Westminster has written off rural Wales - here's how we can boost our countryside economy

Bnr.Lake, careful about falling into the Plaid-vanilla style of politics. But lets be positive With luck, when they redraw the constituency boundaries you will be MP for Cemaes ie N.Pembrokeshire. Good, it worked well when Cynog Dafis MP had these boundaries. Broadband in North Pembrokeshire. All credit, Dinas is getting fibre and the broadband is already better than Cardiff Bay. But yes, rural Wales needs an over all solution. Two points on West and North Wales. 1. Cairns championing links with Manchester and Bristol means we will be neglected. Hold his feet to the fire. 2. You don't mention cutting VAT on tourism. Good. Waste of money. Do please try to get Plaid to change its policy. Your approach will be much better.

J Edwards says above : 1. Cairns championing links with Manchester and Bristol means we will be neglected. Hold his feet to the fire. 2. You don’t mention cutting VAT on tourism. Good. Waste of money. Do please try to get Plaid to change its policy. Your approach will be much better. On 1. you must challenge the London government repeatedly. Single one-off criticisms won't cut it. These London-centric guys will just keep repeating the Severnside and Mersey-Dee lines until it gets accepted as mainstream with inevitable adoption if not discredited. On 2. By all means cut VAT on tourism, but as a general concession to all businesses regardless of sector they trade in. Then you will have to find new ways of raising revenue. Like charging market price and tax for water, power generated in Wales for cross border use. Tourism tax at modest level and mandatory council tax on 2nd homes could be useful sources of support to those local authorities where the tax was levied.

Beth am adfer y rheilffordd o Gaerfyrddin i Aberystwyth i ddechrau?

Felly, beth ydyn ni am wneud am hyn? Dyw chware gwleidyddiaeth ddim yn gweithio. Pam nad yw undebau'r ffermwyr yn gwneud dim? Ti'n sôn dim am y ffaith fod BT wedi methu ei gytundeb ond yn lle cael ei gosbi mae Llywodraeth Cymru am rhoi degau o filiynau o bunnau yn fwy iddyn nhw. Mae hyn yn wir ddifrifol.

I agree with Moelwen, what we need in mid Wales is action on these issues, clearly our democratic institutions are not fit for purpose, if Westminster prioritises other areas above Wales as you have indicated in your article where does that leave us? I hate to say it but asking questions in parliament or leading a debate on the rural economy is not going to change a thing. There is of course a process to follow, and it is reasonable that you pursue these ends, but what is needed is an alternative approach, the part you could play is through leadership. I believe that we need to develop our own capacity and work collectively with the powers that we have and think in a creative way of how we can leverage what we have to improve the economic prospects of our communities. In Australia a town decided they needed a bypass, they worked together and built it, obviously this is an example, but why cant we as individuals come together and create a set of actions that we can take now. One idea I am researching at the moment is creating and alternative currency for Ceredigion, looking beyond examples such as the Bristol, Brixton pound and at the WIR in Switzerland. If the institutions that are meant to serve us in fact do not serve our interest we must look at alternatives.

infrastructure: include building grid capacity to allow distributed generation. Reliable decarbonised energy will anchor industry. Growth: Decouple growth from resource consumption,or it's a cancerous growth. Currency: We need ways to circulate our wealth internally, maybe a geographically bound bitcoin might be the key.. Above all planning. Land use is the key to wellbeing and wealth imo. We do have the tools on this one, we just have not found out how to use them.. Need some new land use classes to start with. Round my area ('the independent republic of pembrokeshire') there is a subterranean wealth of useful experience.