Bedair blynedd yn ôl cefais fy ethol gan bobl Ynys Môn i’w cynrychioli yn San Steffan. Bu i chi ymddiried yn fy ymrwymiad i sicrhau newid ar ein hynys.
Wedi degawdau o ddiffyg buddsoddiad a cholli cyflogwyr blaenllaw dan AS Llafur, rwyf wedi gweithio’n galed i adnabod, gyrru ac arwain y cyfleoedd sydd ar gael i Ynys Môn gan Lywodraeth y DU.
Four years ago the people of Ynys Môn elected me to represent them in Westminster. You put your trust in my commitment to deliver change to our island.
After decades of disinvestment and losing major employers under a Labour MP, I have worked hard to identify, drive and champion the opportunities available to Ynys Môn from the UK Government.
I hear accusations that Ynys Môn has received less funding since Brexit. That is simply not true. In the SIX years before Brexit our island received the same amount of funding from the EU as we have had in the past THREE years from the UK Government.
In the past four years I have mentioned Ynys Môn or Anglesey in the chamber of the House of Commons more than 300 times. That’s more than my Labour predecessor managed in over 13 years.
It is by constantly raising our island’s profile and persistently lobbying Ministers in Westminster that I have championed more than £80 million in investment for Ynys Môn including:
• The £2.7m Community Renewal Fund which helped local businesses create around 90 new employment opportunities, funded Welsh Language projects, and delivered training programmes to support care workers into better-paid employment.
• £26m for Anglesey Freeport which has already created local jobs to manage the programme and transform the old Anglesey Aluminium site into Prosperity Parc. The Freeport itself is forecast to generate up to 13,000 jobs across North Wales with at least 1,000 on Anglesey.
• The £17m Levelling Up Fund which has generated local employment to revive Holyhead Town Centre with 65 long term permanent jobs expected when the work is complete.
• The £16.1m Shared Prosperity Fund which has supported 25 levelling up projects across Anglesey with £400k specifically for Ynys Môn sports clubs and voluntary organisations.
Through these levelling up funds, the UK Government has given control back to communities to deliver what they want and need. That is why the money we receive from levelling up funds goes directly to Anglesey Council. In the past three years Anglesey Council has been awarded over £50 million in UK Government funding to support local projects. The Councillors Anglesey elected are responsible for making sure that those funds go where they are needed in our communities. Spent wisely these funds can make a real difference to the future of Ynys Môn.
I continue to work hard to deliver new nuclear to Wylfa which has the potential to create 9,000 construction jobs and 900 long-term jobs. The UK Government is in talks with Hitachi to purchase the site which demonstrates our commitment to making new nuclear happen here.
However, these new jobs are of no help if they do not go to local people. That is why I launched my Local Jobs for Local People campaign which already has more than 20 local, national and global companies signed up to it.
We need this investment to enable local people to stay here on Ynys Môn, raise their families and protect our Welsh language.
I visit businesses all over the island and you will regularly see me showing companies around that are interested in investing on Ynys Môn. I ask these businesses to publicly commit to training and employing local people whenever possible by signing up to my campaign.
When they sign up they demonstrate that they recognise the importance of our local language and culture, our need for long term economic stability and local people’s passion to stay on the island and live and work here.
If you own a business please sign up to my Local Jobs for Local People campaign on my website at virginiacrosbie.co.uk/LJ4LP.
Last week we welcomed our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to Ynys Môn for his second visit in a year. His visit focused on a matter that is critically important to people and businesses on Anglesey – broadband connectivity.
As a rural community good broadband is particularly important to enable social and economic equality. The Prime Minister visited an Openreach exchange in Valley to celebrate UK Government investment into local Broadband. Openreach has invested around £4.7 million to date to reach 40% full fibre coverage across Ynys Môn, with a further £2.8 million over the next few years as part of their £15 billion UK investment to roll out full fibre to around 25 million homes by the end of 2026.
Openreach estimates that by bringing full fibre to an area employment increases by 0.6-1.7%, productivity increases by 0.3-3.8% and the number of businesses increases by 0.4-3.2%.
I have been responding to requests from constituents to help them improve broadband to parts of Ynys Môn since I was elected. I worked closely with Bangor University’s Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Centre of Excellence on their proposals to bring 5G broadband connections through fibre and Fixed Wireless Access into harder-to-reach areas of Anglesey. Unfortunately in October 2023, the Welsh Minister for the Economy, Vaughan Gething MS, withdrew £4.2 million funding that the Welsh Government had previously committed and the programme of work had to be cancelled.
I am delighted that the UK Government is supporting Openreach to deliver its plans on our island. I am pleased to be working with the Openreach team to help them deliver to hard to reach communities through their Community Partnership Scheme.
Through the scheme local people can apply for – and pool together – free £4,500 Government Gigabit Vouchers to help fund the build. Using the vouchers, which do not cost residents anything, Openreach can work with a local community to build a customised, co-funded network.
This offers an exciting opportunity for local communities to come together and get ultrafast, ultra-reliable full fibre broadband. This technology provides more reliable, resilient and future-proof connectivity; meaning fewer faults, more predictable, consistent speeds and enough capacity to easily meet growing data demands. It's also future-proof, which means it will serve generations to come and will not need to be upgraded for decades.
Openreach is currently asking residents in Llangoed and Bodorgan to apply for vouchers to build community partnership schemes in those areas. On Friday 15th March 2-3pm I will be hosting an event with Openreach in Bodorgan Community Centre and would like to invite residents of Bodorgan and Llangoed to join us and find out more about how they can apply for vouchers and get ultrafast broadband in their areas.
Register to attend at virginiacrosbie.co.uk/events
If you live in other parts of Ynys Môn and are interested in the Community Partnership Scheme please do get in touch with me and I will connect you to Openreach for further information.
