A CALL for Pembrokeshire County Council to join other west Wales authorities in calling for its pension funds to be divested from companies profiting from genocide is to be heard by full council.

Recently, a call for Ceredigion County Council to stress it does not wish to be involved in companies connected with Israel during the ongoing Gaza crisis through its pension fund was backed by councillors.

A notice of motion before Ceredigion County Council’s October meeting, proposed by Cllr Endaf Edwards, said: “The ongoing and deeply concerning conflict in Gaza has led to significant loss of innocent life and widespread humanitarian suffering.

“Despite a temporary ceasefire in January 2025, hostilities have resumed, and conditions on the ground continue to deteriorate.”

Its calls included: a commitment to ethical governance and global justice; to express it does not wish to be associated with companies potentially complicit in war crimes or human rights violations; to write to the Welsh Pension Partnership, conveying these concerns and requesting a review of current investments; to request that the Dyfed Pension Fund and Welsh Pension Partnership strengthen their ethical investment policies; and to call on the Dyfed Pension Fund Committee and Welsh Pension Partnership to regularly review and publicly report on progress toward divestment from unethical holdings.

Following that, a petition was submitted on Pembrokeshire County Council’s own website, making a similar call.

The Pembrokeshire petition, started by Sarah Davies of Solidarity with Palestine Pembrokeshire, read: “We call upon Pembrokeshire County Council to pass a resolution calling on Dyfed Pension Fund to divest our pension money from companies profiting from genocide.

“As residents of Pembrokeshire, we are deeply concerned that the Dyfed Pension Fund (DPF) invests millions of pension fund money in companies complicit in Israel’s genocide, occupation, and apartheid against Palestinians. In addition, DPF uses the multinational asset management firm BlackRock to manage 40 per cent (£1.4 billion) of its total assets. BlackRock has been cited in a recent UN report as profiting from genocide.
“Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and other Welsh councils have already committed to divestment. We call upon Pembrokeshire County Council to use its influence to urge Dyfed Pension Fund to divest from these companies.”

The recently closed e-Petition attracted 560 signatures.

If a petition gets 500 signatures, the creator will have an opportunity to debate it at a future full council meeting.

CPRW, the Welsh Countryside Charity, has welcomed the publication of the Independent Advisory Group’s long-awaited report on the Future Electricity Grid for Wales, which was first promised by the Welsh Government for December 2024.

The charity said the report, led by Professor Hywel Thomas, was “well-balanced” and, at times, “candid”, arguing it moves the debate beyond technical engineering questions to include the social and environmental issues that often drive opposition to new electricity infrastructure.

CPRW said one of the report’s key messages is that future grid investment must be planned strategically and designed “holistically and collaboratively” by all network operators, rather than through piecemeal schemes. The charity noted that such joined-up planning is tied to existing licence conditions, and said regulator Ofgem should consider whether network operators have failed to meet those obligations.

The charity also welcomed the report’s recognition that major infrastructure decisions involve trade-offs between quantifiable factors such as installation and lifetime operating costs and less tangible impacts on landscapes, wildlife and communities.

CPRW said these “softer” impacts can and should be assessed more rigorously, pointing to HM Treasury’s established approaches for valuing non-market impacts where public resources are involved, including methods that can place a financial value on landscape effects.

However, CPRW said the report highlights what it described as a “shocking” lack of transparency in strategic decision-making and insufficient community involvement when options are being developed.

The charity also suggested there may be gaps in the analysis, including whether enough attention has been paid to upgrading existing distribution networks using higher-capacity conductors, the potential use of High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) for long-distance transmission, or making the existing grid more “meshed” to provide greater flexibility.

CPRW said the report’s recommendations may have limited reach for some schemes where responsibility is retained elsewhere — such as certain transmission projects or cross-border distribution — but insisted it still adds weight to the wider debate.

Dr Jonathan F Dean said: “If these recommendations are followed, some of the more contentious projects will need to have a serious rethink, unless they are fudged as some form of strategic investment.”

A PETITION plea to save a Pembrokeshire village school under threat of potential closure will be heard at full council.

At the December meeting of Pembrokeshire County Council, a call for a breathing space before any decision is made on Stepaside school, Kilgetty, part of a wide-ranging range of education changes mooted in the south of the county, was defeated.

At that meeting, a recommendation before members asked that the Director of Education be authorised to undertake a public consultation on establishing a new 3-19 school, on a split site initially, but as part of a future investment to rebuild/extend Tenby’s Ysgol Greenhill site, or potentially on a new site was backed.

As part of that it also recommended Tenby Church in Wales Voluntary Controlled School and Ysgol Greenhill are discontinued.

A second part of the series of recommendations was a call to establish a new 3-11 primary school on the Saundersfoot School site, discontinuing Saundersfoot School and Stepaside school.

A report for members said there were many surplus places for all the schools in the proposals, with Stepaside having a surplus capacity of over 50 per cent.

The Tenby area proposals were backed, with amendments, but a call for a deferral on the second part concerning Stepaside was made by local member Cllr Alistair Cameron.

Cllr Cameron’s amendment call for a deferral was defeated by 37 votes to 12, the original proposal was later passed by 42 votes to seven, with the intention public consultations would be held next year.

Since then, an e-petition on the council’s own website, started by Angela Robinson, calls upon Pembrokeshire County Council “to Save Stepaside School and work with local communities to look at alternative solutions”.

“Stepaside School in Kilgetty is the heart of our community. It represents a high-performing local education asset that delivers significant public value. Any proposal to close it must be assessed not only in terms of short-term financial pressures, but against wider statutory duties, long-term social impact, and the strategic use of public funds that invests in our children best interest.”

The lengthy petition adds: “The rationale for closure appears primarily financial, yet any credible public spending decision must be based on a holistic assessment of costs, benefits, risks, and outcomes. This includes impacts on carers, children with additional learning needs, families from global majority backgrounds, and those reliant on local support networks.”

The e-Petition, which has attracted 582 signatures to date, runs to February 17.

If a petition gets 500 signatures or more, the creator will have an opportunity to debate it at a future full council meeting.

At the December meeting petition pleas to save Manorbier School and Ysgol Clydau, also at threat of potential closure, were heard; members noting those petitions.