Live: Wales breaking news plus weather and traffic updates (Tuesday, August 29)

Jan 29, 2024

All of the latest news from across Wales and further afield

Hello, and welcome to Wales Online's live blog for Tuesday, August 29. We will be bringing you all of the latest news from across Wales - whether you're on the move, at home or at work - as well as the latest traffic and travel.

We will also be keeping you informed of major news stories from the UK and overseas. Contribute to the live blog by posting your comments below, or tweet us @WalesOnline to share the news that's breaking in your area.

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Police are appealing for information after four pregnant cows tragically died after being chased by a dog on Anglesey. The animals were found deceased by their farmer after suffering "catastrophic injuries". They are understood to have fallen down a steep embankment after being intensely chased by a dog which got loose in a field at Maenaddwyn, near Llanerchymedd.

The North Wales Police rural crime team says the discovery of the dead cows in-calf is likely to have a "profound emotional impact" on their farmer, as well as financial and breeding repercussions for their farm.

Full story here

Vale of Glamorgan Council has responded to concerns that a multi-million pound transport interchange is still without a bus service. Work on phase one of the Barry Transport Interchange development started in January 2023 and the facility is now open.

The £3m transport hub, located near the Grade II listed Barry Docks Office,has a bus and taxi interchange facility and will include a park and ride facility and improvements to Barry Docks railway station in the future. A major driving force behind the transport interchange is to encourage more people to use public transport, reduce congestion on the roads and help combat climate change.

However, some councillors have pointed out that the facility still doesn't have any bus services operating there. Vale of Glamorgan Council ward member for Castleland, Cllr Amelia Collins, said: "Why has the Vale Council built a bus station without any buses using it?

Full story here

Recent flight disruption chaos was caused by some flight data received by UK air traffic control, the BBC reports. The National Air Traffic Services said the data saw primary and back-up systems suspend "automatic processing" but that there were no signs the failure was caused by a cyber-attack.

A five-year-old boy was ventilated and put in a medically induced coma hours after visiting his GP where no treatment was offered, his mother claims. On June 14, Ezra-Jac Crabb was rushed to hospital by his parents after experiencing breathing difficulties during his brother's medical appointment.

Stephanie Parsons, Ezra's mother, told WalesOnline that her little boy had an out-of-hours appointment at the GP the day before as he had a cough and was given steroids for croup. Whilst at the appointment, he was checked over and seemed fine. The next day, Ezra was kept home fromschool and attended a GP appointment at 10.40am for his older brother at Pont Newydd Medical Centre in Porth. During the appointment, the family claimed that Ezra started to have a “coughing fit” and faced breathing difficulties. Concerned for his son, his father asked the GP if they could take a quick look at him while they were there.

The family felt that instead of receiving help, they received a 'derogatory' attitude from the GP. Stephanie claimed that her partner was told they should have made a separate appointment for Ezra to be looked at as it "wasn’t fair" on other patients in the waiting room if the GP looked at him during his brother's appointment. Eventually, Stephanie claimed that the GP did take a look at Ezra - which showed that his oxygen levels were reportedly at 92, extremely "low for his age” - but says no treatment was offered.

More here.

A mother and child were rescued after they were swept out to sea at a Welsh beach over the Bank Holiday weekend. Mumbles RNLI was alerted to the incident by the UK coastguard at 4.40pm on Sunday, August 27 and after launching their lifeboat "within minutes" of the call, volunteer rescuers discovered the mother and child were 200 metres downstream.

The pair had been "swept off shore" between Middle Head and Pier beach in Mumbles and were "very lucky" to be rescued, lifeboat volunteers said. They were brought to the in-shore lifeboat station to be checked over and are understood to be unharmed

Full story here

Long-term plans to reopen Kidwelly Industrial Museum without "simply repeating the same offer" as before are to be looked at by Carmarthenshire Council. The museum is on a 13-acre site featuring scheduled ancient monuments, listed buildings, steam engines, rolling mills and numerous artefacts connected to the tinplate industry. It was operated by the Kidwelly Industrial Museum Trust from the early 1980s to 2017, when the museum closed.

A letter from a Carmarthenshire Council officer on behalf of council leader Darren Price said the museum trust had made several attempts to re-start its activities since 2017 but that the Covid pandemic and other challenges had "made matters extremely difficult" for the few remaining trustees. It said: "Over time, the management of the museum site has gradually returned to Carmarthenshire Council through the museum service because the authority as landowner has obligations to ensure its care."

More here

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been spotted out and about in Swansea on his holidays again this summer. Swansea Council Leader Rob Stewart said he had a pleasant surprise when he bumped into his party's leader.

