The Government has fended off pressure to radically shift the WDA’s focus from the M4 and A55 corridors in south and north Wales with a call for “hard-headed realism” in dealing with inward investment .
Despite growing pressure to direct 80% of the development agency’s investment to central and west Wales, Junior Welsh Minister Peter Hain held out for only 50% of the WDA’s funding to go to those areas. He confirmed that the WDA target was to create or safeguard 12,500 jobs of which two-thirds would come from inward investment and only half of this would be based outside the eastern M4 and A55 corridors
During a backbench debate in the Commons he said it had been easier to attract inward investment to the south east and north east but Hain went on to say: “There is very stiff competition from other regions in Britain and we simply have to offer the best package possible. If that means having 6,000 LG jobs at Newport or not having them at all, the answer is self evident.”
Plaid Cymru leader Dafydd Wigley had accused the development agency of a “cynical betrayal” of those areas in central and west Wales “where the challenge is that much greater and required more effort to crack the problem.”
He went on to attack the Welsh Office and the WDA for accepting “far too easily the perceived wisdom that Newport and Wrexham are ideally located to sell to Dusseldorf or Milan, whereas Holyhead, Caernarfon, Pwllheli, Ffestiniog, Ammanford or Abderdare are impossibly remote for such a purpose”.
With Plaid Cymru only holding four seats in Wales, they are unlikely to be able to effect a major shift in strategy. But the issue could become divisive in a Welsh Assembly where local authorities in central and west Wales are expected to have greater clout.
EGi News 19/06/97
