It’s hard to believe that the Cambrian Mountains haven’t always been as we see them today, but in reality “change is the only constant”.  The Victorians’ reservoirs displaced people and drowned farms; conifers now march across hillsides once grazed by sheep and cattle.  Up until the Cistercian monks introduced sheep farming, the same hills would have looked completely different under a patchy scrub woodland blanket.

We’ve launched a project, alongside Coventry and Aberystwyth Universities, to find out how local people feel about the changes they’ve experienced in the past and can see coming their way in the future.  Since we cannot look at everything in depth (life is too short!), Step One is to find out which changes have had the greatest impact.  We’re therefore running a simple Poll to identify a “Top 3”. Once we’ve done that, we’ll be looking in more depth at those three issues through a series of workshops in late summer and autumn.

If you live in, or near, the Cambrian Mountains and would like to give us your views, either

• drop by our stand at the Royal Welsh Show next week, or
• follow the link here to complete it online.

Its completely anonymous, though we do ask for your age bracket and an idea of how long you’ve lived in the area.  The more responses we get, the better understanding we’ll arrive at – and the more useful our feedback to the Welsh Government on the changes coming this way, will be.

Thanks for your input – and do pass the word on, we want everyone’s views to ensure we focus on what really matters to people in the region.