Mudiad Meithrin: Concerns some Welsh-language nurseries could close

There are concerns that some Welsh-language nurseries could face closure if more demands in the childcare sector fall on the shoulders of fewer volunteers.At present, hundreds of Cylch Meithrin nurseries across Wales are run by volunteer committees who are part of the Mudiad Meithrin network.But with increased financial, safeguarding and staffing demands, many volunteers have said the current arrangements are not fit for purpose.Mudiad Meithrin have said its options were limited, since each Cylch was an independent charity.
The chief executive added that they "don't have a magic wand to fix things overnight", but that they had not seen evidence of a reduction in volunteers.Cylch Meithrin Cilfynydd in Pontypridd opened following efforts by local parents, who were concerned about the effect closing Ysgol Pont Sion Norton would have on Welsh-medium education in the village.Within a few years, however, the Cylch had closed."There were three of us volunteers, without expertise in childcare," said Lowri Real, the Cylch's former secretary."Finding a site was one challenge, staffing was a huge challenge, and trying to ensure that the business was sustainable."But unfortunately, with staffing and site costs it was just impossible to run it viably. The three of us were essentially running a business on goodwill alone."They were encouraged by the Mudiad Meithrin to apply for grants from the Flying Start scheme, but that would have meant offering more childcare hours and so more admin work."That was beyond our means as a small committee," said Ms Real.She added that it was frustrating not to be able to continue with what they had been offering."If we don't look again at the system, I worry about small communities like this who will lose the language," she said."We need to come round the table and look at this, because the system isn't working and isn't sustainable."I wouldn't be encouraging anyone to open a Cylch Meithrin, because it has been heartbreakingly difficult."
Two years ago, Cylch Meithrin Pontrhydfendigaid in Ceredigion was recognised as the top nursery in Mudiad Meithrin's annual awards.But maintaining that high standard was a challenge said Gwawr Evans, chair for the past five years."It's a lot more work than I'd thought," said the mother of four, who also runs a business."It's been an eye-opener seeing how much the committee does for the Cylch."The Cylch had secured grants to pay for a staff member to do admin work, but Ms Evans said more practical help from Mudiad Meithrin would be welcome."The Mudiad does great work, but more help for committees to deal with reports and staff assessments would certainly be welcome."She was worried that fewer people would want to volunteer in the future."I think it would be a challenge to find anyone willing to take over as chair, treasurer, secretary."No one wants to do it because they see how much work it takes."People have so much more going on with children, work, looking after the house."I'm worried about the nurseries' futures, and how they're going to be run, if more people aren't coming through."
'Parents want more childcare provision, not less'
Mudiad Meithrin's chief executive Dr Gwenllian Lansdown Davies said she was aware of the pressures on volunteer committees, given the high standards of the childcare sector.Mudiad Meithrin will now review the voluntary committee model to see whether there were other alternatives."The advantage of a volunteer model is that the Cylch belongs to the community," she said."But of course, as childcare demands become ever more complex, the demands on committees also increases."We have a responsibility as Mudiad to take stock of that, and think what can we do differently, while accepting that we don't have a magic wand that can fix things overnight."
Mudiad Meithrin said it was always looking for ways to relieve pressure on volunteer committees.It added that although it was impractical for all nurseries to be part of the Flying Start scheme, many parents were now looking for all-day childcare rather than a few mornings a week.The number of Cylchoedd Meithrin providing Flying Start has more than doubled to 44% over the last three years."Communities and parents on the whole want more childcare provision, not less," said Dr Davies."The concern is if it's not being provided in Welsh, that we'll lose children from the Welsh-medium sector to the English-medium sector."Although Mudiad will look at alternative models, Dr Davies said there was no evidence so far that workload concerns were putting people off joining committees, or setting up new Cylchoedd Meithrin."We have more individuals volunteering on the committees this year than last year, but that doesn't mean we aren't aware of the pressures on them," said Dr Davies."The important thing is that we work in partnership with our 1,200 volunteers and say, if there's something we can do differently or better, thrn we should do that together."

