Public meeting into the future of Coed y Brenin near Dolgellau

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00:00 Mabon a Bwynfor, Member of the Senedd for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, attending a public meeting

00:13 here in Gantlwi tonight discussing Coed y Brenin. Coed y Brenin is a world renowned and a world

00:18 class destination for people who like to mountain bike and walk as and others. Now we know that

00:25 there's a review on looking at Coed y Brenin. We want to ensure that Coed y Brenin is retained,

00:30 that the visitor centre is retained so that people can continue to come here. We know now

00:35 that the trails will be remaining open but we'd like to see investment in those trails with Natural

00:42 Resources Wales working with other world experts and leading experts in the field of mountain

00:47 biking to develop new trails that are fit for modern mountain biking to attract new people so

00:53 that we can keep the place open and ensure that tourists come here and contribute to the visitor

00:59 economy. Deleth Lloyd-Griffiths is my name. I'm local councillor for Brydd Dirganllwyd and Llaneldud

01:06 wards in the Ddogelle area and our issue has been that Natural Resources Wales have said to us before

01:16 Christmas this year via the Cymru News that they were looking to review all aspects of the activities

01:23 going on in the Coed y Brenin biking centre at Gantlwyd. The community council in the area of

01:32 Gantlwyd and myself decided to hold a public meeting which was last night which is the 1st

01:38 of February 2024. We invited a number of panel members to come and discuss the

01:46 review/closure of Coed y Brenin. We had Elsie Grace there from Natural Resources Wales who is

01:53 responsible for the commercial department within Natural Resources Wales. We had Dylan Williams

02:03 who is responsible for the track maintenance at Coed y Brenin. We had Rhys Llewelyn who is a local

02:10 biker and a local member of the community in Gantlwyd. We had Mabonagh Gwynfor who is the

02:16 Senedd member for Meirionnydd Dwyfor talking on a political level about the impact that would have

02:23 on the area here in Gantlwyd, Dorgellau and Trawsfynnydd. And there was myself who was

02:29 chairing the meeting and it was led by the community council chairperson who is Chris

02:36 Dixon, a local man who actually lives on the very edge of Coed y Brenin. He lives very near Coed

02:42 y Brenin. We had 200 people come along to show they're very much concerned about the future of

02:51 the Coed y Brenin bike centre. The bike centre is not just a bike track which is very important for

02:57 people who are biking, it's a walking track. There's a number of walking tracks there as well.

03:03 It all contributes to the well-being agenda of Welsh Government which is about getting us all

03:10 out and getting us all walking, biking, whatever, in the open air. Our objectives last night were

03:18 to see what was going to be happening at the Coed y Brenin centre, what we could do locally to

03:25 influence what was happening there and certainly I think that Natural Resources Wales were very

03:33 clearly informed last night that we were going to be as a community getting together,

03:40 banding together as there were 200 representatives of the biking community and the local community

03:47 there in a very small hall in the Ganllwyd last night. We are not going to let Natural Resources

03:54 Wales make huge decisions, a few staff members in Natural Resources Wales make huge decisions

04:00 about our area. In terms of the rural economy here, the tourism economy is really very much

04:10 linked in with Coed y Brenin. A local businesswoman in town told me last week

04:17 that she was very clear that every business in town here in Dorgella has some trade from the

04:28 Coed y Brenin participants really. Cafes in town tell me that Coed y Brenin bikers come there for

04:35 a huge breakfast on a regular basis, they want picnics and the like. You know, the bed and

04:41 breakfasts in Traws Fynnydd area, really most of them have people who come for the bike trails at

04:47 Coed y Brenin. Caravan parks in this area of which there are a few, really they're people who always

04:55 get a whole lot of people coming to Coed y Brenin for the biking. We had a man who uses disabled

05:05 facilities in Coed y Brenin saying how good the facilities were there for him to be able to enjoy

05:11 himself in the outdoors as a person who has some additional needs, but he said they would love to

05:19 be able to use the cafe after using the facilities and the tracks in Coed y Brenin, but the cafe

05:26 really isn't up to any standard. The quality of food there isn't up to standard, the range of food

05:34 isn't up to any standard and really he was a voice that we heard last night right at the end of the

05:41 meeting saying clearly to us, you know, we want to go and spend money in Coed y Brenin but there's

05:46 nothing to spend it on there, which links very closely into what NRW are telling us in terms of

05:54 they get visitors there, 100,000 a year visitors, but they are not spending enough money to make the

06:00 place make any profit, so that's the problem. NRW are failing to run the business effectively,

06:08 they are failing to make any money there, they are making losses there and as a public body they want

06:14 to reduce the losses that they are making, if not get rid of them totally and one of the problems

06:21 there in Coed y Brenin is a huge building that is only about 12 years old and basically because of

06:29 its construction through wood and timber and local timber is actually needing a whole lot of repairs.

06:36 According to NRW the repairs might be around the 1 million mark for a building that is fairly new,

06:46 it was supposed to be very sustainable but in fact if you have to renew the building after about 12

06:52 years it's not sustainable, so there are many issues there but we at least got the opportunity

06:58 to consult with 200 people last night and we did consult with every one of them because everyone

07:05 filled in a questionnaire for us either through a QR code on their phone or a paper questionnaire,

07:12 everybody there was willing to do that, so we actually now as a community council and myself

07:20 as county councillor have a database of people who came last night and what their views are

07:26 about the future of Coed y Brenin.

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