It’s safe to say it’s been a difficult few months for the Welsh independence movement.
As said in a previous piece, at heart it boils down to a conflict between those who want independence first “and sort it out afterwards” and those who want to impose their own visions for independence beforehand (and usually without much serious thought behind it).
On the one hand, those who have a clear vision have a point: some things are non-negotiable including upholding and respecting human rights (so nobody is thrown under a bus to achieve independence), social tolerance, rejecting totalitarian and authoritarian ideologies, working to eliminate inequality and learning how to do things better from the rest of the world. But even then different people will have different ideas that will clash: freedom of speech vs social tolerance for example.
Likewise, the “independence first, sort it out afterwards” folks have a point. If we believe in parliamentary democracy and plurality, then a lot of the decisions will be made by the Senedd before and after independence. YesCymru isn’t the vehicle to deliver serious policy changes; they’re there to campaign to get the tools to make those changes. We have to say why we want them and what we can do with them, but the final decisions will be based on election results and party manifestos. Democracy is rule of the majority and it’s a basic fact of life that you won’t always get what you want and change can often be very slow (I come back to this point later).
It would be very difficult for anyone to accuse me of not being a proper nationalist and I’d argue I’ve done quite a bit for the independence movement, but the purpose of this piece is to prove that your personal views don’t invalidate the views of other people in the independence movement and you can still be on the same side.
So, what “controversial” views do I hold – some of which may genuinely annoy or anger people – that may put me in the dog house with the majority of Welsh nationalists?
There seems to be a presumption against new housing developments in particular – not only by nationalists but more generally. Sometimes those arguing against new developments have a point and are too easily dismissed as NIMBYs – particularly where there isn’t the proper supporting infrastructure for new developments (i.e. lack of open space/green infrastructure, no improvements to local health facilities, transport and schools). Those things are usually only added long afterwards, if at all.
Opposition to the Llantrisant new town in the 1960s and 1970s led to a missed opportunity to create a proper overspill community for the M4 corridor and Rhondda. Instead, what happened was housing estates and other facilities were gradually added to the existing villages over several decades with no overall strategy or efficient transport links to and from Cardiff. It’s only now, about 50 years later, that there’s talk of fixing it (and even that’s not guaranteed). NIMBYism may be a well-intentioned way of trying to preserve the local environment or slow the pace of urban change and urban sprawl, but it can sometimes make things worse in the longer run.
Developments by volume housebuilders are usually uninspiring, but Wales needs to do far more to retain people in their later 20s-40s. One of the main barriers to that is a lack of suitable housing and a lack of agglomeration. Agglomeration should (but doesn’t always) reduce travel times, shorten supply chains, make places more attractive to live and work (i.e. by improving cultural and social opportunities), increase the pool of local labour and provide enough density to support higher-level businesses and higher-qualified workers. It’s one of the main reasons why economic productivity in Wales is so poor. That shouldn’t be translated as meaning “everything needs to be built in Cardiff” or that agglomoration is the be and and end all, but that more should be done to make our larger towns and cities more self-sustaining.
All of this needs the increasingly efficient use of space. That means more higher density – even high-rise – developments on smaller plots of land and properly planned large urban extensions with good public transport links, minimum levels of supporting local facilities and good quality construction.
Regionally important towns like Aberystwyth, Carmarthen and Caernarfon should be doubling or tripling in size. It’s far better to concentrate development where it can be properly supported and “bring the noise” than building a couple of new luxury dwellings in rural villages or along the coast which are snapped up as holiday lets or second homes.
- Does that mean green fields should be carpeted over “just because”? No.
- Does that mean developers and planners should get away with crap developments? No.
- Does that mean all new housing developments are a means for the English to “colonise Wales”? No.