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The Guardian

5 hours ago

• The Guardian

‘It takes 25 years for a footprint to disappear' – the secret, beguiling magic of Britain's bogs

I haven't found an hour when I don't love a bog. Recently, after a night of counting rare caterpillars in Borth in Mid Wales (they come out only after dark), walking back to the car under the glow of a flower moon, I wondered if 2am was my new favourite. I felt very safe, held by the bog's softness, and everyone that was out at that hour seemed to have a sense of humour. I met a nightjar hopping around on the ground, pretending, I think, to be a frog. But there is also something about the humidity of a languid afternoon on a bog, when everything slows and fat bumbles hum, that is surprisingly good. I have done freezing horizontal rain and thick, cold-to-your-bones fog and wind so howling that I couldn't think. All of those were hard, but I did come away feeling truly alive. I have travelled to the tip of Scotland and far beyond to visit bogs. In all the hours, days and weeks I have spent on them, I have learned that time behaves differently. It stretches out like the bog landscape, seeming to still the world beyond. There is something very special about that. Like many of us, I came to know bogs not by visiting one, but by ripping open a bag of compost and plunging my hands into the soft, dark peat. Then I learned that there was more to peat than an amiable bed in which to coax a plant to grow. It is ripped from a living, breathing entity with complex ways and wants. We sneer at bogs, we tease them and drain them, scrape at them and pillage them, but give them back their waters and they care not just for the creatures that live on them, but those much further afield. There is more carbon stored in peatlands than in all the above-ground vegetation in the world. They account for 3% of landmass, but hold at least 30% of soil carbon. Seventy per cent of the UK's drinking water starts its journey on peatlands, where the bogs not only filter but also slow water, helping to mitigate flooding. This is why draining, extracting and turning peat into agricultural land has consequences. Roughly 80% of the UK's peatlands are damaged, polluting our water, exacerbating flooding and increasing the risk of fires. But this knowledge doesn't stop us using extracted peat. Sure, I don't buy peat compost, but I have eaten fresh cultivated mushrooms (most large-scale growing is done in peat), bought supermarket basil (usually peat-grown), 'saved' numerous discounted houseplants (only about 11% of houseplants are truly grown peat-free) and eaten lettuce, celery, potatoes, carrots, peas, beans and tomatoes, some of which are grown in the UK on drained peat, as well as crisps, biscuits, cakes and chips made with palm oil grown on drained peatlands in south-east Asia. Most of us are complicit in damaging, extracting and wasting peat, despite years of writing, campaigning, shouting and imploring. I decided I would get to know the bogs, to learn their ways and stories and see if a different song might stir the soul. Bogs are magical in many ways. These ancient beings are much more than their brown flatness suggests from a distance. Below the surface, they seduce water with their engineering. Under every bog is a sea held in suspension, so when you walk over a bog you are truly walking on water. It is why they wobble when you jump up and down on them. They are nature's answer to a water bed. Don't jump, though – they are fragile places. It takes an average of 25 years for a footprint to disappear. What is a bog? Well, there are many types of peatlands, but broadly speaking peat is either fen or – more frequently – bog. A fen is alkali: it gets its water from a ground or surface source and is flushed with minerals because of it. A bog is acid: it is fed entirely by the sky, which means it is very poor in nutrients. Bogs form in wet places, where the humidity and rainfall are high and evapotranspiration (the combined process where water moves from land to air) is low. Many of them start life as a depression, a hollow or a dip in the land that starts to fill with water. The rock below is hard, often impervious, such as granite, and the water pools. As the climate and world around it change, things begin to grow around the bog: plants spring up, die, fall in the water. The dip starts to fill with rotting organic matter, creating oxygen-poor, acidic conditions. Most things don't want to grow in waters that are turning acidic, but mosses don't mind; in fact, they thrive. This is particularly true of bog mosses, which are from the genus Sphagnum. The mosses creep in, the rain continues to fall and the bog is born, made up of plants, mostly mosses, some rushes and a few shrubs, living and dying, but not completely rotting. This is what peat is: partially decomposed organic matter. When it is wet, it is happy; when it is drained of water, it starts rotting again. A similar process happens with fens. But whereas peat is extracted from bogs to be used for compost, most of our lowland fens have been drained for agriculture. That flush of minerals from the groundwater makes them fertile places, once drained. Peat in the northern hemisphere is mostly made up of mosses. They call the shots; they are the ecosystem engineers. These tiny, centimetre-high plants are alchemists, taking only what falls from the sky and creating a kind of immortality for themselves as they strive to be dead and alive at the same time. They do this by pickling themselves and everything that falls into the bog in acid, which means nothing entirely rots away. The bog mosses' pickle juice also prevents bigger plants from doing too well and shading out the moss. The mosses do this in such style, too. They don't stick to the run-of-the-mill green – they come in every jewel tone imaginable: golds and oranges, neon-green emeralds, lobster pinks and deep wine reds, in russets and chestnut browns, their colours turning with the seasons, deepening across the summer. What appears flat from a distance up close rises and falls in miniature mountains of hummock-type mosses, with valleys, pools and lawns of looser types. The things that