Conwy Harbour Advisory Committee’s chairwoman has accused the county council of making “all sorts of excuses” to insist committee members travel to Colwyn Bay rather than meet within Conwy town, labelling the situation “nonsense”. Conwy Town Council councillor Joan Vaughan is the chair of the committee and commented on the issue after it was raised by Harbour Master Matt Forbes. Mr Forbes asked if the committee could meet at Conwy town – after it was implied most committee members were based there – rather than
have members travel from the medieval town to Colwyn Bay. The Harbour Advisory Committee was based at the county council’s Bodlondeb HQ in Conwy for many years, but the authority has now moved all its meetings to its £58m “state-of-the-art” Coed Pella HQ in Colwyn Bay. The move follows Bodlondeb being leased out to Glamorgan-based Ideas Forum long-term as a business centre for entrepreneurs. Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox This means, currently, the six committee members
would have to make a 12-mile round trip from Conwy to Colwyn Bay if attending in person. But some members attend the hybrid meeting online, as well as members of the press and public, who can view the meetings either live or retrospectively. But Cllr Vaughan criticised the move to Colwyn Bay, proposing meetings were instead held at Conwy Guildhall, where the town council is based. “I was extremely disappointed when obviously we couldn’t hold our meetings at Bodlondeb, and I did ask committees and
cabinet members at the time if we could use the Guildhall in Conwy,” she said. “It has microphones and conference facilities. It doesn’t have translation facilities. But I’m sure we could overcome that. But I was assured it was a no-goer – ‘No, no, we can’t do it.’ “Now, there were all sorts of excuses. I’d certainly like to look at that again because we are all Conwy members, and it’s Conwy Harbour Advisory Board. “It seems nonsense, as you say, to be coming here
using these resources when we’ve got the same ones on our doorstep.” Council officers, though, said the council needed to make the meetings as “accessible as possible” for committee members and the public, with hybrid online meetings “offering that facility”. Cllr Vaughan then said the Guildhall already hosted hybrid meetings and vowed to work with officers to see if a move back to Conwy was possible. Join the North Wales Live WhatsApp community group where you can get the latest stories delivered straight to your
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Conwy, Colwyn Bay, Conwy Harbour Advisory Committee, Joan Vaughan, Bodlondeb, Coed Pella, Ideas Forum, Matt Forbes, Guildhall
It’s not nonsense, it’s just politics dressed up. Everyone’s traveling anyways.
Why can’t they just meet in Conwy like normal people? 12 miles isn’t nothing when you’ve got jobs. Also the translation facilities thing seems like an excuse.
So wait, they say it’s “accessible” but everyone still has to drive from Conwy to Colwyn Bay if they want to attend. Hybrid sounds nice until it’s not, and then you get blamed either way. Idk I’m confused why they even moved it to that fancy HQ.
This whole Bodlondeb vs Coed Pella thing feels like wasting money. If Bodlondeb got leased out to some business centre, of course they gotta shuffle meetings around. But then acting like Conwy Guildhall can’t do it because no translation… translation is like a button now, right? They should’ve figured it out instead of making excuses.