The Ferndale Factor

Today we have a survey from the Royal Bank of Scotland, saying that Ferndale is the most desirable investment spot in Wales for new home buyers . According to the Western Mail, Blaenrhonddda (2nd in Wales), Pentre (3rd) and Tonypandy (6th) are the other Rhondda villages and towns mentioned in the survey. I was pleased to hear Sarah Dickins praising their beauty on the BBC's Good Morning Wales today. Ferndale is ranked as fifth place in the UK, after Openshaw and Ardwick in Manchester, Teeside, and Falkirk.

These surveys are always a bit problematic. Earlier this year of course, in April, there was a notorious survey by mouseprice.com which said that Ferndale was the cheapest place to buy property in the UK. (That survey lumped Maerdy and Tylorstown into Ferndale, of course, so actually it was an attack on most of the Rhondda Fach, not just Ferndale.) At the time, I had a look at the figures they were quoting and compared them with prices for actual houses on sale in the same streets in estate agent's advertisements in the Rhondda Leader. I found that the house prices being quoted did not take any account of the growth in house prices in the previous two years. In some cases, the real house prices were double the so-called house prices quoted in that survey.

That article gave rise to a series of patronising articles in the UK media, particularly this one in the Guardian, which rightly drew a stinging reply from John Asquith on behalf of the Ferndale and Blaenllechau Partnership. John's subsequent letter to the Guardian is worth quoting in full:

Richard Jinman (Guardian 6 May, “Into the Valleys”) spent long enough in Ferndale to get to know our small town well, but painted a picture of drabness and decay that was an unrecognisable travesty of reality.

Ever faithful to jaundiced cliché, he began by saying that an unrelenting rain was pouring off the slate roofs of our terraced houses. Indeed to goodness – I’m surprised he didn’t see a phantom sheep sheltering in a shop doorway, for the truth is that these days most of the roofs are tiled, the number of wet days about average for south-west Britain and the annual tally of sunshine hours not much less than in London.*

Mr Jinman then asserted that local facilities are scarce, evidently ignorant of the two local leisure centres, both with swimming pools and fitness centres, and the three parks, one of which contains ancient woodland and the famously deep Llyn-y-forwyn (“The Maiden’s Lake”). We have a new medical centre, a Co-Op supermarket, a range of small shops, including a newly opened ladies outfitters, excellent local schools, and every type of housing from small cottages to modern executive detached, whilst all around us we have spectacular scenery, the framework for dramatic sunsets, with paths leading through the woods to the high ridges and sweeping views south to Exmoor and north to the Brecon Beacons.

But of course Richard Jinman had to home in on five disaffected youngsters who, like their ilk the World over, complain that “there is nothing to do here”. Just for the record, we have soccer and cricket, golf, bowling, amateur rock bands, a Boys and Girls Club, cadets, a Youth Drop-In, night classes, an Art Group, the WI, churches and chapels, and a Brass Band complete with Junior Section – to name just a few!

The local choir, Côr Meibion Morlais, has a long tradition of success and makes regular visits abroad, where concert venues have included the Sacré Coeur in Paris, the vast St Stephen Basilica in Budapest and the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York; meanwhile the group of hard-working volunteers who re-founded Ferndale Rugby Club in 1989 have developed some of the best training, playing and social facilities in the area and achieved full Welsh Rugby Union status in record time. What more can a small town of under 5000 people possibly offer? What other towns our size provide as much?

In short, Ferndale is a lively little town with a low crime rate and a wonderful sense of community. Of course we have our fair share of problems as well, but to portray the problems as the norm is just perverse, and I fail to see what Richard Jinman was trying to achieve by doing this, other than to put the journalistic boot into a community that deserves better. At any rate, Guardian readers who wish to find out for themselves what Ferndale is really like will be assured of a warm welcome at our Town Festival on Saturday 10 September – just remember to apply the sun-screen!

I'll certainly be at the Town Festival on Saturday, with my sun-screen.