Cllr Stewart shared a photo of himself with Keir Starmer on Twitter with the caption: "Amazing who you meet on a family Bank Holiday day out in Swansea with my dad. Great to meet Keir Starmer enjoying Swansea with his family."

In the photo, the trio appear to be posing together in Mumbles near the site of the Copperfish fish and chip shop which partly re-opened earlier this year following a devastating fire.

More here.

Due to the air traffic control systems failure affecting UK airspace yesterday, some flights were unfortunately unable to operate. We have been doing everything we can to minimise the impact of the disruption, providing customers with information on their options to transfer their flight for free or receive a refund, securing hotel accommodation where possible and advising any customers who make their own accommodation or alternative travel arrangements that they will be reimbursed. While this is outside of our control, we apologise for the difficulty this has caused and we remain focused on doing all possible to assist and repatriate our customers as soon as possible at this very busy time of year.

Welsh universities have taken the top spots in an alternative new ranking which looks at details of student life such as the cost of beer, a McDonald’s McMeal, cinema tickets and local Uber fares. Five out of the 10 best universities in the UK are in Wales, according to Unifresher’s Alternative University League Table.

The new ranking compares factors illustrating the cost of living, local crime rates and universities’ efforts towards sustainability and student social life.

It found Bangor University is the best in the UK when looking at these factors, with Cardiff Metropolitan University second - and then there three more Welsh universities in the top 10 too. Bangor’s stance on sustainability earned its high score, contributing to the top spot out of 94 UK universities overall.

Read the full story here

Police are appealing for information after an elderly woman was robbed at knife point in a Cardiff park. South Wales Police said that officers were called just before 2:45pm on Bank Holiday Sunday (August 27) to reports of knifepoint robbery in Trelai Park.

Police said that a 73-year-old woman’s bag was cut from the pram she was pushing as part of the incident. Specialist firearm officers were deployed to the park in support of divisional officers and detectives are continuing with enquiries.

The male suspect has yet to be identified. Police say he is described as being pale, tall, of slim build with long legs. He was believed to have been wearing a black anorak with light coloured drawstrings – possibly yellow ones, black trousers, or joggers with black trainers. He was riding a light coloured, possibly grey, OVO bike.

More here

A mum-of-two has described the desperate situation facing her family amid air traffic chaos. Sarah Reeves from Pontypridd was due to fly from Paris-Orly to Bristol at 7pm on Monday with her husband Shaun and their two sons after a holiday at Disneyland Paris.

But due to delays Sarah, Shaun, 13-year-old Tyler and five-year-old Logan are stuck at the airport. Speaking to WalesOnline, Sarah said: “My children have had to sleep on the floor at Paris-Orly Airport, while waiting to get back to the UK. There are old people sleeping on the floor and children everywhere."

Full story here.

A Monmouthshire councillor has resigned after linking the actions of rival politicians to the Holocaust. Labour councillor for Cantref ward Sara Burch, who was the cabinet member for inclusive and active communities, has apologised for a post on social media regarding secretary of state for Wales David TC Davies and the leader of the independent group on the council Frances Taylor. Read the full story here.

A family from Wales have said they can't get a flight home for another 10 days due to the current flight delays. Kelly Hagerty and her family from Aberbargoed went on holiday to the Puerto Rico de Gran Canaria.

After spending over 10 days at the resort, the family was planning on heading back to Bristol Airport on Monday evening. But upon their arrival at the airport, they were told that their flight was cancelled. According to Kelly, the family can't get another flight back home until Saturday, September 9.

It comes as many holidaymakers are facing flight delays and cancellations, which started on bank holiday Monday, August 28, after UK air traffic control failure meant flight plans had to be input manually by controllers. By the afternoon, 232 flights departing UK airports had been cancelled and 271 arriving flights, according to aviation analytics firm, Cirium. But it has been reported that travel disruption could last for days with schedules remaining significantly disrupted.

"We flew out to Puerto Rico on August 18," Kelly explained. "The plan was just to have a big family holiday, we'd been to Puerto Rico before - ages ago. The holiday has been really nice, but we were ready to go home on Monday evening. But our flight got cancelled last night. We got nothing from Easyjet to tell us this."

Full story here

Fried chicken fans queues overnight on a pavement to win free fast food for a year at a new drive-thru Popeyes restaurant in Cardiff Bay Retail Park. There were also long queues at the drive thru as people vied to collect the free goodies on offer.

Second in line was Kevin Kiernan, 35, who arrived at the new Popeyes site at 2am on Tuesday, August 29 and waited in his pajamas for nine hours for a year's supply of chicken sandwiches despite never having tried a Popeyes meal before.

