Smithfield Election: Jon Jolley – Plaid Cymru

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area

This article is old - Published: Saturday, Feb 18th, 2023

An election will be held on Thursday 23rd to decide who gets to be the new councillor for Smithfield ward. ‌

If you live in the Smithfield ward make sure you turn out to have your say by voting!

We have attempted to contact all candidates to conduct a quick ‘Q&A’ with them along the same lines as every council election previously. With some delays this end we are now publishing them over the coming days.

Today we are featuring the responses from candidate Jon Jolley – Plaid Cymru :

1. What are the three biggest issues for your ward, how do you think they need to be resolved, and what will you do to achieve it?

Being a part of this community I experience first hand the many of the issues that affect residents most. We have a issue with litter as our ward is so close to town and I would like to continue the work done by Paul Williams with community litter picking. Hopefully we can inspire local residents to get together regularly and get out to tackle it, working together will build ties between the residents but also get them out in the community and inspire a bit more pride in the ward. It’s not an ideal answer to the issue but it’s one I and many of the residents can have a direct impact on.

Parking is a massive issue for many residents. Our ward has many narrow streets and many homes have several cars. Again our proximity to town means streets are used as free parking by people not willing to pay to park in town. There are a few ways to try to tackle these issues and I will be pushing for our area to trial ways with which we can deal with it. The third thing I would like to tackle if elected is to build up the community spirit and inspire more community action in Smithfield. Our ward has a high turnover of residents and many locals complain of not knowing their neighbours anymore

I think more emphasis can be put on building ties with one another – we have St Peter’s Hall in the centre of our ward.

I believe it could be better utilised for the benefit of all residents, e.g. coffee and tea mornings where elderly residents could come and attend. We are living through a cost of living crisis and I have seen some areas use public buildings to make sure people who are struggling to mqke ends meet have a place to go for a warm meal.

Another way I feel we could tackle some of the antisocial behaviour is to give young people in the area something to do. As someone who has been a kickboxer for many years, including coaching youngsters, I believe this sort of exercise and discipline is great. It would allow them to learn self defence and allow them to channel their energy in a positive way. Older residents could also get involved in sessions where we do some lighter physical movements or some self-defence principles. The aim is to bring the locals together give them something fun to do but also give them some connection to one another as well.

2. What do you think needs to be done to help Wrexham recover from the pandemic and what hands-on-role can you play as a councillor ?
The pandemic has had a detrimental effect on many aspects of our lives, the return to normality was a drawn-out process and many people point to it as a reason why local businesses are suffering from reduced footfall and some are closing down.

However, even without the pandemic, towns and cities are suffering the consequences of an increasingly digital age – people nowadays would
rather the product come to them than go to the shops and carry it home. You can see a steady decline for most towns and cities. It doesn’t help that Wrexham Council has been happy to disrupt the identity of the town by building shopping centres on the edges of town, which inevitably affects the heart of Wrexham or means people are hesitant to visit wrexham as everything is so far apart now.

Wrexham would be much better served if we focused on creating community events to draw the citizens back into out town. The great thing is Wrexham also has a fantastic opportunity that is exclusive to us. The football club has Hollywood owners and it really should be something we all view as a golden opportunity. Thanks to the documentary and the take over we have the eyes of the world on us, we have had visitors here from all over the world. I think it’s something that our council needs to work harder to embrace. Add to the appeal the next capital of culture bid will bring and it could be a very exciting time for the people of our city if the publicity is managed well we can draw in tourists and finances from all over the world.

3. As a councillor you may have the chance to take on further roles eg. Lead Member, Audit, Scrutiny. What appeals to you and what skills do you bring to that role?
I want to be elected to represent the ward. I’d like to put the ward first. We are lucky in that Plaid Cymru has several capable councillors and there is a great spirit of unity in our aims. If there is a role I am suitable for I am sure I will be considered and trust my party will make the right decision when putting its people forward for these roles.
4. What do the words climate emergency mean to you and your ward?
We are already living through the effects of climate change. You only have to look at the news to see the we are living through the start of a climate emergency, one that is only going to get worse unless we do our bit to tackle it. I feel the council aren’t doing enough to tackle the effect that the changing climate has on us but also the effect we have on it.

The cost of heating our homes could be tackled by better insulated homes for example, better insulation means less need for costly utilities as well as reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Better public transport would mean we have fewer cars used among other green incentives – community gardens, improvements in our use of renewable energy sources, green transport plans, more solar and hydro use but also I feel the council should be looking into more innovative energy solutions from storage to production of our energy needs.

5. What is the biggest thing you would have done differently from the ruling administration over the last 5 years? (Or, if you were part of the Administration – what would you have done differently?)
Transparency and accountability from the council should be improved. It’s one of the biggest reasons I have chosen to stand. You see some decisions this council make and you think ‘how on earth did they think that was a good idea’? Most local citizens are left out of the loop or not even consulted.

