well. The amount of money circulating in Bristol is still at a fairly low level, though earlier this year a local architecture firm billed the council for £B900,000. As Ciaran Mundy, co-founder of the Bristol Pound, said, “If we can get that kind of procurement going using the currency then we will begin to have a serious impact on the local economy.” If they can do it in Bristol, why not in Pembrokeshire?

Pembrokeshire’s experiment with badgers

The eve of the Pembrokeshire Show is a good moment to explore the most bitterly contested issue that has dominated farming in recent years. I’m raising, of course, what to do about badgers and their infecting cattle with TB. I confess that when I took part in hustings in Preseli on behalf of Plaid Cymru in the general election earlier this year this was the question I dreaded most, because there is no straightforward answer.

I’m deeply sympathetic to the plight of farmers whose herds become infected with TB. It is a devastating experience, both financially and emotionally. But I’ve never been persuaded that culling badgers is the answer. It’s not because I have a sentimental attitude towards these attractive-looking creatures who feature so prominently in the story books of small children. If I was persuaded that culling worked, then reluctantly I would support it.

But all the evidence I’ve managed to gather persuades me that culling has the opposite effect of what is intended. As Mike Joseph, a writer based near Fishguard who has investigated the impact of culling has argued, killing badgers creates chaos in their lives. The territorial systems of this most social of animals break down. Badgers that survive a cull range more widely. Meanwhile, badgers from neighbouring areas move in to colonise newly-culled territory. Confrontations and fighting result from the breakdown of stable territories, increasing injuries and infection. Along the cull area boundary, and for some considerable distance beyond it, the rate of badger TB increases. And that results in more cattle being put at risk and more being infected. So any benefits of reduced transmission at the heart of a cull area, are offset by increased transmission around the perimeter.

Fortunately, some years ago the Welsh government acknowledged this reality. Instead of culling they began a five-year experiment to establish whether vaccinating badgers is the answer. We are now three years into the scheme and so far about 4,000 doses of vaccine have been administered to badgers that have been trapped in north Pembrokeshire. The so-called intensive action area covers about 288 sq km along the coast just north of, but mainly to the south, of the Teifi where it is estimated there are around 300 main badger setts.

It is an expensive business that will cost about £5m over the five years. And we won’t know until the five years are up whether it has been successful. But the fact is that any option for dealing with TB in cattle is expensive. Doing nothing would be the most expensive option. In the first four months of this year alone, 11,000 cattle were slaughtered across the UK because of TB.

Culling badgers is continuing in England and likely to prove counter-productive. Meanwhile, in Wales a range of other measures are accompanying our vaccination experiment. In particular, every herd of cattle across the country is tested for TB every 12 months, and infected cattle dealt with immediately. At the same time farmers at risk are being helped with a range of measures to separate their cattle from contact with badgers. The result is that over the last five years the numbers of cattle in Wales being slaughtered because of TB has been reduced by 45 per cent and 94 per cent of our herds are now TB-free.

Last chance for Withybush hospital

Last week I sat in a packed meeting in Haverfordwest and heard a group of young mothers relate terrifying stories about their experiences of childbirth since key maternity services were removed from Withybush a year ago. One, who lives a few miles from Haverfordwest and previously would have gone to the hospital there, told how at 1am in the morning she went into labour and called an ambulance. “I was strapped into a stretcher and underwent a horrific journey to Carmarthen,” she said. “I felt every bump in the road. The driver asked whether he should put on the flashing lights and go faster, or go slower. I didn’t know how to answer. My baby was born at 2am.”

Another mother from Tenby told how when she began labour in the middle of the night her husband had put her in the car and started the drive to Carmarthen. However, the baby started coming on the way and they stopped at Canaston Wood. “My baby was born by the side of the road. My husband wrapped him in his jacket and we drove on to Carmarthen,” she said.

A heavily pregnant woman told the meeting that she lived in Dale. “That’s 45 miles and at least an hour and ten minutes to Carmarthen if the roads are completely clear and we know that more often than not they’re clogged with traffic,” she said. “There’s no way I want to be driven to Carmarthen when I go into labour. I don’t think it’s safe or acceptable. I’m arranging to have a home birth at my mother’s house in Haverfordwest.”

There’s been severe overloading at Glangwili since consultant-led maternity care and the Special Care Baby Unit were taken from Withybush a year ago. The Carmarthen hospital is at the end of its tether. Mothers told the meeting that when they rang the hospital to say they were in labour they were told they were mistaken. “A woman at the end of the phone said I wasn’t in labour,” one said. “I said I was. She said I didn’t sound as if I was.”

A nurse who has worked at both hospitals said, “The conditions at Glangwili are nearly impossible to work in. Carmarthen simply wasn’t prepared to take the extra case load. There’s a lot of stress and pressure and an atmosphere of intimidation and bullying.” There was much, much more along these lines. More than 200 people had crammed into the Withybush conference centre to provide testimony to their experiences. The meeting was organised by a group from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. They have been commissioned by the Hywel Dda Health Board to provide an assessment of the safety and effectiveness of maternity and child health services in Pembrokeshire since the changes.

Initially the atmosphere of the meeting was one of confrontation and hostility, as the audience revealed their lack of trust in the kind of engagement underway. Was the group independent? Who was paying for them? Would their report be unbiased? Would it be published?

The chair of the group, Dr John Trounce, a Consultant Paediatrician from Brighton, gave assurances about their independence. The administrator Sue Eardley said their report would be published after it is delivered to Hwyl Dda health Board by the end of September. They appeared shocked when they heard the stories I’ve related. Let’s hope these salutary experiences are reflected in their report. It could be Withybush hospital’s last chance this side of next May’s Assembly election.