[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]With the Assembly on its summer break, there’s more time to get around the region. Last week I was in Brecon, Newtown and Machynlleth.
First up, I met Margaret Blake, chair of Hay, Talgarth and Brecon Sanctuary, to learn more about how the group is helping refugees and asylum seekers. From raising funds to organising days out, the charity offers the warmest of Welsh welcomes to people fleeing persecution, war and devastation. It was great to catch up. It has been a busy few months for the group, which goes from strength to strength. We also firmed up plans for a public meeting to be held in Brecon on 19 October. The event will explore issues around the asylum-seeking process and human trafficking. As chair of the Assembly cross-party group concerned with modern-day slavery, I hope the event – which will mark anti-slavery day (18 October) – will help raise awareness of the issues facing asylum seekers, refugees and victims of trafficking living in Wales.
Next, I had a meeting with Powys Community Health Council to discuss local services and the Welsh Government’s White Paper on Health and Social Care. The document, which is open for comments until 29 September, aims to support frontline staff: to help them provide more joined up health and social care closer to people’s homes. When it comes to joint working, Powys is leading the way. Last month it became the first area in Wales to implement a new IT system that enables health and social care professionals to work collaboratively across administrative and geographical boundaries. It is a big issue: integrated care is one of the trickiest challenges we face, with an aging population. It is a point health minister Vaughan Gething stressed on his recent visit to Newtown hospital, when he met staff from Powys’ innovative Dementia Home Treatment Team and toured the hospital’s new and refurbished x-ray and ultrasound facilities.
From Brecon to Newtown for a meeting with Cambrian Credit Union. Cambrian is the largest credit union in Wales, offering savings and loans to people living or working in Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flint, Gwynedd, Powys and Wrexham. They’re on the financial frontline, helping people struggling to manage their money. Thanks to Welsh Government funding, between April 2014 and December 2016 credit unions supported more than 29,000 people who would otherwise have had difficulty accessing financial services. Now, communities minister Carl Sargeant has awarded an extra £422k to enable credit unions to provide school savings schemes and other community projects. With the big banks’ ceaseless campaign of branch closures – Barclays in LLanidloes, Knighton and Hay HSBCs and Lloyds in Crickhowell are just the latest – credit unions have a crucial role to play in strengthening the financial resilience of our communities.
My final stop, appropriately, was Machynlleth train depot, which this year celebrates 10 years of engineering excellence. Following a £3 million upgrade in 2007, the facility has become an integral cog in the wheel that keeps Wales’ trains rolling. Its 33 staff do a superb job looking after the fleet of 24 trains that serve the Cambrian and Shropshire lines. With more of us travelling by train than ever before, here’s to the next decade of investment in skills, tracks and trains. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
