COLUMN: “It has been an absolute blast!”

Ahead of Thursday’s polling day, Welshpool candidate Ian Parry, who is running for Welsh Labour, reflects on the past few months of campaigning.

“We are now entering the final hours of this campaign, and it has been an absolute blast!

I am from Welshpool. I grew up on Oldford estate on Castle Walk. I went to Oldford nursery, Ysgol Maesydre, and Welshpool High School. I remember when Poundland was Somerfield and when Morrisons was Safeway. I remember my mum pushing me in the trolley on the opening day of the old Safeway.

I have seen Welshpool grow and change over the years and regardless of the outcome, being able to stand as a candidate in Welshpool, for Welshpool, has been an honour. To represent it in the Senedd would be an even bigger one.

If you want a local lad representing you, then please consider voting for me and Welsh Labour.

I want to stop the treatment of Welsh patients as second-class citizens. I want us to have a robust NHS that holds health boards accountable and listens to local healthcare practitioners and local communities. We have to stop downgrading services, we must open more community hospitals and GP surgeries, and I want to bring dentistry back under the NHS.

I want to see more inward investment into our towns and villages. I want the high street to thrive again and not have to compete with large multinational co-operations down on the Buttington roundabout.

I want to put the climate at the heart of our future decisions, as the Future Generations Act, passed by the Welsh Government, demands. If we want to ensure we have food security, and an economy fit for the 21^st century, then we must take the climate crisis seriously and invest in renewables. But I will never vote for projects that blight our countryside, I want to see cables undergrounded. Across Welshpool, we need to tidy up our parks and our walking paths too.

More importantly, I want to see community-owned energy projects up and down the country. The energy made in Wales should be kept in Wales to benefit our Welsh communities.

I want to see more done for our young people. 14 years of austerity has hollowed out the state and taken away so much.

And I want to build more affordable homes, more social housing, and offer better schemes to get people on the housing ladder. Too many young people find it impossible to get a head start in life.

I am tired of politicians only being in it for themselves, getting paid a fortune and then receiving pay rises every year while the rest of us struggle. It’s why I’ll donate any pay increase to charity.

Gwynedd Maldwyn will elect six Senedd Members. Plaid will likely get three, Reform likely two. It’s all to play for when it comes to the sixth seat. Polls show that Labour is battling with Reform for that final seat. I am battling Reform for that final seat.

For progressive, forward-thinking, and inclusive values in the Senedd, to keep Reform away from our NHS, to elect a truly local champion, then vote Welsh Labour in Gwynedd Maldwyn on May 7.