Below are just some of the recent things that have been achieved in Delyn, with the Government, Assembly and local Flintshire County Council all working well together.

 Economy

North Wales and the Deeside Hub area is one of the fast economic growth areas in the country. The strong economy and highly skilled local workforce is attracting investors from all over the world. Companies like Airbus continue to get Government support in order to develop their world class products.

As a result of a strong local economy the unemployment rate remains well below the national average with unemployment down by 40% over the last ten years and by over 13% in the last twelve months.

The National Minimum Wage is now at £5.52 and is making work pay for some of society's most vulnerable people.

The New Deal is helping more people back into work:

-        The New Deal for Young People since 1998: 610 as at May 06

-        The New Deal for Lone Parents since 1998:  710 as at May 06

-        The New Deal 50+ since 2003: 60 as at May 06

Crime and Policing

Flintshire remains one of the safest places in the country, but we must never get complacent. The new crime figures for Flintshire show that overall crime has fallen by over 12 per cent and violent crime by 17 per cent.

The North Wales Police figures, which provide a breakdown of crime during the year to date (1^st April 2007 – 3^rd November 2007) show a huge decrease in violent crime across Flintshire and Deeside with a decrease of over 17 per cent and 30 per cent across most of Delyn. Burglaries are down by over 21 per cent whilst vehicle crime plummeted by over 20 per cent.

New powers for the police and local communities to tackle anti-social behaviour are clearly are having an effect and the latest figures show anti-social behaviour is down by over 6.2 per cent.

And there are more police on the streets than ever before. At 31 March 1997 there were 1,367 police officers, in 2006 there were 1,640.  This is an 18% increase, compared with an 11% increase in the rest of England and Wales over the same period.

Transport

Below are just some of the transport improvements which have been brought in in the area with the help of the Welsh Assembly. I know there is more to be done and the Government are introducing legislation to improve local bus services and give more powers to the local authorities.

• Free bus travel for all Delyn pensioners introduced by the Assembly.

• Newly refurbished station in Flint. More frequent and faster services to London

• £415,000 Assembly grant to improve local transport.

• New cycle network to Flint station and on road cycle lanes in Mold and Penyffordd.

• £102,000 spent on making routes to Delyn schools safer.

• A new £1 million traffic management scheme in Flint.

• £1 million has gone on improving highway safety in Flintshire, which, in conjunction with the police’s ArriveAlive initiative is cutting road accidents in Delyn.

• Improvements to bus services, especially in rural areas like Gorsedd and Carmel.