Businessman launches campaign to devolve power to north Wales and appoint ‘metro mayor’
A leading businessman has launched a campaign to devolve power to north Wales and appoint a ‘metro mayor’ to ensure the region doesn’t continue to miss out on funding.
Askar Sheibani, Chief Executive of Comtek Network Systems and chairman of Deeside Business Forum is calling for north Wales to have its own powers after planned major road schemes were scrapped by the Welsh Government.
He has warned this will buckle the area’s manufacturing industry and its potential to provide a major source of cheap, green energy for the country.
According to Mr Sheibani, it was yet another example of how the north-south divide is putting the region at a huge disadvantage.
He thinks the only solution is to devolve power to north Wales with a metro mayor who could represent the region’s interests.
The decision to axe road schemes was recently announced by Welsh Government with improvements to the A483 around Wrexham likely for the chop along with the Red Route which would have seen a new eight-mile stretch of dual carriageway linking the A55 at Northop with the A494 and A550 north of Deeside Parkway Junction via the Flintshire Bridge.
Meanwhile, plans for a third Menai bridge will no longer go ahead.
Mr Sheibani said: “These roads are the major arteries for transport into north Wales from the north west of England and the West Midlands, but decisions have been made in Cardiff which will have a detrimental effect on the development of this region.
“We need a real minister for north Wales, our own metro mayor, to help us become the northern powerhouse we can be with our own devolved budget and the ability to make decisions.
“The ‘North Wales Metro Mayor’ would still be answerable to the Welsh Government but would have economic decision-making powers and a separate administration that would provide the strong local leadership to transform our economy beyond belief.”
A recent review panel which assessed 59 road projects across Wales found that only 15 will now go ahead, all of which are in south Wales.
Mr Sheibani claimed the review had ignored citizens in north Wales and failed to engage with key people and public representatives in the area.
He added: “I’m concerned that the panel didn’t actually engage with any communities, as far as I’m aware. It didn’t engage with locally elected members. The engagement with council highways officers was very poor.
“What we had is a diktat which says basically a decision has been made 140 miles away, that vitally important infrastructure works will not go ahead, and by the way, there are no alternatives that we can tell you about today.”
Potential
Mr Sheibani believes the decision also reflects a lack of understanding of the potential for growth in the north.
He said: “Our economy is very different to that of the rest of Wales and there are far greater opportunities here than in south Wales.
“Our companies don’t just supply Airbus, they also supply Boeing and the Ministry of Defence, and they employ a highly-skilled workforce.
“But what makes us really unique is the potential for energy generation here. We have extensive off-shore and on-shore wind power already and two licensed nuclear sites at Wylfa on Anglesey and Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd and how many places are suitable for a tidal lagoon?
“North Wales is one of the very, very few in the world and in a world facing global environmental disasters like flooding we would have a tidal lagoon that prevents flooding and generates lots of energy.
“Our advanced manufacturing capability can service the energy generation industry but we need the improved road and rail infrastructure to support that.
“Compared with south Wales, north Wales has far greater potential but we’re spending a lot of money in the south where the return on investment is far lower.
“In 2017 Ken Skates, as Transport Minister, announced £100 million for that Red Route and now we have a junior minister coming along and saying that isn’t going to happen – the reputational damage is incredible.
“But the economic damage will be even worse – Rolls-Royce have earmarked north Wales as one of three potential sites to build the new Small Modular Reactors for nuclear energy but they won’t come unless the road infrastructure is fit for purpose.”
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Is this a BritNat attempt to divide Wales by exploiting the current inability of the Bay Bubble inhabitants to do a decent job nation wide ? Or is it a genuine call to create some real platforms for performance improvement for each part of our country?
More like English nationalism! There is no such thing as BritNat from an English perspective as they aren’t British. The Cymric people of Wales are….the Welsh confuse them for being British, at their own expense! And then the English see that as a green light to also believe they Are British. The English are confused and the Welsh are ill informed, mainly down to the fact of not wanting to be associated with the term “British” due to how the English acted while using the term. Throw in English usage terms like Welsh and Just like Magic, you have the… Read more »
Riki I’m just raising the question here as I don’t have the answer. Much as I embrace my national identity with fervour I don’t set out to make it the only consideration in the dialogue. If Mr Sheibani is a Sais but seeks to improve the lot of us Cymry living this side of Clawdd Offa then it is imperative that his input is heeded. Whether it is of real value can be determined after giving it a good airing. There are Cymry among us who can’t muster a tidy useful suggestion so the identity thing on its own ain’t… Read more »
Twpsyn.
From what i can see his motives seem to be more the latter than the former (tho how practical his suggestions are is another matter). I know that when we campaigned for devolution for Wales back in the 90s this topic would be brought up and we always said we didnt want Wales under devolved govt to resemble the then over centralised british state. And if im being honest im not sure weve done as much as we should have done since the establishment of the senedd in 1999 to empower communities across Wales. Certainly this is a subject we… Read more »
Thanks for your calm rational response. We will have to engage with guys like Mr Sheibani if we are to take the mission for independence forward with any intention of getting a worthwhile economy and representation. If he turned out to be a dud then he would be put to one side, if a good’un his contribution would add value.
