Free childcare up from 10 to 30 hours a week

WALES’ fishermen and coastal communities will be able to access £60,000 of Welsh Government funding to develop future projects.

Applicants can receive up to £3,000 to pay an advisor to help them fine-tune their ideas.

They will then be helped to apply for much larger sums available via the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.

This fund is potentially worth £14m-£16m to the fishing and aquaculture industries in Wales.

Cardiff is keen to speed up the process to ensure the EMFF funding is accessed before Britain leaves the EU.

“There are many good ideas but we do not have the luxury of taking a year to turn those ideas into fundable projects,” said rural affairs secretary Lesley Griffiths. PARENTS in North Wales will be able to get triple the amount of free childcare this year.

The plan will see children aged between three and four cared for at no charge for up to 30 hours a week.

The scheme will be trialled in Gwynedd, Anglesey and Flintshire, subject to Government approval, before being rolled out in the rest of Wales.

In Gwynedd the council has announced the parts of the county where a £1.8 million trial will be run to see how well it works.

At the moment parents of 3-4 year olds get 10 hours free child care a week but this will jump to 30 hours a week for 48 weeks a year.

A total of 272 children in Bangor will be eligible for the free care from next September, as well as 87 children in Porthmadog, 81 in Dolgellau and 56 in Ffestiniog.

Cllr Mair Rowlands, Gwynedd council cabinet member for children and young people said: “Securing suitable child care provision is vitally important for families. Parents need to be confident that they can depend on the best possible child care facilities so that they can return to work knowing that their child is in safe hands.

“We were therefore delighted when Gwynedd was selected.

“This will allow us to work with partners in the sector to ensure Gwynedd’s children receive the best start in life, to look in detail at child care provision in rural areas as well as helping to provide valuable employment opportunities.”

Once the results of the pilot scheme are known it is expected to become available across Wales from 2020.

A spokesperson for Anglesey council, where 304 children will be eligible, said it was still looking at which areas would be part of the pilot scheme but “a list of areas has not been decided yet ...

“We hope that this will be within the next few months.”

Flintshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Social Services, Cllr Christine Jones, said: “I am delighted Flintshire has been chosen to pilot this scheme which will benefit our hard working parents and help them balance raising their children with their working lives.”