Cllr Will Price represents Rhyl Trellewelyn Ward on Denbighshire County Council
I’ve been rather starstruck with becoming a county councillor for the first time. It was all the more pleasing to win the seat in a by-election from what had been a Labour stronghold.
The campaigning consisted of long days and evenings. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think it was going to be easy. After five weeks of relentless campaigning I was running on empty, if I’m being honest.
But the support of the team I had was amazing. Helen Jones, the sergeant major, as I nick-named her, was truly awesome with her appetite for me to succeed. Her focus on the campaign was relentless and kept myself and the rest of the volunteers going. Special thanks to Dewi Owen, Cllr Justine Evans, Gareth Davies (MS), and Darren Millar(MS) for helping out weekends – and all the other volunteers that helped; another special thank you goes out to Cllr Brian Jones. I probably wouldn’t be typing this if he had not had the belief in me to go for it. Thanks also to my wife Deborah and my son Rhys for all the help – and the endless talk about local politics and local issues; you listened and didn’t moan but encouraged me to fight for what I believed in. I’m in no doubt that without the help and support from all of the above, this win would not have been achieved; teamwork was the winner. Lasting friendships have been cast for the future of my time as a councillor.
25,000+ steps a day was not unusual. The main focus of my campaign was made a little easier with Labour’s announcement about the winter fuel payments for pensioners being retracted. This gave me a strong message on the doorstep – with targeted door knocking with the elder generation in mind. We have also had a very unpopular waste recycling rollout that has not gone well for the Labour-run council. It still doesn’t seem to be running as required, with collections being missed for up to four weeks in some circumstances – so plenty for me to concentrate. The standard of the service has got to be better – it should have been rolled out in a smaller pilot area first to at the least iron out the problems before expanding it to the rest of the county.
Other hot topics were Welsh Labour’s promise of building the new community hospital over ten years ago – we are still waiting for that today. Voters are also concerned at what is happening to Rhyl with the Queens Market project, the sea aquarium. Our high street has seen businesses leaving rather than taking up new leases as they can’t afford the Business Rates.
I’ve lived in the Rhyl area for over 20 years now and fondly remember it, growing up in the 1970s; now I find myself defending it at all costs – with people putting it down all the time. There are some fantastic and amazing caring people in Rhyl and I feel in a very privileged place to be representing them both on the town and County Council. I will endeavour to do my best to let their voices be heard in both chambers, asking the questions they want answers to – and always trying my best for the Trellewellyn Ward I represent and the wider communities within the county.
I’ve got a lot of hard work in front of me on issues that the of people of Rhyl want to put right – or in their words, reverse some of the bad decisions that have been made and stop the wasting of money. So watch this space – some good and positive things can be achieved.