Jonathan Bishop

Many people wonder in amazement how the pyramids were built, and other unexplained architectures such as Stone Henge. My answer is simple – There were ancient peoples who were smarter than us. As horrible as that might seem to us, often thinking we are unique, it is what I believe to be true.

In my view climate change is real and has probably happened every 65 million years or so since the planet first formed. It wiped out the dinosaurs – except the ones who could swim or survive the torrential weather conditions.

On that basis I think that any of the ancient wonders that we, indeed, wonder about their creation were not created by primitive people from our evolutionary cycle, but by earlier ones smarter than us. What if they were trolls, like the Mayans’  could have been, leaving weather proof architecture?

On that basis I think there are two possible truths for Stone Henge:

• The were moved by the extreme weather during a previous climate change episode from Pembrokeshire to Salisbury Plane, where they were then erected by other peoples.
• People with technology as advanced as ours moved them from Pembrokeshire to where they are now and erected them something close to what we have now.

In both cases the reason the stones look as ragged as the do was because of the rough weather conditions from climate change. The next time I come across something from ancient times where humans wonder how it could have happened, my first premise will be that ancient people, likely to be smarter than us, did in it ways more likely to be advanced than early humans would have been capable of doing.

So when climate change wipes us out, maybe some of the following will happen (tongue in cheek):

• The Statue of Liberty could float to France
• The Millennium Dome and Eiffel Tower could finally be destroyed as planned
• People will be wondering what people were worshipping in the US Pentagon
• People will wonder if the Angel of the North was who we thought ‘God’ was

I’m certain climate change will wipe us out and in millions of years time there will be people who have evolved like us writing and speaking us in the same way we do ancient species.

Are you are parent of a child diagnosed with autism? Do you wonder what caused it? Do you wish there was a cure for it? The answer is simple:

• Neurological differences cause your child to be autistic
• But it is you and others that cause them to suffer autism!

A. How many times a day do you find yourself doing these things?:

• Telling your autistic child they shouldn’t wear a jacket in hot weather or wear the same jacket over and over.
• Telling your child their room is messy and then blame them if you tidy it and they can’t find things.
• Telling your child not to ‘play with their food’ such as if they’re lining peas up.
• Telling your child they must not have the same food all the time and try different things even if that is not what they are used to or like.
• Telling your child you wish they could be like other children and want to socialise rather than spend time on their personal interests on their own.
• Telling your child they have spent enough time on their interests and should do something else ‘for a change’.

B. How many times do you see your child looking like this?:

• Their arms are folded and they look angry when you’re yabbering on with a friend and ignoring them, especially in public when they can’t go to their room to focus on their interests.
• You find them gripping their arms or clencing their fists when you are trying to get them to be the person you want them to be when they would prefer to be themselves.
• You find their eyes look evil, almost as if they’ll kill you, when you try to change their routine, take something from them, or otherwise change their environment without speaking with them.

If you found you have said yes to many of these things, then it is likely that it is you causing your child’s autism by trying to change them from being autistic to being like you. There is nothing wrong with them wanting to do the above things, just because you wouldn’t do them. You wouldn’t force a Black person to change the colour of their skin just because everyone around them is White would you? You are treating your child like an ugly duckling, when if you let them be themselves and actually supported and tolerated their autistic personality then they could grow up to be a very beautiful swan.

The person that needs to change is you:

• Allow your child to have a routine to keep their life ordered and disciplined. If they want things in a certain order, such as for things to be lined up in a certain way or at a certain time, don’t stop them
• Have a clear set of rules they can follow, and don’t change or deviate from them
• Make use of their autistic personality, ask them to solve problems and ask their opinions
• If you want to watch soap operas without them interrupting, then make sure one of your rules is that you must have some ‘me time’ to yourself. But make sure, equally, you don’t interrupt them when they are enjoying their special interests without warning!
• Stick to the same food each week and each day of the week. Find out which healthy foods your child likes and ask them to plan a rota of when they’d like to eat them. Respect their choices.
• If they are expecting something, like to come home and play, give them advance warning if you plan to change, and make sure you give clear and understandable reasons why the change needs to happen.
• If your child prefers a specific type of clothing but you don’t want them to be the same all the time, ask them if they would mind them in different colours or designs. If they want the label taken out then do it.

