Plan aims to create 7,000 new Valleys jobs

AN action plan to bring thousands of jobs to the South Wales Valleys was launched yesterday.

The plan is the result of a year’s work by the Ministerial Taskforce for the South Wales Valleys and has as one of its aims to get an extra 7,000 people into work by 2021.

But yesterday’s launch comes just weeks after the Welsh Government refused to extend a financial guarantee to the Circuit of Wales scheme, which backers said could have created thousands of jobs.

The action plan has been developed following feedback from people living and working in the Valleys.

It sets out a range of aims and actions in each of the three priority areas, including:

Closing the employment gap between the South Wales Valleys and the rest of Wales by getting an additional 7,000 people into work by 2021;

Launching three pathfinder projects to look at how services and local delivery can be better joined up in Ferndale, Glynneath and Banwen; and

Exploring the development of a Valleys Landscape Park with the potential to help local communities use their natural and environmental resources for tourism, energy generation and health and wellbeing purposes.

Alun Davies, the Minister for Lifelong Learning and Welsh Language, said: “Our Valleys, Our Future is not simply a plan for the Valleys. It is a plan from the Valleys.

“From the start, I have been clear this taskforce will not be another case of the Government deciding what is right for the Valleys. If we are to succeed, local communities and local people must be at the heart of our work.”

The Welsh Conservatives said ministers would need to convince Valleys communities that their new action plan is more than just a “glossy PR exercise”.

Shadow Economy Secretary Russell George said: “For a generation and more, Valleys communities have been let down by a lack of strategic leadership at the heart of Welsh Government.

“This is a part of Wales which has seen huge sums of investment from EU schemes, and yet that money has on the whole been wasted and there is little evidence to suggest that previous initiatives have been anywhere near transformational...”

Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said it was vital that the initiative did not “get added to the list of previous broken promises and failed projects”.

“We’ve said that the city region deal must begin its job-creation and improved infrastructure work on the outskirts, where the employment and spending is needed more.”

Also yesterday, Economy Secretary Ken Skates chaired a meeting with industry figures and local representatives to discuss a planned £100m automotive technology park in Blaunau Gwent.

The technology park was announced last month following the decision to refuse support to the Circuit of Wales.

At the meeting yesterday were representatives from sportscar manufacturer TVR, Ford, General Dynamics and technology firm IQE, as well as some from the Ebbw Vale Enterprise Zone, Blaenau Gwent council and Cardiff University.

The park is expected to create up to 1,500 full-time jobs.