Time & Tide Bell Trail - Barry

Tide bell

Barry is taking its first major step toward joining the national Time & Tide Bell trail, a series of coastal artworks that ring at high tide to highlight rising sea levels and celebrate maritime heritage. A community group has formed to bring a bell to Barry, and a public launch event was held on 30 September to introduce the project and invite local participation.

The initiative began after local resident Brian Royson Mayne visited the Time & Tide Bell at Cemaes Bay in 2025 and recognised its potential for Barry’s coastline. Following strong support from elected representatives, community organisations, and national bodies, the Time & Tide Bell organisation confirmed in January 2026 that Barry could receive a bell, subject to planning permission.

Brian Mayne

The project aims to create a new cultural landmark for the town, combining climate awareness, heritage, and tourism. The bell will offer an audible reminder of changing tides and rising sea levels, while celebrating Barry’s maritime identity and attracting visitors as part of a national trail.

The next phase focuses on community engagement, planning approval, and fundraising for the supporting frame and installation. The bell itself is gifted to the town, but the structure must be funded locally.

The launch event on 30 September will give residents the opportunity to learn more, view proposed locations, meet the project team, and find out how to support the planning and fundraising stages.

Updates and further details are available on the project’s Facebook page, which will act as the central hub for news and community involvement.

Brian Mayne is a former Chairperson of Sustainable Wales

El Niño, food security and preparedness

Earlier in the year we wrote about scientists’ prediction that we would likely see an El Nino weather phenomena form over the Pacific. We have now entered this El Nino period and it looks likely to be incredibly strong and long lasting. The effects of El Nino are complex and wide ranging and most directly affect countries around the Pacific Rim where the weather phenomenon is expected to cause severe winter storms and drought into 2027.

Meteorologists are already sounding confident that next year will be comfortably the hottest year on record. Closer to home the direct effects are less pronounced, it may be the case that the most significant impact comes from food scarcity and unaffordability and general impacts on the rate of inflation and cost of living as global food systems and supply chains are disrupted. For a country that imports almost half of its food and already has some of the highest grocery costs in Europe, the UK could be particularly exposed.

This prompted the UK Government to issue calls for the public to begin stockpiling food and preparing their own strategies for how to deal with natural or manmade disasters. While this kind of call is unnerving it is also long overdue and disaster preparedness is fairly common across other developed economies. However, as is often the case in the UK, there is a risk that we prove too timid to actually follow through on what needs to be done to tackle an issue. In many European countries their disaster preparedness programmes are far more advanced. In the Netherlands, Germany and the Nordics, apps and booklets have been produced and distributed which provide advice on sterilising water and locating bunkers.

A major issue with these efforts is that they are often framed as individuals or families taking care of themselves. While individual or familial preparedness is important, becoming resilient to climate impacts and other disasters requires state intervention (e.g. by constructing new water dams, investing in fire services etc). A recent paper which explored how access to essential services such as healthcare, mobile phone signal and even functioning schools, was a strong predictor for vulnerability and the ability for households to bounce back following Hurricane Irma, highlights this point. The other neglected aspect of preparedness in the UK government’s recent calls is the role of community resilience. As Rebecca Solnit’s excellent book A Paradise Built in Hell states: “Disaster demonstrates this, since among the factors determining whether you will live or die are the health of your immediate community and the justness of your society.” Interestingly, the Dutch disaster preparedness booklet explicitly recommends that Dutch citizens engage with the neighbours and understand what their needs and skills are. Providing communities with the tools and space to rebuild community bonds and design their own climate adaptation approaches (excellent examples of which can be found in Elizabeth Hazel’s new book Frontierlands) should form a prominent part of the UK government’s approach to preparedness.

Image taken from Benthyg Cymru’s social media account showing their stall at a community event. Benthyg supports Libraries of Things across Wales, building community and resilience along the way.

"Data Centres, SMRs and the challenge for Plaid" - Jack Wilkinson-Dix

Jack Wilkinson-Dix, Trustee of Sustainable Wales, has written an article for the IWA asking how Wales’ new government should respond to a rapidly growing – and increasingly contested – industry…

Data Centres, SMRs and the challenge for Plaid

The unrestrained expansion of data centres could jeopardise Welsh and UK climate goals, as their operation increases our energy demand and puts strain on the environment.

https://www.iwa.wales/agenda/2026/09/data-centres-smrs-and-the-challenge-for-plaid/

Glacier Melt

Glacier Melt

Experts say a massive glacier collapse is responsible for the catastrophic flash-flood across the Nepal-Tibet border. It buried a city in mud and killed hundreds.

This morning, a colossal mass of ice, snow, and rock collapsed high in the Himalayan mountains, temporarily damming the Lende River. The natural barrier rapidly ruptured, sending a violent, sediment-heavy wall of water, mud, and boulders downstream into Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts.

Striking with virtually no warning, the deluge obliterated critical infrastructure, sweeping away homes, roads, bridges, and local hydropower projects.

