A hospital built - and all this too; VIEWPOINTS.

ONE of the major achievements of the previous Labour-controlled Caerphilly County Borough Council was the demolition of the antiquated, not-fit-for-purpose housing offices at Ystrad Fawr, which, in turn, provided land for the new hospital currently under construction.

In making that decision we realised the dream of people who have been campaigning for 50 years.

We had absolutely no help from Plaid Cymru during those years, only constant nit-picking. Instead of congratulating the officers and members of the former Labour administration in achieving the hospital, they accused us in the media of dumping furniture and computers into rubbish skips.

At our recent council meeting the Plaid leader Lindsay Whittle was forced to make the following written apology to the council. I quote from the meeting: "I and Councillor Pritchard have witnessed what appeared to be dumped computers in skips; however, from investigations it appears that the containers were used as temporary storage. the equipment and computers were recycled to schools."

Can I confirm with pride from the council minutes the official statistics: 55 schools benefited from 343 computers and 289 screens. Old and broken equipment was disposed of.

All of the computer equipment and furniture with a high enough specification was cleaned and installed in our schools throughout the county borough.

In addition 34 voluntary groups benefited from desks, chairs, cabinets etc.

Therefore, we not only provided a modern hospital, the best in Wales, and new energy-efficient council offices, where the bulk of our workforce are now installed; in addition, all the surplus computers and furniture have been put to good use in our schools and for cash-strapped voluntary organisations.

Councillor Ray Davies Bedwas, Caerphilly