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BACKGROUND
Within recent memory and in only a few short months the previously strong and proud coal industry in Wales, which once employed thousands and sustained scores of vibrant communities, was whittled away to virtually nothing. Today, many of these communities, in contrast to many other coalfield areas across the border in England, continue to suffer from rates of unemployment, worklessness and economic inactivity well above the national average with all the negative impact that this brings on individuals, families and communities.
Poor health, low incomes and little opportunity to find a sustainable job in or near the community within which they grew up and which helped to shape them. This is the reality faced by far too many people of the coalfields of Wales today. An experience exacerbated by some of the lowest levels of business activity anywhere in the UK alongside myriad social problems from alcohol and drug dependency to crushing debt and family breakdown. Opportunities taken away and not replaced. Hope removed and not restored.
New hope – through new, real and accessible employment prospects – through real training for real, new and long-term opportunities. This is what is needed in the coalfields of today.
In response to this pressing social need Government funds established the Coalfields Regeneration Trust (CRT) with a clear brief to tackle the pressures being faced by communities formerly reliant on the coal industry. The CRT, in turn, has approached charitable society Citylife in order to utilise its tried and tested Bond mechanism as a practical step in delivering new hope in the former coalfields of Wales.
The Citylife Welsh Coalfields Bond has now been established as a great opportunity for investors to create a significant pool of capital from which the interest will support the new Talent Nurture Fund which in turn will be used to create new hope, new businesses, new opportunities in a section of the economy that doesn’t require traditional factories, stringent quotas, expensive land or imported plant: the CREATIVE industry. But natural creativity needs to be nurtured, tended and encouraged to allow it to grow so that it is able to display all the fullness of its potential.
Wales as a nation has a creative, cultural and artistic heritage which is the envy of the world and which appears to be almost genetic. The mellifluous tones of Richard Burton or Anthony Hopkins, Bryn Terfel or Aled Jones, Shirley Bassey or Charlotte Church, Catherine Zeta Jones or Tom Jones, the Manic Street Preachers, the Stereophonics, Duffy, The Automatic etc names have obtained fame and notoriety in Wales and around the world. And the list continues to grow with names such as the Newport-based group Feeder, actors Ioan Gruffudd and Rhys Ifans and Royal Harpist Catrin Finch as well as numerous alumni from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
However, the creative economy is not just about performance and household names. Its success is also based on scriptwriting, make-up artists, costume designers, film and lighting technicians, sound engineers, choreographers, publicists, and much, much more. The opportunities that it provides are exceptional and all based on the firm international reputation of Welsh talent.
Interest from money invested in the Citylife Welsh Coalfields Bond will resource the Talent Nurture Fund to deliver new and additional financial support to many individuals aged 16 and over from the former coalfield communities of Wales to enable them to access the new and expanding opportunities at all levels within the creative economy in Wales from which they have found themselves excluded until now.