The disaster was preceded by a magnitude 4.4 earthquake in Tibet just minutes earlier, which researchers believe destabilized the already fragile glacier, triggering the cascading failure.

This tragedy highlights the extreme vulnerability of the rapidly warming Hindu Kush Himalaya region, where glacier ice-loss rates have doubled since 2000.

Climate scientists warn that as rising global temperatures weaken natural ice dams, the risk of sudden, destructive floods—often referred to as 'inland tsunamis'—will continue to escalate, threatening millions of lives downstream.

source: New Scientist. (2026). A glacier collapse is most likely cause of the Nepal disaster. New Scientist.

Robert Minhinnick

Wales Book of the Year poetry prize - Laura wainwright

How delighted we are that Laura Wainwright has won the poetry prize for ‘Wales Book of the Year’ 2026, for ‘The Storm’s Flora’ (Seren).

Laura is a good friend of the charity, and we feature several episodes of her ‘A Newport Journal’ on this site, some of which are the basis of poems in her Seren book. Laura was also a familiar performer when our Green Room was running. 

She has also taken part in our ongoing campaign to prevent damage to the Gwent Levels by extension of the M4.

Llongyfarchiadau enfawr i Laura! And look out for her in future events with us.

Laura Wainwright reading at the Green Room Porthcawl 2022

Glamorgan Heritage Coast - Green Room Celebration

Green Room Poster June 2026

As the heatwave of late June faded, Porthcawl’s Green Room staged an evening celebration of the coast as its last event before the charity Sustainable Wales moves to new premises.

Kristian Evans read from his new book Duneland: A Year in Kenfig (Seren Books).

Porthcawl’s resident writer and poet Robert Minhinnick read an extract from his award winning collection of essays ‘Watching the Fire Eater’ as a celebration of 50 years of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, which runs between Newton Point and Aberthaw.

Back in the 1980’s Robert was a manager of a Community Programme scheme at Dunraven Park, Southerndown. His essay ‘The Scheme of Things’ introduces a disparate group of characters brought together under the aegis of the Government’s bid to relieve chronic unemployment. Come rain and shine the group’s work proceeded intermittently on footpaths and walls as participants came and went.

A question and answer session followed the two readers and there was some reminiscing on the Dunraven Estate and in particular the missing castle. Among the audience local resident Chris Fray said that he stayed at the castle in 1960 when he was 11 years old. His parents were keen visitors to properties run as guest houses by the Workers Travel Association (WTA).

View fullsize

Dunraven Castle

For a few brief years Dunraven Castle was leased to the WTA but its condition deteriorated and it was later demolished by the landowners. On his arrival at Dunraven, Chris recalled the warning to all children not to access the beach unaccompanied by the zigzag path. Of course this was a challenge met with relish by a group of intrepid children arriving at the beach at high tide as the waves hammered against the rocks. This visceral experience was beyond his suburban life in South London and the occasional visit to the genteel South Coast. Its memory still lingers and Chris returned to South Wales as a student in 1967 and persuaded a friend to drive him to Southerndown to explore the coast. At that time the Dunraven Estate had fallen into disrepair with the trees salt burned to a ghostly white and the castle reduced to rubble.

Further visits ensued over the years and in 1974 Chris was appointed as a planning officer with the Vale of Glamorgan Council.

View fullsize

© Copyright Stephen McKay

Among the projects he contributed to was the preparation of a management plan for the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, one of three pilot projects trialled by the then Countryside Commission. Although the Dunraven Estate was in the adjoining Ogwr Council area a joint working party of officers identified a boundary for the pilot project and carried out public consultation across South and Mid Glamorgan, and the respective local authorities adopted the management plan some 50 years ago. Key to the work was the the enthusiastic Heritage Coast Officer, John Howden, and John Sienkiewicz a charismatic civil servant whose challenge was to improve access, remove eyesores and provide information on the natural attractions of three coastal areas: Suffolk, Purbeck (Dorset) and Glamorgan. Cooperation and teamwork were the order of the day which provided a basis for conflict resolution and positive intervention in the countryside. Heritage Coasts were subsequently rolled out across England and Wales. The work to conserve the natural undeveloped character of the coastal scenery and protect and enhance its natural resources continues to this day. 

The Friends of Glamorgan Heritage Coast is a non-profit charity which helps to conserve the coastline through fundraising and volunteering. A small grants programme has been launched by the Friends and offers grants  of £500-£3000 to support practical projects that protect, maintain and enhance the unique character of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast. Apply for details at email below.

Why not become a member of the Friends of Glamorgan Heritage Coast : contact@foghc.org.uk

The AGM of the organisation takes place on Saturday 25 July 11am at the Heritage Coast Centre, Dunraven Park CF32 0RP 

Friends of Glamorgan Heritage coast logo

---

Duneland: a year in Kenfig by Kristian Evans is available from SUSSED Porthcawl