A new group, Harlech a’r Cylch (Harlech and Around), is holding a public meeting on Friday 23 April at 7 o’clock in Neuadd Goffa (the Memorial Hall) at Harlech.  This initiative is backed by a wide range of local groups and by the Snowdonia Society.  Gwynedd Council’s regeneration officer, Hannah Joyce, will be at the meeting.

Harlech is a World Heritage Site with a wonderful beach and a championship golf course.  It could be providing new employment and income in ways that are consistent with the purposes for which the National Park was created.  However, so far that potential has not been realised.

Now there are some exciting developments in prospect.  Planning permission has been given for a new 5-star hotel.  Coleg Harlech has put forward imaginative proposals for a Cambria centre.  Plans are about to be published for a new Briwet bridge, which will make Harlech more easily accessible by road.  A local group has taken over the swimming pool threatened with closure, showing what can be achieved by grassroots efforts.  The challenge is to co-ordinate and extend these various initiatives in order to bring the maximum benefit to local people and the wider area. 

 
The Snowdonia Society also wants to see employment created for local people on the former military airfield at nearby Llanbedr.  We do not wish this site to be sterilised and have consistently supported use of the existing buildings to provide space for local businesses and jobs for local people.  We want future use of this site to form part of a wider strategy for regenerating Ardudwy.  We also want its future use to be compatible with the status of the area as a National Park and with the multimillion pound tourism industry founded on that.

The Snowdonia Society regrets that normal statutory safeguards for the environment have so far been avoided in the case of Llanbedr airfield.  At a crowded public meeting called by Llanbedr Community Council on 18 February, Kemble, the firm selected by the Welsh Assembly Government to lease the site, said they "would never apply for planning permission" and refused to rule out any use for it, including activities such as testing of Formula One cars and a scrapyard for airliners as carried out on Kemble’s existing site in England.

Kemble declined to tell the community what their next step will be, following refusal by the Snowdonia National Park Authority of their applications for certificates of lawful use.  On 19 February, BBC TV reported that Kemble have now decided to submit a further application to the National Park Authority for a certificate of lawful use, this time in narrower terms.  If this news is confirmed we hope their use of that procedure, while far from ideal, is nevertheless going to clarify the situation and will open the way to bringing sustainable jobs back onto this site at an early date.
Latest media coverage is here.