To mark the opening of the new Popeyes site in Cardiff Bay, the fast food chain offered free chicken sandwiches for a year to its first three drive-thru and pedestrian customers on its opening day today. After his wife tagged him in a Facebook post which detailed the offer, Kevin woke up in the middle of the night to let the dog out and decided to go and try his luck at getting a place in the queue.

"My partner said they were giving free chicken for a year. I woke up at two o'clock this morning so I come on down. There was one person in front of me so I joined the queue," he said.

His original plan had been to stay in his car to queue in the drive-thru lane for free chicken. But when he arrived at the site just after 2am there were three cars already waiting. The other cars had beaten Kevin to it, each arriving at 7pm and 8pm on Monday, August 28 and at midnight.

Full story here.

Police officers have seized cannabis with a potential street value of over £250,000 in a series of raids in one Welsh town.

The raids in Maesteg has been linked to organised criminal groups and have resulted in people being charged and remanded in custody.

A spokesperson for South Wales Police said: “People often talk of cannabis production and use as being a victimless crime, but it’s not. Organised crime is behind many of these cannabis factories.

“The criminals are earning a lot of money off the back of our communities, and they protect their plantations by using violence and intimidation. Whatever your viewpoint on cannabis the serious and organised crime and people trafficking which is linked to these factories can cause real harm to our communities and funds further criminality.

“It is thanks to the information and support we get from within our communities that your neighbourhood policing team, working alongside specialist departments, have seized over 1800 cannabis plants from such setups in the past 12 months and made 10 arrests with investigations still ongoing into those further up the chain in these cases.”

More here

A man has appeared in court after an incident which reportedly left another man with life-changing injuries. Ryan Beirne, 29, was charged with grievous bodily harm with intent and dangerous driving after a 26-year-old man was reportedly hit by a white Audi last Thursday night in Fairwater Way, Cwmbran. Read the full story here.

Police are appealing for information after a fatal crash near Aberystwyth. Police have confirmed that a woman died after a one vehicle crash on Heol Tynyfron, Penparcau, Aberystwyth on Bank Holiday Sunday.

Ther crash which involved a white Vauxhall Vivaro van happened at around 2:30pm on Sunday, August 27, and resulted in a woman suffering fatal injuries.

Dyfed-Powys Police is investigating the crash and is appealing for witnesses to come forward to help with their enquiries. A statement said: "Dyfed-Powys Police is investigating a fatal road traffic collision on Heol Tynyfron, Penparcau, Aberystwyth at around 2.30pm on Sunday afternoon (27 August).

"The single vehicle collision, involving a white Vauxhall Vivaro van, resulted in a woman suffering fatal injuries. Officers are appealing for witnesses, including anyone with dashcam or doorbell footage, to get in touch. Do you have information that could help us with this investigation? Please, let us know."

Officers can be contacted online at https://bit.ly/DPPContactOnline, by email on [email protected] or by calling 101. The reference number for this incident is: DP-2023 08 27-250.

A Welsh restaurant has been named one of the top restaurants in the world in a travel magazine aimed at the super-rich. The list was published in Elite Traveler - a "luxury magazine targeting ultra-high-net-worth consumers" - after its upscale readers were asked to vote for the best places to dine out.

Ynyshir restaurant was named alongside some of the world's best diners in the Top Restaurants Readers' Choice Awards. The restaurant at Eglwys Fach, Machynlleth, was featured alongside The Ritz in London and Le Cinq in Paris. Each restaurant on the list "hits the minimum standard of Michelin-level dining" and Ynyshir boasts two Michelin stars. The restaurant also holds the title of the UK's best site in the National Restaurant Awards.

North Wales Live reported that the restaurant with rooms offers dinner from £375 per person or dinner with a room for £520 per person. Visitors are asked to "arrive with your mind open, ready for an immersive culinary experience in our home."

Full story here

A dealer who raked in almost £30,000 for his role in a £6m plot will not have to pay any of it back. Michael John Munnelly had been jailed in June last year for eight years and three months for conspiring to supply cocaine.

The 41-year-old was involved in a wider conspiracy which sought to bring cocaine and cannabis resin into Wales. The gang behind the scheme was locked up for a total of more than 100 years. Munnelly was among those - and he was jailed for eight years and three months solely for conspiring to supply cocaine, NorthWalesLive reports.

However, months on from his sentence, he was the subject of a Proceeds of Crime Act application at Mold Crown Court. It was to determine how much, if any, he should pay back. The prosecution and his barrister Suzanne Payne agreed that he had benefited to the tune of £29,417.54. She told the court that he figures had been agreed for several months. The judge Mr Recorder Wyn Lloyd Jones confirmed that this was the benefit figure.