RE: VIEW from the Senedd, Barry & District News Thursday, March 24.

I write with considerable interest on the comments made by Ms Jane Hutt AM in which she states she is delighted over the £1.2 billion new City Deal.

In her comments she stresses of the opportunity to bring The Metro and many job opportunities to the Vale of Glamorgan as being Labour's, Welsh Assembly Government's opportunity of bringing up to 25,000 new jobs to the area. 25,000 new jobs? Where on earth has she plucked this figure from?

These figures come from a failed health minister now in charge of the budget for the whole of Wales as our finance minister. In her role as Assembly Member for the Vale of Glamorgan I would like to ask her two rather pertinent questions.

Question number one, please tell me and residents of the Vale of Glamorgan why she did not challenge the decision as finance minister not to pass on the millions of pounds given to local authorities in Wales, by central government to aid the freezing of Council Tax in the Vale of Glamorgan and other authorities? To please tell us where those millions of pounds actually went and/or what it was spent on which thereby rendered residents of the Vale liable to yet another Council Tax increase of 3.9 per cent per annum?

Question number two, on another issue, land at the former Barry Docks area was sold for a colossal sum to developers of the Waterfront development. The monies raised at the sale of the said land is still outstanding, is held by the Welsh Assembly Government and is a debt to the Vale of Glamorgan Council going back well over five years.

It is a substantial amount of money and is well overdue to the people of the Vale of Glamorgan. This is not an oversight by any stretch of the imagination it is all downright incompetence by a finance minister, (equivalent of the Wales version of chancellor of the Exchequer), who will no doubt be pleading for our vote at the Assembly elections on May 5.

Will she get my vote? I think not.

We have other alternatives to Labour and their seemingly belligerent approach to equality in our county, we will be far better off if we all vote for Councillor Ian Johnson or the fresh face on the scene Mr Ross England.

Labour in my humble opinion are a complete waste of a vote, being totally incompetent and should be confined to the pages of history, they are now a non entity.

Barrie V Evans

Coordinator Barry First Group

Coordinator Barry Voice

focusBarry supporter