PLedge to take action (From Barry And District News)

PLedge to take action

RESIDENTS had a chance to grill local councillors at the second State of the Area Debate last week.

The first in a series of three meetings in the Vale was held in the Memorial Hall on Tuesday, March 30.

The evening was opened by the Chairman of the Vale of Glamorgan Council, Cllr Anthony Powell, who then introduced the local authority's leader Cllr Jeffrey James.

The three topics under discussion were regulatory services, planning and transportation and visible services, covering the wider issue of the environment.

Operational Manager for Regulatory Services, Kate Thompson, gave her presentation on the work done by her department.

She was questioned on the length of time the Vale of Glamorgan Council keep stray dogs.

She insisted lengthening the time would be a strain on resources, but promised to take the suggestions about charging owners re-united with their pets for boarding out funds back to the authority.

The second speaker was Rob Thomas. After his short introduction, the head of planning and transportation was questioned by Dilys Colbourne of the Barry Citizen's Action Group.

He assured the campaigner that work has not been interrupted by the threat to the Welsh Development Agency's (WDA) funding crisis, and that the town centre scheme is still under way.

The last speaker was Miles Punter, who introduced himself as Barry born and bred. He spoke about the issues of litter and fly-tipping and the problems of dog mess.

Many of the questions fired at the council official were already being dealt with by the authority, such as the supply of dog poop bags and tackling fly-tipping. But Mr Punter was tackled on a problem in the Cwm Talwg area, where an underpass is being systematically vandalised.

He said: "We need members of the public to let us know if there is a problem in any area. I will take the comments from tonight back to the department and we will investigate the problems that have arisen here tonight."