I read with berwilderment the article in the Observer featuring an Efail Isaf resident, Michael McGartland complaining about the youth crime at the Efail Isaf Underpass and calling for action.

This appeared to be trying to grab the headlines from my point of view. Had Mr McGartland looked through his election literature earlier this month, he would have seen on my election DVD a pledge to restore the underpass with a mural, and also he would have seen a manifesto commitment from Joel James, who was re-elected, to work with my firm, Glamorgan Blended Learning Ltd to achieve that.

If Mr McGartland thinks CCTV will do anything but move on young people so they are not in his back yard, he is mistaken. A Recent Funky Dragon report by young people said they felt unsafe with CCTV – is he saying he is more worthy of human rights than young people? If so that is disgusting!

The mural project I wish to run in Efail Isaf has already reduced youth crime in the area. By giving young people of school age, and also young offenders, the change to take part in restoring the subway, they have had ownership so it is respected by other young people. To my knowledge there has been no crime there since it was opened in September 2009.

The Emotivate Project is transforming communities in West Wales and the Valleys through blending community activism with public art and environmental change

I invite residents to visit the project website at http://www.emotivate.org.uk for updates on its progress and to see the difference it has made in Treforest. The Treforest project brought in nearly £10,000 from external funds, meaning for each 15p on council tax it was match funded by 35p meaning a council tax rise of 0.01% was avoided. We expect similar savings in Efail Isaf, and also to provide paid work experience to young people on apprenticeships, working with experienced professionals, meaning the project will have even more value than 3 years ago in Treforest.

Many will have heard of the debate between the social model of disability and the medical model of disability. These two polarised viewpoints make up the first and second ways of inclusion. The first way – the medical model – assumes that anyone who is not perfectly healthy nor perfectly able should meet a defined medical condition in order to received assistance. This medical condition is their disability. The second way – the social model – assumes that anyone who is not perfectly healthy nor perfectly able has an impairment, which is only a disability if it is not accommodated for by others as if they accepted it there would be no impairment. There is a third way also – the recovery model – this assumes that anyone who is not perfectly healthy or perfectly able must be helped by others to overcome the impairment that comes from an identifiable medical condition so that they are not disabled by it. None of these ways are satisfactory to me, so by using the Fourth Way process I think it is possible to take the best of the first and second ways and eliminate the third. The fourth way – the pluralist model – would assume that anyone who is not perfectly healthy or perfectly able is a human being with a distinct personality derived from those imperfections. In some environments those imperfections will be advantageous and in others they will be impairments. Under this model both the person with the medical condition and the people around them have to weigh up factors around whether the environment needs to change to the person or the person needs to change their environment. This is best decided with the ‘reasonable adjustment’ instrument. If it is reasonably possible to change the environment to accommodate the persons impairment then it should be done, but if it is not reasonably possible then that person will have to decide whether they want to stay in the environment and mitigate that impairment with support, or whether they want to go to an environment where that medical condition gives them a strength so they have no impairment.

Chatroom Bobs, which derived from the concept of ‘Uncle Bob’ being a name for a less than responsible family man, are characterised by being online community users driven by seeking out satisfaction for their ‘urgeances’ (or biological drives). Some of these are akin to the ‘office loser’ who tries to impress others but is despised, others have more ulterior motives for sexual satisfaction. This paper presents an intervention – called MEDIAT – which uses TAGTeach to retrain people who are sexually damaged by society and demonstrate impairment in how they interact with others. The paper presents an equation for measuring such ‘social orientation impairment’ as a reflection of its relationship to serotonergic and dopaminergic activity in the prefrontal cortex as a result of differences in ‘Neuro-response plasticity’. The paper concludes that by using MEDIAT to reverse dopaminergic-serotonergic asynchronicity caused by traumatic experience can lead to increased constructive participation in online and other environments.

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The Welsh Assembly recently introduced legislation to instruct entrepreneurs and other traders to issue a charge of five pence on ‘single use carrier bags’ called the Single Use Carrier Bags Charge (Wales) Regulations 2010.

