Llanelli standing up for itself!

The timing could not have been more right for my first observation.

The current Mayor of Llanelli, Councillor Winston Lemon, has ignited a debate in the local press which was picked up by the Cardiff media, about whether Llanelli should remove itself from Carmarthenshire and take control over its own affairs.

Certainly Winston has had his ear to the ground and has detected what some of us have known for years that there is a frustration in Llanelli about the services that we get from higher authorities. By this I mean organisations such as Carmarthenshire County Council, the Local Health Board, Dyfed Powys Police and the Mid & West Wales Fire Service. The list is long.

The big issue at the moment is, rightly and of course, Prince Philip Hospital. When I first got involved in local politics, the Llanelli and Dinefwr NHS Trust had just been abolished and it’s healthy balance sheet was being merged with the indebt and over-spending Carmarthenshire NHS Trust. From that day on services in Llanelli were pillaged and sent down the West Wales General Hospital in Carmarthen.

We had to fight to the bitter end for our Hospice; I myself had a tooth removed in Prince Philip Hospital as a child – a very minor procedure which is no longer performed in Prince Philip. Goes to show how far we’ve fallen.

Now we have the Hywel Dda Health Board which is continuing the drive to turn Llanelli’s hospital into a cottage hospital. Smaller towns such as Carmarthen, Aberystwyth and Withybush are to keep their consultant-led casualty departments with emergency surgery yet, for dubious reasons, our Health Board cannot provide similar for the largest town in its catchment area – Llanelli.

Our fire station is under threat of being downgraded. Again, the largest town in the Mid & West Wales Fire Service area is to receive a service equal to a small village. We have the population, the largest concentration of ratepayers yet are not given the service in return.

Carmarthenshire County Council wanted to shut our care homes to save money yet there is always millions to be found for certain vanity projects which are of dubious value to our Town. Do not mistake “investment” for “wanted investment” when you are being bribed with your own money.

I suppose the point I want to make is how on earth did we allow this to happen here in Llanelli? This has not happened overnight when we were asleep or when our back was turned. Some cuts, like the Hospital, have been a continuous slicing away over the years bit at a time.

Where have our politicians been?

Every election in Llanelli people knock on our doors and say that they’ll save Prince Philip Hospital yet the cuts keep on coming. My fear has always been that our politicians say one thing here in Llanelli but get comfortable in Carmarthen and Cardiff, allow their party bosses to tell them what to do and Llanelli suffers.

So Winston has started the debate. I have my views which I will share in my next post. In the meantime, please leave comments on this site – what do you feel? What do you think is the problem? And, most importantly, how can Llanelli stand up for itself in the future?