40,000 Pembrokeshire residents: FLYERED!

PARC is going Pembrokeshire-global.

We have always called ourselves Pembrokeshire Against the Radar. Today, we are truly living up to that name—as our volunteers take to the streets to deliver an astonishing 18,000 flyers to homes across the county: that’s more than a third of Pembrokeshire’s population!

We’re 4,775 households in already… let’s go team!

But it gets wilder. Since shifting from our original postcode area-based delivery plan, we are now even able to politically microtarget the county.

Our flyers are aimed at areas designed to maximise both political pressure and electoral leverage on a Welsh Labour Party that is refusing point-blank to listen to the people of the St Davids peninsula—with Senedd, General Election and Council wards being prioritised for us to focus on Labour-Tory ‘swing’ wards, stronghold areas where Labour needs to mobilise its GOTV (Get Out The Vote) operation to have a chance in upcoming elections, and even the doors of constituents in the wards of the specific councillors on the Pembrokeshire County Council planning committee!

 And this same audience will be reached again and again, culminating in—you guessed it—a huge increase in the salience of DARC as an issue, and as an issue about which the many new residents hearing about the campaign will be expecting results from Labour—or else, in time, letting their party allegiance and voting behaviour start doing the talking for them instead.

The operation is on an unprecedented scale, with unprecedented targeting focus, and with the official (statutory) public consultation on DARC approaching, you better believe we at PARC are ready. Stay tuned on these emails within the next couple of months!

While our flyering plans are growing, we are keeping in sight our greater ambition of not only reaching the most high-priority Pembrokeshire audiences, but, in time, the whole county of Pembrokeshire. After all: this is our county’s campaign, and everyone deserves the chance to be a part of it.

To pull this off, we’re going to need many miles out on the road, flyers through letterboxes, and flasks of (extremely potent) coffee—and that’s why we have a brand new crowdfunder, aimed at helping us achieve our current stretch goal: flyer 80,000 Pembrokeshire residents, or a massive two thirds of the county

 The passion is there, the awareness is growing, and above all, the support of an even more vast majority of Pembrokeshire people is looking firmly behind us. Please consider donating whatever you can to help our brave volunteers do their work out on the brisk January streets!

Sometimes it’s worth saying…

You might get the impression we kinda have it in for Welsh Labour at PARC. Our motivations, however, couldn’t be further from party-political.

With some of our founding members having even been members of the Labour Party in past, we are not here to favour one party over another. Welsh Labour’s silence on DARC in the face of the consistent levels of opposition to DARC our volunteers are finding on doorsteps right across the county, however, is an appalling failure of both Welsh and UK government—and one that, rightly, deserves to be held to the level of scrutiny that it invites all on its own.

We’re not here to spare any party’s feelings when it comes to protecting Dewisland’s natural environment, local jobs and economy, and health—whether they claim to be on the left, the right, or otherwise. And that’s how it will always stay.

This just in…

A couple of key public meetings are coming up that you might be interested in, on Wednesday January 29th in Victoria Hall, Roch (10 am to 7 pm) and on Saturday February 1st in the Memorial Hall, St Davids (10 am to 4 pm): the Newgale Coastal Adaptation Scheme (i.e. the ‘let’s destroy the Brandy Brook valley’s landscape and ecology for no actually good reason when there are much better climate adaptation alternatives’ bypass road).

(Apparently for some reason [cough getting people’s emails?] they are asking people to book tickets for these all-day events. Optimistic! You can book here at Tickettailor…)

If some of us show up and apply a fraction of the pressure we did to the MOD over the DARC public engagement events, the planners will soon know how unpopular this Newgale road plan is becoming in the light of its perceived connections to DARC, even well outside of our area!

The links between the proposed road, the activities being carried out by the breached ship, recent works being carried out in Newgale and the potential for pylons or extensive power-related earthworks for miles are all, it appears to many in the local vicinity, connected by the common denominator of all providing benefits that are actively or are bordering on being requirements for DARC. And the possibility of the MOD engaging in the underhanded planning practice of ‘salami-slicing,’ if these elements are being intentionally separated so as to downplay the full impact of DARC, is coming more and more into focus.

To keep this email short and sweet, we’ve written a quick summation of the issues as a Facebook post—check it out here!

There are all sorts of issues to glean answers about in the upcoming Newgale road public engagement meetings, so do consider going along, seeing what you can find out, and reporting back to help us keep keeping Pembrokeshire people informed.

That’s all for now. Keep spreading the word, and let’s make DARC history!

The PARC Against DARC team