For simplicity I will refer to eligible bags in the legislation (specifically Part 1) as ‘naturally versatile bags’ (i.e. they fall within paragraph 2a), ‘non-reusable standard bags’ (i.e. they fall within paragraph 2b), ‘small bags’ (i.e. they fall within part 3a), ‘big bags’ (i.e. the fall within paragraph 4), ‘non-reusable big bags’ (i.e. they fall within paragraph 3b), ‘loop-hole small bags’ (i.e. they fall within paragraph 5 and also outside paragraph 4), and ‘Distance Selling loop-hole bags‘ (i.e. those referred to as ‘bags for packaging and delivery of mail order goods’ in Schedule I, section 1i, as discussed at the bottom of this article).

The five pence charge must be applied to naturally versatile bags, non-reusable bags, small bags, non-reusable big bags.
They are not charged on big bags where these are manufactured as reusable. Nor are they charged on what I call ‘loop-hole small bags’, which are small bags which have a label on them saying they are ‘manufactured for multiple re-use‘ and which have a charge on them of say 2 pence (like in Mary Poppins) and where the person issuing the bag promises to replace it if it gets broken.

So in terms of EU Law. There are three important articles in the EU Treaty that cover this piece of legislation. Articles 30, 34, and 35. They state:

Article 30 (ex Article 25 TEC)
Customs duties on imports and exports and charges having equivalent effect shall be prohibited between Member States. This prohibition shall also apply to customs duties of a fiscal nature.

Article 34 (ex Article 28 TEC)
Quantitative restrictions on imports and all measures having equivalent effect shall be prohibited between Member States.

Article 35 (ex Article 29 TEC)
Quantitative restrictions on exports, and all measures having equivalent effect, shall be prohibited between Member States.

In this context, Member State refers to the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom can discriminate amongst its own persons (e.g. those in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland), but not against other countries. It may be that if Wales and Scotland became independent members of the EU, then such discrimination would be unlawful, as a Briton who was a Welsh Citizen would have more rights in England when they were also a Welsh and EU Citizen than simply being a Welsh UK Citizen and EU Citizen, and vice versa.

Applying Article 30 is simple, as there is no ‘rule of reason’ as with Article 34. The Regulations say that this charge is applied where say an entrepreneur sells goods from a place in Wales (which may include exports to the EU) and where say an entrepreneur sells goods which are delivered to Wales (which may include imports from the EU). If this charge was applied on transactions from the EU then this would fall within Article 30 and therefore be unlawful under EU law.

Now turning to Articles 34 and 35, where there is a ‘rule of reason’. The Regulations state that the entrepreneur I refer to earlier must keep an accurate record of the various pieces of information referred to in paragraph 3 of section 8 of Part 3, which I call ‘red-tape measures’.

These red-tape measures it would seem apply to imports into Wales (falling within Article 34) and exports from Wales (falling within Article 35). It is not as easy to say whether this is as much of a breach of these Articles as with Article 30, but I shall explore this.

The rule of reason says it is fair practice to introduce a measure where it serves to protect the consumer interest and/or the environment. However, it does breach the provisions of this rule where it has a substantial negative impact on cross-border trade, particular where the measure favours the entrepreneurs in the Member State making the rule more than the entrepreneurs outside of that Member State.

It is clear to see that after a period of time Welsh entrepreneurs will have developed efficient mechanisms for handling this red-tape measure. It can also be seen that entrepreneurs from outside the UK and Wales also, will have a disincentive to trading with Wales, because of the records they will be expected to keep in order to do so. Therefore this red-tape measure could be seen of having the equivalent effect of creating barriers to cross-border trade as if it clearly said, ‘No one outside of Wales is allowed to sell to Wales without following our rules’.

Distance Selling Directive

The Distance Selling Directive, as implemented through the Consumer Protection Distance Selling Regulations applies to: ‘contracts concerning goods or services concluded between a supplier and a consumer under an organised distance sales or service provision scheme run by the supplier who, for the purpose of the contract, makes exclusive use of one or more means of distance communication up to and including the moment at which the contract is concluded‘. I would regard this directive to apply to the ‘Distance Selling loop-hole bags‘ above. By virtue of this, bags used for Chinese take-aways and other fast-food or other home-delivery services such as Tesco.com Groceries, where the payment for the goods is made over the phone, Internet or other distance means and not in person (such as at the door of one’s house) should not be subject to the charge under the EU definition of mail order goods in the Distance Selling Directive.

Conclusion

I will not speculate on the specific provisions in the Government of Wales Act that make it unlawful to make laws which affect Law and Order in England such as through the issuing of penalties on English entrepreneurs, nor the provisions on the European Convention on Human Rights applying to Wales, but suffice to say that unless Schedule I is updated to reflect that these Regulations do not apply outside of Wales then these regulations appear to clearly breach EU Law.