I thought I recognised his name despite not visiting very often any longer 🙂
He’s in two other N.C articles. I won’t post links — they take forever to be approved. His comments seem reasonable though these three articles are all I know of him.
Try ‘Askar Sheibani’ in N.C’s search box:
Welsh independence has ‘economic merits’, says global IT firm CEO, N.C 18 May 2021
Wales needs to develop a ‘strong national banking sector’, says global IT firm boss, N.C 03 Aug 2021
Councils like Wrexham do not make a good case for empowering when they seem to make a mess of so many things. In theory more budgets could be develoved but under the same National framework.
One of the reasons that the new junction on the A483 was not funded was because in Wrexham alternatives to the car have rarely been promoted or funded or planned for. And what is the point of new infrastructure if it is not maintained or repaired, in Wrexham even white lines on roads are too expensive to maintain, apparently.
Personally I am in favour of devolution down from Cardiff in Wales. However, it’ll be interesting to see the reaction from the right to this. Remember, any further devolution to the Senedd and even an increase in members is a call for another referendum from the right and far-right in Wales. So unless they are hypocrites I presume they will support these plans only if a referendum is held? Also remember the Conservative party are against devolution of power (see their campaigns against devolving power over taxation of second homes and tourism taxes to local authorities in north Wales) so… Read more »
‘Junior Minister’! the man has a point there, in-coming Deputy Lee. How come you get to wield so much power over us. Is there a pecking order down the Bay we’re not aware of ?
Mr Sheibani can a running jump on the notion of an North Wales Metro Mayor , Northern Wales has democratic representation already with the current MS system, would be far better for Wales for energy to be wholly devolved ( the best position would be that of an truly independent Cymruso that decisions to site Nuclear SMRs are only made by elected Welsh MSs’ ) .Northern Wales is so more than the industrial parks of Deeside and it’s cheshire/wirral daily commuter belt. Extreme concentrations of industry such as seen at Deeside fail to serve the North Western parts of Wales… Read more »
Even in Bodelwyddan there are businesses where many of the managers commute in from England and add nothing to the local economy, remember one commuting every day from Oldham!
Transport priority should be on a North South basis, and not an East West basis. If we had this then perhaps there wouldn’t be this North/South divide.
Growth, what a silly term, does not entirely rely on roads. The A55 is carrying less commercial traffic due to Brexit and the reduction in Irish ferry traffic. The biggest problem is commuting and holiday traffic but that requires investment into alternatives. Personally I think the Welsh Government needs to properly fund buses and electric buses.
Ah, so this why they keep referring to parts of Wales as South or North. It’s almost as if they want our country broke up into two akin to something like Korea. If something occurs in Wales, as in Cardiff, it’s hasn’t happened in South Wales, it’s happened in Wales. You don’t hear the news say South England, etc, do you! This has forever been the Cymric British problem, easy to manipulate because we have as much Aggression toward each other as we have for Our historical Enemies. Btw, the Cymric are already at a disadvantage because of their insistence… Read more »
The question is why a metro mayor, rather than the already existing local authorities?
Would it be an intermediate institution between the local authorities and the Welsh Government, or a kind of alternative political vehicle that would sort of bypass them, or even bypass the Welsh government to have some kind of direct relationship to authorities over the border?
Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the latter. The Gogs have a history of showing bitterness to their compatriots elsewhere in Wales, this was the cause of the first major downfall of the Britons. You know, Vortigern and Cunedda and their Jealousy towards the Monarchs of Glamorgan and Gwent (House of Bran). Some clearly insistent on keeping up the tradition.
Sowing division? Stirring hatered? You’ll have to try harder I’m afraid. If you’re going to skim early British history in your search for substance to your trolling, you’ll have to skim a little more carefully and get a much better grip of early political geography. Gwrtheyrn is not confirmed as having existed at all and while – if he did exist – he fled to what is now Wales after betrayal by Hengest, he is unlikely to have originated here. He’s reputed to be buried in Dyfed. He’s also considered to be the progenitor of the Powys royal line, the… Read more »
The problems with ‘Metro Mayors’ is that it puts too much power in a single person. I know this has worked well in some cases such as in Manchester with Andy Burnham, but what happens if that mayor is incompetent such as we see with the Conservative MPs in North Wales ? We should have regional assemblies across Wales, they can elect leading representatives to sit in a 2nd house at Cardiff Bay. This 2nd chamber can work similar to the current German model to examine and amend legislation from the Welsh parliament. This federal system would need either more… Read more »
This group is well known for trying to link north east Wales into a merseyside and Cheshire unit. The Wrexham leaderships dislike of Cardiff Bay and the policies of Flintshire welcoming northern overspill at every opportunity feeds into this.