Rhostyllen.com

The communities pressure group Cymuned and the Rhostyllen Residents
Committee (RRC) today condemned an attempt by the National Trust to
mislead the public with regards to the proposed development of 223
houses in Rhostyllen.  The groups say that the National Trust has
behaved dishonestly, and is attempting to silence local opposition
to their immoral attempt to cash in on house price rises.

‘Gwynne Angell Jones, the Communications and Marketing manager for
the Trust in Wales, made it clear to us that the primary reason the
Trust was developing this land was because of the rise in house
prices in the last ten years,’ says Aran Jones, Cymuned’s Chief
Executive.  ‘He admitted that the Trust has done nothing more to
assess the impact of this development on the local community than
talk to the county and community council, and he implied that we
should blame the community council if the consultation had not been
sufficient.  He also admitted that current income from Erddig is
already enough to cover the estate’s running costs.’

The Slough-based Trust have attempted to question Cymuned’s right
to challenge their plans because Cymuned’s headquarters are in
Pwllheli - a patent absurdity which shows how desperate they are to
shut up opposing points of view.  They have also claimed that ‘the
majority of local people are in favour’ of the development, a
deliberately misleading statement for which they have no grounds
whatsoever.  They have suggested arrogantly that opposition to the
planned development is based on inaccurate information, which is
completely untrue - there is nothing inaccurate about residents who
don’t want to see 223 unnecessary houses built on community green
space.

‘We waited for months for a meeting and attended it in good faith,
with a real willingness to try and explore possible compromises,’
says Aran Jones.  ‘The Trust, however, were concerned only to try
and shut up people who disagree with them.  It is quite appalling
that the very people who are meant to be protecting our heritage
are engaged in blatant attempts to take advantage of the housing
crisis in order to make money - their offer of 25% affordable
housing is insulting in the light of recent Assembly statements
that councils should look at 100% affordable housing for some new
projects.’

‘The Trust have missed a great opportunity here,’ says Tara Green,
secretary of the Rhostyllen Residents Committee.  ‘They could have
done a proper housing needs survey for Rhostyllen, and then
provided a reasonable number of houses for genuine local need -
this would have raised money for the endowment fund they want,
while also setting a positive example for how to support the local
community.  Instead, they have been so blinded by greed that they
are willing to ride roughshod over any opposition - to be honest,
their attitude sickens me.’

‘We hoped that we could engage in positive discussions with the
Trust,’ says Carrie Harper, Cymuned’s local representative, ‘but
they have made it abundantly clear that they are only interested in
taking cheap, dishonest shots.  They leave us with no choice but to
step this campaign up to a new level and consider actions of civil
disobedience.’

The National Trust yesterday issued a press release in which they claim local people are in favour of their plans. This is a deliberately misleading statement, and since the Trust told us they recognised that many local people were unaware of the plans, it looks more than a little dishonest. Below is the link to the Daily Post article, at the bottom of their page is an option to comment about the story. Please add your thoughts to this ridiculous and condescending claim by the National Trust that local people want this development.

Click here to read the story

Tempers fly as meeting cancelled:

A public meeting to discuss plans for a 223-home “urban village” near Wrexham will not go ahead after campaigners and the community council clashed over a venue. Rhostyllen residents committee had organised the meeting for Saturday at the parish hall to discuss the proposal by the National Trust to build houses on land near its property at Erddig.

The application has raised concerns among local councillors, who fear it could lead to road accidents, and has sparked protests by pressure groups concerned about the loss of green space.

Carrie Harper, from perssure group Cymuned, said a row broke out after a clash last week at a meeting organised by the RRC.

Members of Esclusham Community Council, who had been told it was open to the public, attended but were asked to leave as the campaign group insisted the talks were private.

Carrie Harper said Esclusham Community Council, which runs the hall, held an emergency meeting on Monday night and decided to cancel Saturday’s meeting.
She said: “Their reason was that the meeting was run by ‘activists’ and a political group.”

“RRC is run by people from Rhostyllen. The only Cymuned member at these meetings is me, the rest are from Rhostyllen and Wrexham.”

And she revealed that as the committee was formed in the presence of Janet Ryder, members are taking advice from her about council standards complaints proceedure.

Cllr Mark Pritchard, borough councillor form Esclusham, said “The community council prides itself on being non-political and does not allow campaign groups to use the parish hall for political reasons.”

“I am disgusted and disappointed that Cymuned, a Welsh nationalist campaign group, excluded five councillors from what they were told was a public and open meeting.”

“Cymuned should be working with the council, not against it, for the benefit of of everyone in Rhostyllen. Myself and the community council have been working with a different residents group for some time regarding this proposal.”

Cymuned response:

In an article in this week’s Wrexham Leader, the county councillor for Rhostyllen, Mr Mark Pritchard, makes a number of openly dishonest statements. He says that Cymuned ‘excluded’ community council members from a meeting which he knows was in fact a meeting of the Rhostyllen Residents Committee - and the RRC (not Cymuned, who only had one member there!) told the councillors that they would be welcome to attend meetings if they were polite enough to let the secretary know in advance.

He also calls Cymuned a ‘nationalist group’, when he knows that we are a communities group working on community issues, and doing so both in Wales and England, as is clear on our website at www.cymuned.net. Some of our members consider themselves to be nationalists, and some do not - we have members from across the political spectrum and across the world.