Citations

• Bishop, J. (2013). Increasing capital revenue in social networking communities: Building social and economic relationships through avatars and characters. In: J. Bishop (Ed.) Examining the Concepts, Issues and Implications of Internet Trolling. IGI Global.
• Bishop, J. (2010). Increasing capital revenue in social networking communities: Building social and economic relationships through avatars and characters. In: IRMA (Ed.) Virtual Communities: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications. IGI Global.
• Bishop, J. (2009). Increasing capital revenue in social networking communities: Building social and economic relationships through avatars and characters. In: S. Dasgupta (Ed.) Social Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications. IGI Global.
• Bishop, J. (2008). Increasing capital revenue in social networking communities: Building social and economic relationships through avatars and characters. In: C. Romm-Livermore & K. Setzekorn (Eds.). Social Networking Communities and E-Dating Services: Concepts and Implications. IGI Global.

Abstract

The rise of online communities in Internet environments has set in motion an unprecedented shift in power from vendors of goods and services to the customers who buy them, with those vendors who understand this transfer of power and choose to capitalize on it by organizing online communities and being richly rewarded with both peerless customer loyalty and impressive economic returns. A type of online community, the virtual world, could radically alter the way people work, learn, grow consume, and entertain. Understanding the exchange of social and economic capital in online communities could involve looking at what causes actors to spend their resources on improving someone else’s reputation. Actors’ reputations may affect others’ willingness to trade with them or give them gifts. Investigating online communities reveals a large number of different characters and associated avatars. When an actor looks at another’s avatar they will evaluate them and make decisions that are crucial to creating interaction between customers and vendors in virtual worlds based on the exchange of goods and services. This chapter utilizes the ecological cognition framework to understand transactions, characters and avatars in virtual worlds and investigates the exchange of capital in a bulletin board and virtual. The chapter finds strong evidence for the existence of characters and stereotypes based on the ecological cognition framework and empirical evidence that actors using avatars with antisocial connotations are more likely to have a lower return on investment and be rated less positively than those with more sophisticated appearing avatars.

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Building Social and Economic Relationships through Avatars and Characters

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Firstly I would like to thank the organisers for inviting me to speak today. It is always good to come to speak at Cardiff University – this is only my second conference speech here, but as a student I spoke in a number of debates at the students union. I’m going to talk with you today about the multicultural aspects of Virtual Worlds.

When I say to you the term, Virtual World, what do you think of? Perhaps a graphical interface such as SecondLife, or a gameplay-intensive environment such as World of Warcraft. Or perhaps you think of something else.

These are all examples of Virtual Worlds, which generally these days consist of three-dimensional graphical environments for accessing social interactions with others and exchanging graphical representations of real-life or fantasy objects online.

Virtual Worlds today are like the television of previous generations. They have now become accessed by a range of different people from different ethnic groups and social backgrounds who share the same experiences of this new kind of media. So you might ask, ‘are virtual worlds multicultural environments?’

Culture can be defined as ‘a network of physical and mental artefacts that are formed through the participation of actors in functional systems’. This definition would suggest that in the UK, for instance, those people who watch the television programme Eastenders or Coronation Street and know the characters in these imagined communities are part of the same culture.

Based on this definition multiculturalism is unavoidable, because each person is different and an individual and may share cultural artefacts such as memories or experiences with people of any faith or race if they have access to the same environments. That is the case whether they are ones that are realised in their minds, such as virtual communities, or ones that they share in a physical space, such as organic communities.

Having used online communities such as virtual worlds for two decades, I have noticed the conflicts that arise when people from different generations and cultural backgrounds come together in the same space. In determining how it might be possible to reduce these conflicts through better system design, I decided the correct approach might be to find what these different cultures have in common, as a way of approaching information systems design to take account of their shared values.

Using data from the UK Data Archive I looked at what the Net Generation had in common with other current generations.  The Net Generation were born between 1977 and 1997 and are currently in their teens and early adulthood and are referred to as N-Geners. They have grown up with digital technologies such as microcomputers and the Internet. They are however, treated by designers of computer systems  as ‘youngsters’ or ‘the youth of today’, rather than by their commonalities distinctive of the age they find themselves  in, which make them up as part of this techno-cultural generation.