live on and in this world have run with this otherworldly theme. There are the giants: bog bush-crickets with their huge antennae; emperor moths with their peacock-like eyespots on their wings; darters, damselflies and dragonflies of all colours that often come to peer at you curiously if you sit for a while. This is to say nothing of the green-eyed horseflies, which are a terrifying size, although it is hard to not be beguiled by their giant emerald eyes. There are frogs, toads, lizards, snakes and so many spiders, including one of Britain's largest, the raft spider. Spend long enough at a bog pool and you might spot one floating, waiting for the vibrations of prey, only to run across the surface of the water and pounce. They go for prey as large as tadpoles, but if you frighten them, they dive and swim underwater. Imagine that – a swimming spider! These are just the easy-to-spot guys. There is an abundance of tiny insects: pseudoscorpions, gnats, midges (not all of which bite), strange-looking larvae and tiny micromoths that flit about. These bring an abundance of other wings. Peatlands are hugely important habitats for birds: hen harriers, golden and white-tipped eagles, merlins, owls, jack snipes, golden plovers, curlews, lapwings, pipits, snow buntings, grouse, dunlins, redshanks and, at coastal edges, strange-looking ducks. A chorus of beings in full song for those intrepid enough to venture in. For that is the thing about bogs: they are not hugely interested in wowing you. The mountains have good views and the forest has majesty; the sand dunes sculpture and the wildflower meadow an easy romance. But the bog is quite happy to be passed over – it will share its best secrets only with those who carefully tiptoe in and are patient enough to wait a while to see what comes out once they have settled down. The bog has other secrets, too: underneath this living layer, preserved in all that peat, is an archive of our past doings. A healthy bog grows just a millimetre a year, which puts in context anyone who tries to argue that cutting peat is sustainable. It is important to remember that less than 13% of our bogs are considered healthy, or in a near-natural state. But each millimetre is a record of everything that happened that year: it holds big data, such as fragments of moth wings or pollen and seeds, and tiny microbe data, such as all the amoeba that dined on the semi-rotting plant material before it got weighed down by water. This allows scientists to take a core sample and tell you what the climate was like 6,000 years ago, which plants grew there, which moths fluttered and which bees buzzed, who crawled over and passed by. There are other buried treasures. The most famous are the bog bodies, including Denmark's iron-age Tollund Man and Ireland's bronze-age Cashel Man, but you can also find hoards of coins, jewellery and weapons, as well as pots and pans, fishing nets, whole canoes, carts and cartwheels and even butter. When our ancestors buried all this, they knew it wouldn't disappear or rot away. It is believed that this is why so much of it is decommissioned, broken and bent, just in case the bog was a portal to another world and the undead might be able to use it when they rose again. Ritually buried bog butter is often found near bog bodies. It represents such a huge amount of milk to a culture only just beginning to farm that if it wasn't a gift to the gods, perhaps it was a gift to the bog itself. The bog certainly represented seasonal abundance for those who knew where to look. It was a source of plant medicines, dyes and fibres. Then there is the rich foraging opportunity: cranberries, bilberries and cowberries, as well as all the meat and eggs from otters, fish and fowl. Not an easy place to get on or off, but useful nevertheless. The reverence our ancestors felt for bogs is a lesson we need to remember. They aren't barren or desolate, although many are certainly remote. They shouldn't be drained or burned to make them productive, nor should they be extracted from. What they need is our respect, because peatlands are the air-conditioning units of the world. Their long-term storage of carbon and filtering of water is helping to keep our climate cool. And no one needs the air-con turned off now. Cors y Llyn near Builth Wells in Powys is a great example of a quaking bog, with strange, stunted ancient Scots pines growing on it. This perfect little bog is surrounded by wonderful orchid meadows (above) and you can nearly always find wild cranberries creeping over the mosses. There is an accessible boardwalk. The Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland is a Unesco world heritage site and perhaps the crown jewel of the UK's peatlands. The biggest blanket bog complex in Europe, it is rich not just in bird life, but also in neolithic structures. Start at the RSPB Forsinard Flows reserve. Swarth Moor is a raised mire next to the village of Helwith Bridge in Ribblesdale. It is home to three nationally scarce species of dragonfly – black darter, common hawker and emerald damselfly. There is well-surfaced bridleway around the southern edge, leading to a viewing platform that gives you a peatland vista without you getting bogged down. The South Pennines is good peat country, with moors galore. Highlights include the moorlands around Gunnerside village, Haworth Moor (above, of Wuthering Heights fame) and Tarn Moss, a raised bog owned by the National Trust. Marches Mosses, a group of lowland raised bogs on the border of Wales and Shropshire, are not without the scars of human intervention – peat cutting, drainage for agriculture, forestry – but still there is a wealth of peatland wildlife, particularly damselflies and dragonflies. There are trails around Bettisfield Moss, Wem Moss and Fenn's and Whixall mosses. Dartmoor in Devon is a vast upland area of peat; much of it is damaged and dominated by purple moor grass, but restoration work is changing this. The visitors centre at Postbridge has Tor Royal Bog, the only raised bog in Devon and Cornwall, while the nearby Fox Tor Mire is a good example of a valley blanket bog. Peatlands by Alys Fowler is out now (Hodder Press, £20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply

BBC News

18 hours ago

• BBC News

Allied Steel and Wire pension campaigners call for surplus to be used

Pensioners from a plant in Cardiff who lost their pensions when it went bust more than 20 years ago have called for surplus money to be used to compensate from Allied Steel and Wire got 90% of their pensions back, but that has been eroded because payments are not linked to rising of them, John Benson, said "retirement dreams" had been "destroyed" but that using a small portion of a £13bn surplus in the Pension Protection Fund would be enough to fully restore the UK government said it was considering the matter but warned "these are complex matters requiring a balanced approach". Pension protections were strengthened after the Maxwell Scandal, when newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell stole more than £400m from the pension funds of his Mirror newspaper group to prop up his ailing pensioners lost half of what they had paid in. As a result of his action, the Financial Assistance Scheme was set up as a safety net to protect pensioners when the companies they worked for went bust. It was this scheme that helped bail out a group of Welsh workers from Allied Steel and Wire (ASW) in Cardiff who lost out when the company went under in 2002. Although the ASW workers got 90% of their pensions, their value has fallen since that time as they are not linked to rising prices. 'It's destroyed me' Mr Benson, from Dinas Powys, Vale of Glamorgan, has led a long campaign asking the government to make up the shortfall, which he said has had dire consequences."It's destroyed retirement dreams. Some colleagues have had to downsize," he said. "One lady who was seriously ill herself couldn't afford a funeral after her husband died, and a couple of months later she died herself. "It's soul destroying. It's destroyed me. "There are some horror stories, too many to tell." Now a cross-party group of Senedd members has written to the prime minister urging him to pay the pensions in full, among them the former Conservative leader in Cardiff Bay Andrew RT Davies."This is a massive injustice that's been inflicted on ASW pension holders and other pension holders across the UK," he said."Through no fault of their own, they've lost their entitlement to a full pension which they paid into, and we believe the system should be corrected and that's why we've signed this letter."It has been revealed that the scheme which replaced the Financial Assistance Scheme, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), has a surplus of £ Benson said paying a tiny amount of that money to him and his fellow pensioners to make up the shortfall would not be a hardship, but would make all the difference to them."This money, this surplus in the PPF, should be paid to restore our pensions in full."They've got a £13bn surplus in the PPF – use it!"Stop making excuses that it's public money – it's our money. This money is meant for us, not other government policies." 'Any hope?' The matter was also raised with Pensions Minister and Swansea West MP Torsten Bell at a meeting of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee earlier this chair Labour MP Debbie Abrahams asked: "I cannot understand the reason for not making a decision to enable them to spend the last few years of their life in some comfort, can you give us any hope around this?"Bell replied: "It does need to be looked at properly."It needs to be considered in the round of those wider impacts, as all public policy matters are, but I am absolutely aware of the issues."I am also aware of the average age of the people that are affected."The best thing I can do is to say that I am aware and I am looking at it, but the public finance implications are more complicated than you set out."In response, concerning its £13bn surplus, the PPF said it deliberately had what it called a reserve to protect it from future claims or in case people live longer than Department for Work and Pensions said it recognised members' incomes may have been eroded in recent years."However, these are complex matters requiring a balanced approach," it said."The government is continuing to consider what we have heard from the Pension Protection Fund and Financial Assistance Scheme members on this issue."More on this story on BBC Politics Wales at 10:00 BST on Sunday 22 June

