The exploitation of children

Labour seem to believe that their continuing campaign to halt the Council's plan to move the West Cross children's home to Blaenymaes will damage the administration. However, as with all obsessions they cannot see the damage it is doing to them.

They are already in trouble for Blaenymaes for slagging the area off, now they are embroiled in a saga of misrepresentation as they try to drive home their imagined advantage. Their problems however are many.

In the first place anybody with their ear to the ground knows that this issue is not about the children or their home at all. All of this fuss is an attempt to sink the new Welsh School in West Cross by forcing the Council to leave the children's home in situ. Essentially, Labour are exploiting children for their own political ends. Perhaps the Children's Commissioner should investigate that. No doubt the Welsh Language lobby have already taken note.

Secondly, Labour know full well that the children themselves have been consulted because they were told in Council by the cabinet member. The outcome of that consultation was favourable to the move. The Children's Commissioner also knows this because the Council have told him at least twice. In fact we understand that what is in his letter bears no resemblance to what is reported in the Evening Post.

Somebody is misleading people and it is not the Administration. As with all of Labour's little storms in a teacup nothing is as it seems and it is the brothers and sisters who are in the frame.

Out of touch at Swansea

Just how much of a faux pas local Councillors for Blaenymaes committed when they slagged off their own area at the last Council meeting seems to have passed by the brothers and sisters over at Inside Out.

However, if this letter from Robin Lowe is anything to go by then the consequences for them may be far reaching. It is worth quoting in full and maybe by the time Labour have re-read they might be able to accept the startling fact that Chris Holley is in touch with public opinion on this issue after all.

Once again we see councillors showing how misinformed they are (Row over plans to move kids home, Post, November 13).

They claim Blaenymaes is a notorious place, crime-ridden and not a place for a children's home.

This may have been true in the distant past. However, the truth is that it is a tight-knit community which has won awards for tackling anti-social behaviour and standing up to louts (many of whom don't live in the area) who blight our community.

Residents, together with the many agencies - such as Police Community Support Officers Constable Barry and Constable Phillips, Gwalia, the 104 Project, Spark, Councillor Gren Phillips and members of the community centre, the ARC, Blaenymaes and Portmead schools, the family centre and the community development team, to name but a few - have ensured that the vast majority of people living in the community have a reasonable quality of life.

Although I agree that looked-after children are the most vulnerable of children in society, I am sure that the professionals working at homes would ensure their safety and ensure that there, residents would not become a nuisance.

Ray Welsby, in saying that Blaenymaes is one of the most notorious areas in Great Britain, is wrong.

Perhaps he should visit a really notorious area, such as Moss Side in Manchester where gun crime and drug gangs have sadly become the norm.

Robin Lowe
Cwm Cadle,
Portmead,
Swansea