It’s a shame people making the decisions can get away with acting with impunity on important decisions which should have more tax payers input.
City status – the majority of Wrexham residents looked upon it unfavourably, when we look around right now and see how many people here are struggling with the cost of living. The only immediate change residents will see is our council spending money on rebranding and new signage across the region, that doesn’t sit well with me or many others but it fits in with the previous point about transparency and accountability.

Vanity projects seem to have a priority over actually improving wards. A recent example I can think of is the Hermitage ward, some residents will think a life-sized bronze statue is very nice, but it is coming in at a cost of £120,000. To me that’s an obscene amount of funds going towards something that has relatively little benefit to the citizens of the ward. That’s just one example there are examples of this across Wrexham.

The council seem to be cutting services except when it comes to vanity projects like this. I think the funds could be better used to help out communities and the people in them.

6. Local health pressures are well documented, from delayed ambulances to issues in the hospital. How can the council help resolve those problems?
Something has to be done to help the people of Wrexham, although it affects every person in our nation. Our NHS is being ground down and underfunded by Westminster over more than a decade. Post pandemic it’s become evident that our health service is overstretched and staff, as a result, are unable to cope. People trying and failing to secure GP appointments means they will eventually succumb to their ailments and then present to the only place they can – Casualty.

The emergency services are already struggling and one of the biggest issues they face is lack of beds or bed blocking. Patients well enough to go home can’t as they are unable to go home as the social care is unavailable to people who would be home alone or vulnerable. Add situations like this to the people coming in in dire need from lack of early care from doctors surgeries etc – these are interlinked issues and they spiral into disaster.

I am a firm believer that prevention is better than a cure. We need to sort out the issues with our GP surgeries get people seen. Plaid recently launched a Five-point health plan to help tackle some of the major issues we face and cut the waiting times for care.

The news of a new minor injuries unit is brilliant as it will hopefully alleviate some of the pressures on our emergency services. Unfortunately there is still a lot of work to do and unless we have drastic changes soon people will be needlessly lost.

7. What will you do on a local level to help support people in your ward affected by the cost of living crisis?
We are currently in a cost of living crisis, and if I am elected on the 23rd of February by the residents here in Smithfield, I won’t take the undertaking lightly. Many people in our ward are already struggling to make ends meet.

Being relatively young and having a family, it’s disheartening to see how much it costs to get by. Utility costs are high for us all, if you in work fuel and travel costs, parking and childcare take a huge portion of your take-home pay before you factor in food and housing costs etc. A lot of the older residents I speak and drop in to are now alone and feel really vulnerable,they are struggling to afford the basics and many already had to make the choice between heating or eating weeks ago.

There are no simple answers to these issues, but in an ideal world the government should be doing what it can to help citizens, but they seem too preoccupied arguing over who is the strongest leader but not actually doing any leading. I will be able to signpost residents to places they can look for additional funding or support.

At every opportunity I will pressure this council to make every effort to obtain all the funding available to assist local projects and residents.
Something I am hoping to introduce in the area will be to explore if there is a community budget that will allow me to start a warm room or subsidised food day/ community day. As I feel one of the ways we can counter the hopelessness of it all is to build our connection to each other, even though we might struggle we won’t struggle alone.

8. How would you improve the local education system?
Plaid Cymru has ensured that every primary age child has access to free school meals. Research suggests hunger and malnutrition is one of the biggest factors affecting learning on young and developing children.

A lot of Wrexham’s secondary schools were placed in special measures in 2021 so it’s clear for a lot of schools we are failing the children of Wrexham. That is not good enough.

9. When the public view the next Full Council following the election, will you be sitting as part of a Party, Group or coalition, and if so, specifically who and why?

I am standing for Plaid Cymru. The councillors in Plaid are some of the most passionate and outspoken members of our council, it would be an honour to stand alongside them. The council is made up of many different political parties and opinions, many of which I don’t agree with, some of which I will share common goals – but I will always try to be open to the opinions of others and try to find a common ground especially if it means the people of Wrexham benefit in the long run. My main drive is to make sure that the Smithfield ward is best represented and looked after in this council.

10. What local activity have you taken part in over the last few months to improve your ward? Regardless of if you win, will you continue any such action that benefits your ward?

Throughout the pandemic I worked in healthcare and rehabilitation supporting individuals to integrate back into local communities.
I have undertaken several charity fundraisers for Cancer research, making quite a bit for charity. Alongside this I volunteer to help young children all the way up to older adults to train. To see them progress physically and mentally is fantastic and very rewarding – it also helps them to build confidence and self esteem.

I help to instruct boxing events and classes at Russ Williams’s gym – since we have started we have raised over £80,000 for Cancer Research. Something I hope to be able to do if chosen to represent Smithfield on the council is continue the work Paul has done with the litter picking, I will introduce a community litter pick to not just encourage locals to get out and make our ward cleaner and tidier, but to encourage the locals to spend more time in each other’s company and encouraging stronger ties between us.