The culture of this generation is incredibly different from previous generations, which may be considered inevitable as older generations will not share the same experience as those in the younger generations will share. However there are striking differences between this generation and previous ones. The Baby Boom Generation for instance were quite homogeneous, sharing similar beliefs and interests and having many common values. The Net Generation on the other hand are very heterogeneous, where it is often only their values that they have in common.

The attitudes of Generation X, previous to the Net Generation, were primarily shaped and formed by broadcasted information such as television, autocratic teaching styles. Conversely, as a result of new media technologies, such as the Internet, the Net Generation have been provided with a significant degree of autonomy, independence and freedom, making them a distinct techno-culture.

The Net Generation are currently between the ages of 13 and 33,  meaning their skills and capabilities are considerably diverse and this can significantly affect how they interact within technology and the extent to which they are able to participate in virtual worlds. I’m sure anyone who knows a teenager today knows how much more demanding they are and how much more sophisticated they have become in the way they access information. This is true of many people in the Net Generation.

In my study, which was a factor analysis of data collected through computer supported quantitative interviewing, I identified six commonalities between the generations. These were Opportunity, Understanding, Relevance, Aspiration, Choice and Expression, which I will go through briefly now.

Opportunity

When someone decides to visit a particular part of a virtual world or take part in an information exchange, they are doing so by giving up the opportunity to do something else, referred to as ‘the opportunity cost’. Different generations value certain activities more than others and are more willing to sacrifice certain opportunities over others. This is a core aspect of ecological cognition, where it is stated that users of information systems do not have a hierarchy to their needs that are innate, but have developed cognitions that affect their priorities through exposure to not only their internal environment such as their mind and body, but also their external one. That is to say, the world.

It has been argued that the question of fairness across generations should be formulated as a comparison of opportunities available to individuals living at different times. From this it is clear to find support for the existence of this factor in understanding the similarities between how different generations use information.

Understanding

The crucial part of responding to an economic opportunity in the environment is an understanding of the stimuli it offers. It has been argued that understanding, particularly of science and faith is spread over many generations, with each adding its own contribution, arising from its own perspective.

Relevance

The relevance of a particular stimulus in the environment to an actor is affected by their ability to consume it. It can be seen that as a particular user’s confidence in a system increases, so their consumption of its resources also increase. For instance, in Second Life, as a user becomes aware of how to interact with the system, such as through ‘flying’ or ‘teleporting’ then the greater their exposure to different aspects of the system will become and it will be more likely that their inventory will increase as they discover artefacts that are relevant to them. It has been argued that those developing solutions for different generations should take into account the difference between them in the relevance of information technologies, as N-Geners are more likely to be accepting of these than older generations.

Aspiration

Members of the different generations have different aspirations, though the thing they may have in common is that they regularly experience them. This factor is particularly affected by the principle of ‘marginal utility’, which is the extent to which the exposure to a particular stimulus leads to demand for a re-exposure or reuptake of that stimulus. It is at this stage that actors become unaware of the externalities of their wants. They are driven purely by responding to existing relevant opportunities and going on to create new opportunities, even if this is only to be re-exposed to desirable aspects of the environment.

Choice

Different actors will respond differently to the principle of marginal utility and this will effect their judgement on whether to take up another unit of exposure, which is affected by the universal value of ‘choice’. Choice goes beyond the right to choose, as the basis for exercising choice is according to the perceived needs or values of an individual or group of individuals of different generations.

Expression

Like the opportunity factor, the expression factor is affected by opportunity cost. While an actor is using a specific product or communicating with a specific actor they may be missing out on the opportunity to do so with an alternative actor or product. The need for expressing oneself is evenly distributed across generations, but the means for expression should be expected to vary, as would means for entertainment. This suggests that it would be beneficial to map the differences between generations when it comes to activities that they carry out.

In making recommendations based on an analysis of virtual worlds and these factors I would suggest that it is possible to use a range of techniques to manage conflicts between different generations as part of a strategic policy and planning process. Specifically these are ‘the distraction board’, the ‘behaviour contract’ and ‘the displacement room’.

