Menai

The event was held on the 27th November 2003 at the Celtic Royal Hotel in Caernarfon. Thirty-seven people attended, representing national and local organisations, as shown in Appendix.
This was one of the larger events outside the South-East, which also had a high proportion of Welsh speaking participants. The majority of the workshops groups were in Welsh and this added an important cultural dimension – offering some ideas and themes to consider bringing forward in the Plan.
Picture gallery
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How we ran the workshops

The opening presentations from the Wales Spatial Plan team prompted several early questions about the role of the Plan: how it relates to existing community plans; its legal status; the extent to which it reflects or addresses the North-South Wales divide; the internal-external balance of investment strategy; and how far it deals with disability issues.
Groups’ discussion about the zone and its attributes revealed several themes: the zone was too broad-brush and did not do justice to the diversity of geographic, economic, environmental and cultural differences within the area; there was insufficient regard to the high proportion of Welsh speakers in the area and the extent to which this underpinned local culture; the offshore environment should be included; both tourism and agriculture are insufficiently recognised. Some groups also highlighted the significance of, and differences between towns, and the importance of improved North-South transport links. There was a general sense that the zone was ‘not quite right’.
The sustainability matrix helped focus discussion around these and other issues, particularly: potential tensions between renewable energy (wind farms), landscape and tourism; Welsh culture; pockets of deprivation; full transport accessibility depending on car use, although public services were generally recognised to be good.
Group discussion of the cards gave top priority to cluster of objectives related to skills, the knowledge economy, employment and growth. Only slightly less priority was given to projects dealing with infrastructure, internal links and links with neighbouring zones. Objectives relating to towns and the development of brownfield sites were rated of less importance, but were nonetheless the subject of imaginative constructive proposals.
In the afternoon groups worked on ideas for implementation drawn from the morning discussion. The themes chosen were: Distinctiveness; Role of Key Centres; Deprivation; Increasing Employment; Transport and Infrastructure and Affordable Housing.
The groups were able, in each instance, to come up with a range of ideas for action, to identify the main agencies and potential partnerships, and potential blockages.
This workshop was particularly distinctive because of the strong Welsh speaking representation, and the tensions which were thrown up between the need to sustain this distinctive identity and environment, while accommodating some of the necessary external pressures, which could bring social polarisation if wrongly handled. The idea of a settlement network along the Menai, as the focus for growth and services was perhaps the most distinctive spatial idea.