Do more to help the refugees

THE recent European Union referendum has brought out the very worst in our society, intensifying existing racist tendencies in some and spreading misinformation and an air of distrust in our communities.

Our elected representatives and community leaders should be trying to unite people in these circumstances.

I was dismayed, therefore, to hear the comments of Owen Smith speaking on Newsnight alleging that local schools are under pressure from “significant numbers into South Wales of people fleeing the Middle East”.

At the beginning of August I emailed the council’s chief executive to ask what the situation was regarding the placing of Syrian refugees in RCT following a newspaper article that suggested councils in Wales were not doing their share when it came to offering places for these people.

His response was that while cabinet had decided they would offer to resettle 50 people they had at that point, and I quote, “four families, 24 individuals and of those, 13 are children attending school in RCT”.

Just 13 children in the whole of RCT, while his Labour council colleagues are busy closing schools across the county because they do not have sufficient pupils attending them.

Certainly not all of these would be in Mr Smith’s Pontypridd constituency, so how on earth he can claim schools are under pressure or there are significant numbers of pupils here is beyond me.

Mr Smith is obviously pandering to those who are demanding tighter controls on immigration and the hysteria which confuses illegal immigrants with refugees and pits communities and individuals against these desperate individuals. Councillor Mike Powell Welsh Liberal Democrat Trallwn