AFAN VALLEY: What should £20m buy? You’ve got until Halloween to say

Twenty million pounds is coming to the Upper Afan Valley over the next ten years. What it actually buys has not yet been decided.

The people who will decide want to know what you’d spend it on.

The sixteen locals named to the Pride in Place Neighbourhood Board in July have spent the summer knocking around the valley, calling in on groups and turning up at events, the board says. Now it is asking straight out: what would you do with the money?

Ideas go in on a form online, and the deadline is Friday 31 October.

The board says they don’t need to be polished. A costed scheme with funding half-secured counts, and so does what the Welsh Secretary calls a “twinkle in the eye”: an idea you think would change the valley but could never deliver yourself.

Nobody has to answer every question on the form, the board says, and it stresses this is not a bid for money but an exercise to map what’s out there.

Anyone who wants a hand filling it in can call Carys Miles at Neath Port Talbot CVS on 01639 631246 or 07960 346971, or email carysm@nptcvs.org.uk.

A survey through every door in the valley

Then, in early September, the board says a survey will land with every household in the upper valley.

It asks three questions. What should the valley look like in ten years? How will life be different? What would success look like?

The board plans events in every village through September and October, and says arrangements will be made to hear children and young people, vulnerable residents and anyone else big meetings usually miss.

The answers will feed the board’s ten-year vision and its first four-year spending plan. Once the UK Government signs that off, funding calls open, and the board says nobody will lose out for sitting this round out.

‘I am sure there are many more excellent ideas out there’

Board chair Karen Jones said the programme was about people in the valley shaping the future of their own place. “The funding being made available from the UK Government is intended to bring about long-lasting change. We want to ensure that there are many opportunities for people to tell us what they want this programme to achieve and to discuss how they can be part of delivering that change,” she said.

“I have already visited many voluntary groups who have told me about the changes they would like to make. I am sure there are many more excellent ideas out there and this is an important opportunity to tell us about them.”

Cllr Stephen Hunt, leader of Neath Port Talbot Council, encouraged anyone with an idea to share it, “whether it’s already developed or just an early concept”. “By listening to local people and working together, we can make the most of this significant investment and deliver lasting benefits for the valley,” he said.

Stephen Kinnock, the Aberafan Maesteg MP and Secretary of State for Wales, sits on the board himself. He called the £20m “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” and said the programme would be judged on whether it delivers the changes local people want to see.

“We want people to be ambitious about the future of the Upper Afan Valley and to share their ideas, whether they are already developing a project or simply have a ‘twinkle in the eye’ idea for an intervention they believe could make a real difference,” he said.

The valley won this money the hard way: chosen in January after council officers ranked it the most deprived area in the county borough, with parts of it on Wales’s most-deprived list for two decades straight. It is one of three £20m Pride in Place programmes in the region, alongside North Gate Swansea and the Llanelli town area, with the money coming straight from Westminster.