The Independent

a day ago

• The Independent

We still need to have difficult conversations about abortion

My mother remembers that, when she was a child, a friendly woman, probably in her thirties, lived next door. One day, that woman was gone. Another neighbour had helped her carry out a 'backstreet abortion' – in the days when terminating a pregnancy was illegal but coathangers were not – and she'd bled to death in her own home. I don't even know her name. But I thought of that poor woman this week when MPs voted overwhelmingly to stop women in England and Wales being prosecuted for ending a pregnancy outside the law – for instance, after 24 weeks. Thank goodness, I thought, we live in a nation where women no longer have to risk death or imprisonment in desperate situations. But if there's one thing I've learnt from a decade of writing about abortion – speaking to women, joining pro-choice marches and questioning anti-abortion protesters holding rosary beads and praying outside clinics – it's this. Whichever side you're on (and it's not always black or white), it's easier to make your case if you've engaged with those who don't agree with you. In this deeply emotive debate, talking it out is not only helpful but essential. So, on this heatwave weekend, if you're going to a family gathering or having barbecue with friends, and the topic comes up? Don't shy away from it. It's why I listened this week as LBC presenter Shelagh Fogarty told listeners of her lunchtime radio show: 'I am horrified by what happened in the Commons yesterday… I feel sad and deeply worried.' I expect many of us will have a woman in our lives who feels this way about Tuesday's vote, which saw MPs give abortion law its biggest overhaul in 50 years. No longer will women in England and Wales be prosecuted using an 1861 law designed for Victorian backstreet abortionists. Women will no longer be pulled from their hospital beds following a miscarriage and investigated on suspicion of causing their own late abortion (yes, this happened, and recently). But I also know that not everyone feels the same way, even my fellow women. You might know one of them – your mum, grandmother or aunt; a friend, sister or colleague. We need to be able to have these conversations with each other and not avoid it out of shame or fear (or how ever do we hope to have them with men?) So here's your basic toolkit for talking to a woman in your life who feels worried about what decriminalisation means. First, don't approach them with a 'you're so ignorant' stance – tempting though it might be – especially an older woman. They fought many of these battles first, or have had decades to think about them. Softly, softly. It's also best to shelve any arguments over when a clump of cells becomes a foetus or becomes a baby – if you disagree on that straight away, it's probably game over. Fogarty mentioned 'Sarah', who called her show to share how she'd experienced mental health issues at 35 weeks pregnant and felt the only way out was an abortion. It had helped Fogarty understand, she said, how 'demanding, exacting and desperate a pregnancy can be for some women'. That's what you're going for: compassion and an appreciation that no woman who procures her own abortion, late into a pregnancy, is doing so just because they can. It's not 'abortion on demand'. These women – and there are very few, around 0.1 per cent of all abortions each year – are vulnerable, backed into a corner, sometimes being coerced. They need help, not prison. So talk about Nicola Packer, who took abortion medication thinking she was less than 10 weeks pregnant and, when she went to hospital and discovered she was actually 26 weeks, was thrown in the back of a police van. She was finally cleared last month after a criminal trial. Or Carla Foster, who was jailed in 2023 after taking abortion pills between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant and at a time of serious distress. She was sentenced to 28 months and denied access to her other children, one of whom has special needs. She was freed after a public outcry, but not cleared. It's hard to see how locking these women up does anything useful. Deter others? The tiny number who are so very desperate enough to do this won't be deterred, though they may be put off from seeking medical care. And it's heartbreaking to think of women suffering the tragedy of miscarriage or stillbirth being treated with suspicion, not sympathy. 'Even if you're opposed to abortion, you can understand why the law shouldn't be used in that way,' says Katherine O'Brien from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service. Next: demystify. I've seen one too many social media posts saying 'abortion is now decriminalised in the UK up to the day of birth'. Except, it isn't. The Abortion Act 1967 requires a termination to be approved by two doctors and it can be performed until 24 weeks (10 weeks for pills by post), unless there are exceptional circumstances such as the woman's life being at risk. That still stands. A doctor who performs an abortion after 24 weeks, without there being exceptional circumstances, can be prosecuted. Now, a woman who ends her own pregnancy after 24 weeks, or without two-doctor approval, cannot. Stay calm. But if they can't? If language like 'murderers' or 'evil' comes up? Take a moment or agree to continue the conversation another time. You can't pretend the other side doesn't exist, but you can be safe in the knowledge that you're on the right side of history.