THE DISTRACTION BOARD

The social networking service Facebook displays notices to users as they are using the system notifying them of other things going on. An artificially intelligent virtual world could detect conflicts between actors and suggest alternative activities for them to engage in. While this may be treating users as if they were pet animals needing to be distracted with a special toy, it would be effective and avoiding conflicts and promoting harmony between generations at the stages of opportunity and understanding.

THE BEHAVIOUR CONTRACT

The online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, has a range of policy documents that users can edit and agree on. While it has difficulties, such as not having multiple versions that people can vote on, the wiki format whereby people can edit documents and form a consensus could be effectively implemented into virtual worlds to produce a behaviour contract. This contract, would affect the stages of relevance through to choice and impact on the sorts of decisions actors would make affecting their behaviour, potentially resolving some of the intergenerational multicultural conflicts between them.

THE DISPLACEMENT ROOM

The sports software that comes with the Wii games console and the ‘sand-box’ on Wikipedia are ideal examples of the sort of tools that could feature in the ‘displacement room’. A virtual world with such a room, would have things like punch-bags, sand-boxes and other means of expressing frustration that would allow actors to displace their anti-social plans and make them feel like their intergenerational conflicts have been resolved.

I just read an article on the weblog of Cllr John Bell about him not appreciating the work I was involved with to improve the visible appearance of the St. Dyfrig’s underpass.

I find Cllr Bell‘s comments quite odd, seeing as some of the grants in question were only given due to a letter of support that he wrote for the project! To attack the project is to attack the creative efforts of all the young people involved. As a councillor for the area he should be supporting youth projects, particularly ones which make such a good contribution to the community.

The Emotivate Project is transforming communities in West Wales and the Valleys through blending community activism with public art and environmental change

What Cllr Bell fails to acknowledge is that the funding allocated to the project in Treforest would have gone elsewhere had a convincing case, which a letter from him was part of, not been put together.

When local council budgets are being cut due to Cllr Bell’s colleagues in London slashing the Assembly’s budget, he should be pleased that local community groups like Glamorgan Blended Learning Ltd are bringing in external funding to benefit the local community.

A multi-million pound investment will complete a new cycling and walking network in the South Wales Valleys.

The new £7.6m investment will complete the £16m funding of the 100 miles of new routes as part of the Valleys Cycle Network.

This will enhance more than 250 miles of existing routes and brings the national cycle network to within two miles of a further 636,000 people.

The network of routes will follow the former tramways, towpaths and railways in the South Wales Valleys.

With improved walking and cycling opportunities available to people across Pontypridd, Llantrisant, Pontypool and Merthyr Tydfil it is hoped the scheme will provide an attractive alternative to car journeys, cutting congestion, reducing carbon emissions and helping people to travel in ways that benefit their health.

The new network will also link existing routes in Swansea, Llynfi, Taff, Ely and Ebbw Valleys. An arts programme will also see the development of public artworks along the new routes.

Led by the sustainable transport charity Sustrans, the three year project will receive £3.5m from the Convergence European Regional Development Fund, £3m from the Welsh Assembly Government as well as support from the Big Lottery Fund.

Together with the previously allocated £3.2m from the Assembly Government’s Heads of the Valleys Project and £5m from the Valleys Partnership VRP project, a total of £16m will be invested in the cycle network.

Deputy First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones said: “We are committed to providing more cycling and walking routes throughout Wales, helping people to reduce car journeys and provide them with healthy and cost effective access to employment and training opportunities.

“This project will bring immense benefits to the health and well-being of people in the South Wales Valleys, and to the environment of the area by reducing emissions caused by car use. It will form part of a wider scheme which will encourage more route users across the whole of Wales.”

Rhondda AM Leighton Andrews, deputy minister for regeneration, added: “The emphasis is on promoting the natural environment and cultural heritage and concentrates on outdoor activities such as walking and cycling.

“The development of an extensive off road network of footpaths, trail and cycleways is a key element of this project which makes this latest investment development such good news.”

Lee Waters, Sustrans Cymru Director, said: “These new routes will make it easier for the people of the valleys to get around their communities and to work on foot or by bike, and will also form part of a larger network that will attract tourists from across the country.”

Treforest town councillor Jonathan Bishop is also delighted with the investment and the impact it will have on his ward.

He said: “I am delighted the cycling route through Treforest is going ahead.

“This scheme will go some way towards the green future that young people aspire to for the village, which they recently reflected in another successful regeneration initiative in the area.“