An application was made some ago to Unesco for the Slate Quarries in Gwynedd to become a world heritage site. Here are some comments I have just made to a local consultation on the subject

“A neighbour has forwarded to me your correspondence about a consultation in Dinorwig regarding the Unesco application, of which I acquired a copy some time ago. My internet connection (4G but sometimes 3G) is not robust enough for me to participate in Zoom meetings, but here are some observations which you may (or may not) find useful. I will also publish them on my blog, www://johnbyde.vivaldi.net, or do a web search for “Lockdown on a Welsh mountainside”.

I was surprised you had as many as 93 responses, given the current circumstances. You refer to a questionnaire, though it never reached me, so it obviously didn’t cover the electoral roll. And not every resident has internet access. It struck me that most of the responses were rather parochial in nature, the sort of issues that might be discussed in a community council meeting, though I’m not aware of such a facility in Llanddeiniolen. And are not directly relevant to Unesco. I did of course see the signs recently put up by the council at the bus terminus, and made a web search to find out more about them.  I note that the community council’s website is in Welsh only, which I guess is technically illegal, and certainly implies that non-Welsh speaker residents like myself are not expected to take an interest. Fortunately Google translate came to my rescue, more or less. The signpost to Llanberis is for a path that is in daily use, myself included, but is not actually a right of way, as you will see if you consult Ordnance Survey or Council maps, I had intended to make an application for it to become one when lockdown intervened.

Issues of wild camping and human waste generate a lot of emotion. Personally I don’t see it as very different from dog waste which is all over the village and the upper end of Padarn Country Park, and indeed sheep faeces which are also everywhere because the fences and walls are no longer maintained. I regularly have to clear the access to my house of both of them

Let me suggest a more ambitious proposal for the area which could be relevant. Road access to Dinorwig is via Deiniolen and Gallt y Foel, a road which I think is almost unchanged since it was built by the Vaenol Estate in 1812. It’s potentially a hazardous process because of the number of residents’ cars parked on it, and the blind bend at the top of Gallt y Foel, where I have had to reverse many times because of a bus or large vehicle coming the other way. The solution is relatively easy, use the modern access road to Marchlyn Mawr built for the power station as far as SH59406313, then rebuild the road along to Dinorwig to S2 standard, providing off road parking where necessary.

Even more ambitious in the long term would be an electric train service every half hour from Chester to Bangor, with a matching bus service to Deiniolen/Dinorwig/Llanberis. Currently it’s near impossible to get to Dinorwig from a distance by public transport, as I know from picking up my daughter from the train “in the old days” before lockdown.”