Mr Pritchard has, unfortunately, said a number of different things to different people over the last few months, sometimes in favour of the Erddig development, sometimes against it. Despite our best attempts to work positively with him (he was welcomed and given every opportunity to speak at the first RRC public meeting), he has persisted in bizarre attempts to spread malicious rumours about Cymuned, disregarding the fact that we are an organisation that works in partnership with the Commission for Racial Equality in Cymru and is welcomed in discussions at the highest levels of the National Assembly.

He has the nerve to tell us we should be working with the community council! We’ve tried to do that - but they won’t even let us hold a public meeting in Rhostyllen for the people of Rhostyllen. How on earth are we meant to work with that kind of blind refusal even to allow discussion?

Mr Pritchard seems more concerned with playing some kind of silly personal politics than he does with representing the people of Rhostyllen. It will be interesting to see how much of his flip-flopping voters will remember in the next election. If he is genuinely concerned about the proposed Erddig over-development, we look forward to seeing him at some of our protests - up until now, he’s been conspicuous by his absence.

The communities pressure group Cymuned and the Rhostyllen Residents Committee (RRC) today condemned a decision by Rhostyllen community council to cancel a public meeting arranged for this Saturday (25/08/07). The meeting would have been an opportunity for residents of Rhostyllen and Wrecsam to voice their concerns at plans by the National Trust to build 223 homes opposite the village of Rhostyllen. This follows several widely publicised attempts by both groups to arrange a public meeting within the community of Rhostyllen itself, which have been consistently undermined by the community council.

The meeting was requested by the RRC several weeks ago and a huge amount of work had been undertaken by the group to publicise the meeting planned for this Saturday. Secretary of the RRC, Tara Green, said ‘I am very angry at the way in which this council have behaved. They are supposed to represent the people of Rhostyllen, not take it upon themselves to do as they please regardless. They are saying we cannot have the hall because we are ‘closely linked’ to political activists, but they know full well that the RRC is made up of residents from Rhostyllen and Wrecsam.’

Committee member Barbara Davies, who attended the meeting at which the council made their decision, said ‘I have been to many council meetings and have never seen anything like this in my life. They invited us to attend this meeting and then refused to allow us to speak. The whole process appears to me to be very undemocratic. Why is the community council in Rhostyllen refusing to allow people to have an open discussion about this development?’

Both groups intend to lodge a complaint about the decision with the relevant bodies. Following enquiries by the RRC, Wrexham County Council have offered alternative venues in both Johnstown and Wrecsam town centre for a public meeting about the ‘new village’ development. Carrie Harper, spokesperson for Cymuned in the north-east of Wales, said ‘The kind offer from Wrecsam council is very much appreciated, but unfortunately there is not time to publicise a different meeting venue for this Saturday. We will however be considering their offer for an alternative date. I really do not understand the thinking behind the decision from the council in Rhosyllen to cancel the original meeting. They can stop residents having a public meeting but they can’t stop them going online.’

The groups have now launched the ’Not on Erddig’ campaign website at Rhostyllen.com. The site includes up-to-date information about the campaign and also an online petition.

Rhostyllen Community Council ban residents from having their say. AGAIN!

The community council in Rhostyllen had agreed to allow use of the Parish Hall for a public meeting regarding the Erddig ‘new’ village. This was after several previous requests to allow the local community a chance to have their say. These had been refused, despite the National Trust being permitted to use the hall on several different occasions!

This request for the use of the hall had been submitted by the Rhostyllen Residents Committee (RRC), a group formed in response to this development.

On Monday 20th August, the community council held an ‘emergency’ meeting to discuss whether or not residents could use the hall.

They had called this meeting in response to being asked to go through the proper channels in order to attend RRC campaign meetings. Several members of the council walked into a private meeting and demanded to know various personal details from committee members. They were politely asked to contact the secretary of the committee to arrange attendance and would then be welcome to come along.

Not satisfied with this response they proceeded to ban the group from using the hall. Two members of the residents committee were invited to attend their ‘emergency’ meeting but were not permitted to speak at all.

Not only did the community council cancel the public meeting, they also commented that they would not acknowledge the Rhostyllen Residents Committee as a group!

The only reason that we have been given for this decision is that ‘the community council are satisfied that the RRC is closely linked to external political activists who are planning to use the Hall for political purposes.’

The council have been provided with details that state that the RRC is made up of residents from (in the vast majority) Rhostyllen and also several from Wrecsam. One Cymuned member regularly attends committee meetings as the group is supporting the campaign. The community council were made aware of these details before the request for the hall was submitted.

The residents committee have worked extremely hard, delivering leaflets throughout the village to publicise this meeting. Their only intention is to give the community a chance to register their views before this development reaches the planning decision stage. Rhostyllen community council cancelled this meeting 5 days before it was due to take place.

Wrecsam County Council today kindly offered the use of community centres in Johnstown or the town centre for a public meeting. Unfortunately, the RRC do not have time to publicise an alternative meeting venue for this Saturday. We will however be considering their offer.

Why are Rhostyllen community council adamant that local people should not be permitted to hold an open discussion about this development?