http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk ... THE SPECTACLE of Carwyn Jones and his health minister, Lesley Griffiths, cowering in the shadows as Hywel Dda Health Board prepares to tear the heart out of Bronglais Hospital does as much harm to the devolutionary agenda in Wales as to the frayed remnants of voter belief in the vague... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/22159/ 2012-02-01T00:00:00-00:00 I’LL be careful with my description. The place: Aberystwyth Town Hall. The location: that semi-subterranean region reached internally by a downward flight of stairs, and outside by a ramp with a 180-degree turn. Accommodation which bears a passing resemblance to a blast-proof wartime bunker done out in a pale pastel. ... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/21676/ 2012-01-19T00:00:00-00:00 With Patrick O'Brien   A PREDICTED current year overspend of £37m is not deterring Hywel Dda Health Board from lashing out on items which would be extravagant at the best of times. Last summer, it paid outside management consultants nearly £100,000 to do a review of bed-use across its area,... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/21465/ 2012-01-04T00:00:00-00:00 Board is splashing the cash despite its £37m overspend with Patrick O'Brien SOME PEOPLE may be worried about Tesco’s high street dominance, but at least we can all bask in the warm glow of its impressive environmental policy. Or can we? That Tesco is incredibly keen to minimise its carbon footprint seems not to be in doubt. A detailed... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/21274/ 2011-12-22T00:00:00-00:00 Supermarket’s green manifesto on trial with Patrick O'Brien IF WE’RE looking for someone to stick up for us at Assembly level we’re theoretically spoilt for choice. With both constituency and regional seats, we’ve got not one but five AMs we can turn to. But it’s not that simple. Constituency members tend to keep a fairly... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/20609/ 2011-11-23T00:00:00-00:00 with Patrick O'Brien IF WE weren’t already feeling guilty about climate change, Peter Harper was going to do his best to see that we did by the end of this meeting in an appropriately cheerless hall in Newtown. We were there to hear what people think about the Welsh government’s... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/20372/ 2011-11-09T00:00:00-00:00 PAY CLOSE attention to fund-raising activities for the Wales Air Ambulance charity. Because the way Trevor Purt and his colleagues are going, many more of us could find we need one of their helicopters in a hurry. Mr Purt is chief executive of Hywel Dda Health Board and is paid... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/20004/ 2011-10-26T00:00:00-00:00 DON’T BE fooled. The rural hospitals centralisation agenda of successive Welsh governments has never wavered. At the same time, the official mantra that Bronglais Hospital will retain its district general hospital status has never been more than a smokescreen deployed in an attempt to divert attention from a steady erosion... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/19630/ 2011-10-12T00:00:00-00:00   with Patrick O'Brien   THE people of Aberystwyth tend to find themselves out in the cold when it comes to involvement in major decision-making affecting the town. Getting the public included in discussions about how, for example, £10.3m of regeneration cash should be spent appears as problematic as requesting... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/19292/ 2011-09-29T00:00:00-00:00 Matrix not up to job with Patrick O'Brien   YOU MAY remember hearing the good news somewhere back in the mists of March 2010. The Welsh government was going to give Aberystwyth a special £10.3m. How the money was going to be spent was a bit vague, but it included sprucing up various properties in... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/19017/ 2011-09-14T00:00:00-00:00 with Patrick O’Brien   THE SUMMER of 1831 was a momentous one for freedom of information, with the radical press entering a new phase in its fight to get the vote for working class men, while simultaneously resisting government attempts to tax it out of existence. Then it was that... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/18771/ 2011-09-01T00:00:00-00:00 Information request rigmarole is bonkers With Patrick O'Brien   FROM WHERE I live near Aberystwyth you can see a windfarm on a ridge four miles away. Edge a little to the left, and another comes into view. When I looked the other day, all 26 turbines had ground to a halt. It was warm, sunny... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/18524/ 2011-08-17T00:00:00-00:00 DOUBLESPEAK award of the month goes to the Welsh government for its comments after suspending an Aberystwyth trade unionist wrongly accused of leaking information to the press about the proposed closure of government offices in Caernarfon, Llandrindod Wells and Newtown. “We are investigating potential breaches of ICT (information and communication... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/18131/ 2011-08-03T00:00:00-00:00 THE Bodlondeb saga goes from bad to very bad. We are currently faced with an apparent breach of faith by the leader of the county council. Following a fudge, a veiled threat and political blood-letting. Plus a nagging question about council voting procedure. The coach-load and more of frustrated and... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/17829/ 2011-07-20T00:00:00-00:00 IF ONLY Liverpool corporation had known in 1956 what SSE Renewables knows now about propaganda rhetoric – or PR if you insist on the respectable abbreviation – they could have saved themselves a great deal of trouble. The nine-year campaign of protests that preceded the flooding of the Tryweryn valley... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/17601/ 2011-07-06T00:00:00-00:00 IT WAS a revelation. The all-seeing all-knowing crowd who packed St Anne’s Church hall in Penparcau to protest about the county council’s plan to close Bodlondeb old people’s home (“Close? Do you mind, it’s just a feasibility study!”) was able to sniff out humbug with the ease of a tracker-dog... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/17215/ 2011-06-22T00:00:00-00:00 CONSTERNATION among civil servants, including a number in Aberystwyth, working for Edwina Hart in her new job as business, enterprise, technology and science minister. Shortly after taking office, she instructed them to suspend all payments to outside creditors until she had personally checked the books. The order caused minor panic,... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/16885/ 2011-06-08T00:00:00-00:00 with Patrick O'Brien IT WAS rubbish and we knew it and now it has been exposed. They tried it on in 2006, and pretended to backtrack. They tried again last summer and gave us honeyed words of reassurance and said ‘don’t worry’, and told us that what we thought was... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/16364/ 2011-05-12T00:00:00-00:00 with Patrick O'Brien THE CARE homes charity MHA seems light on commitment in the case of Hafan y Waun, its spacious, purpose-built complex on the outskirts of Aberystwyth which opened in 2007 giving an undertaking that it would provide dementia care for 50 residents and nursing care for 40. Less... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/16049/ 2011-04-27T00:00:00-00:00 OUR correspondent Martin Davies has a very valid point this week (see letters, South). The number of election signs which have sprouted up all over Ceredigion in the last couple of weeks is vergeing on the ridiculous. Scores and scores of candidate placards can be seen along our roads -... http://www.cambrian-news.co.uk/comment/i/15852/ 2011-04-20T00:00:00-00:00