BEN LAKE MP visited postal workers at the Llandysul Delivery Office last Friday (Dec 13) to show his support and gain insight into their operations during the festive season—the busiest time of the year for Royal Mail.

The holiday period sees Royal Mail handle around double its usual volume of letters and parcels, as people send Christmas cards and shop for gifts online. To meet this seasonal surge, the Llandysul Delivery Office has hired four extra vehicles, while Royal Mail nationally has recruited 16,000 temporary workers and introduced nearly 4,000 additional vans, trucks, and trailers.

During the visit, Ben Lake spoke with Ryan Goellnitz, Customer Operations Manager, about Royal Mail’s efforts to enhance convenience for customers. These include services like Parcel Collect—where posties collect parcels directly from customers’ doorsteps—and the introduction of over 5,000 new parcel drop-off points this year, including at Collect+ stores and parcel lockers.

Ryan Goellnitz said:
“It was great to have Ben visit our Delivery Office and show him how we are gearing up for our peak period. We are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas for our customers.”

Ben Lake, MP for Ceredigion Preseli, praised the dedication of the postal workers:
“It was a pleasure to visit the Llandysul Delivery Office and witness the incredible volume of post managed by Royal Mail, not only here but across the country. This is an essential service year-round, but the effort and planning to ensure smooth operations during Christmas are extraordinary.

“I am immensely grateful for their tireless efforts and dedication, which deserve to be fully recognised. The visit gave me real appreciation for the hard work and commitment of everyone involved.”

Royal Mail’s preparations for Christmas are a year-long effort, ensuring the postal service continues to meet the festive demand.

PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL have recently achieved the insport Partnerships Gold Standard, recognising their commitment and passion to providing inclusive opportunities for disabled people across the local authority area.

‘insport’ is a Disability Sport Wales programme delivered with the support the of Sport Wales, which aims to support the physical activity, sport, and leisure sectors delivering inclusively of disabled people. The purpose of the insport programmes is to support the development of inclusive thinking, planning, development and delivery by everyone within an organisation so that ultimately, they will deliver across the spectrum to disabled and non-disabled people, at whatever level they wish to participate or compete. The intent is to facilitate and deliver cultural change in attitude, approach, and provision of physical activity (including sport) and wider opportunities for disabled people.

Sport Pembrokeshire and Pembrokeshire Leisure have consistently developed their offers for disabled people locally, becoming the first local authority partner nationally to achieve the insport Partnerships Gold standard. Working with the natural, rural and coastal assets, the Sport Pembrokeshire & Pembrokeshire Leisure teams’ have done a fantastic job in navigating the opportunities and challenges to prioritise the inclusion of disabled people in leisure & community-based physical activity (including sport) opportunities. Ensuring that as many people as possible can be involved in sport and physical activity.

Achievement of the insport Partnerships Gold standard means that an inclusive approach to communities of disabled people is embedded within strategies, programmes, and thinking. This award is never the end of an organisation’s inclusion journey, and Disability Sport Wales will continue to support Pembrokeshire County Council as they continue to provide sector leading inclusive opportunities for disabled people.

Pembrokeshire have a number of excellent examples of collaborative work and partnerships supporting the delivery of strong inclusive programming across Pembrokeshire’s communities which add significant value to the area’s rich inclusive sporting heritage. These opportunities provide the initial steps on the pathway that many former and current Paralympic and Commonwealth Games Para athletes have taken from Pembrokeshire, including the Paris 2024 Paralympic Champion, Matt Bush; Paris 2024 Paralympic athlete, Jodie Grinham; 2022 Commonwealth Games medallist Lily Rice.

Tom Rogers (Governance & Partnership Director, Disability Sport Wales) said: “Pembrokeshire’s achievement of the insport Partnerships Gold standard is a remarkable milestone that highlights the unwavering commitment to inclusion in physical activity (including sport). This achievement recognises the efforts in creating opportunities that ensure everyone, regardless of ability, can participate and thrive in physical activity and sport at a level of their choosing.

Achieving the insport Partnerships Gold standard reflects the culture of inclusivity and recognises the excellent example for communities across Wales and beyond of an embedded culture of inclusion. Sport Pembrokeshire’s dedication to breaking down barriers and fostering an equitable and person centred approach to the delivery of physical activity is reflected across their programming. The commitment to inclusion exits across the Sport Pembrokeshire and Pembrokeshire Leisure teams’ and the achievement of this standard recognises the years of hard work by current and former team members, as well as excellent community led opportunities across the local authority area.

Congratulations on this significant achievement—your success paves the way for a brighter, more inclusive future in sport.”

Matt Freeman, Sport Pembrokeshire Manager said, “Pembrokeshire County Council is proud to achieve the prestigious insport Gold Standard, a recognition of our commitment to championing inclusive sport and physical activity across the county. This milestone, led by Sport Pembrokeshire – the Council’s sports development team – reflects the collaborative efforts of our partners to ensure opportunities for inclusive participation continue to grow. We remain dedicated to working with both new and existing partners to expand access and make inclusive provision a cornerstone of sport and physical activity in Pembrokeshire”.

CYMDEITHAS YR LAITH have called on the Welsh Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle, to use the current review of the School Organization Code to state clearly the presumption against closing rural schools, and that local authorities must start from the point of view of trying to maintain and strengthen them, only considering closing them if all other options fail.

In a message to the secretary today, the movement referred to the words of Ceredigion Council’s Chief Executive, Eifion Evans, during the authority’s Cabinet meeting at the beginning of the month (Tuesday, 3 December), when it was agreed to treat statutory consultations on the proposal to close Ysgol Llangwyryfon, Ysgol Craig-yr-Wylfa, Ysgol Llanfihangel-y-Creuddyn, and Ysgol Syr John Rhys in Ponterwyd as informal ones.

Mr Evans told the meeting: “The Code is extremely complex and extremely difficult. And as I’ve said all along, the Code is very vague at the moment. It’s a headache for officials as much as it is for anyone else as to how to interpret it and use it. I hope that the review that is currently taking place down in Cardiff regarding this Code is going to finally try to get some sort of clarity on what needs to be done.”

In response, Ffred Ffransis said on behalf of the Cymdeithas yr Iaith Education Group: “The 2018 edition of the Code states clearly enough that the introduction of a presumption duty against closing rural schools that are on the Government’s official list. But many local authorities such as Ceredigion believe that they can start from the point of view of an intention to close a number of rural schools to save money, and then, just go through the empty steps of naming and ruling out alternative options with the same generic sentence.”

In September 2018, when introducing the Code, Kirsty Williams AM explained its intention on the floor of the Assembly: “Local authorities in those areas, if they have a school that’s on the list, should start on the basis that closure is the last option and they should seek every opportunity through a variety of ways to keep those schools open… Presumption against a closure and the option to seek alternatives to keeping a school open, again, should not be left to the official consultation period, but should be employed by the council before they make any decision to go out to consultation on the future of the school.”

Mr Ffransis added: “It is clear that following a process similar to what we saw with Ceredigion Council did not follow the intention of the Senedd and the Welsh Government when introducing this change in the Code.

“Quite simply, the principle of presumption against closing rural schools needs to be emphasised and made clear in the third edition of the Code that will be published as a result of the consultation. This way, it should be impossible for anyone to mistake that the Senedd or the Welsh Government is serious about the policy.”