Down the dimly lit and depressing Brackla Street arcade, Dragons Indoor Market remains one of only two occupied shopping units. Not for long, however, as low footfall, spiralling business rates and lack of financial security will mean that soon, the entire centre in Bridgend will consist of empty shop fronts.
The shop is filled with artisan crafts and local produce, but shop owner Kim Whitehouse is despondent. Her store initially thrived when she opened it 18 months ago, but the closure of Poundland, Iceland and Wilko in the town centre has reduced her customers to “zero”, and she has decided to close.
“I know that a lot of locals are not happy that so much has shut down and there’s so little in town. Everything that’s opened has been a vape shop or a barbershop. There’s not much chance or support for small businesses to start up around here,” she said.
It is impossible not to notice the dismal state of shopfronts in the south Wales town, which is just 20 miles from Cardiff. In a further blow, the indoor market was forced to abruptly close in September 2023, after reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) was found in the roof.
Speaking anonymously, one local councillor said: “Whenever we talk to people, they all say they are so fed up with Labour. People view them as penny-pinching from the people that need the money.”
It is a complaint that is echoed across the Welsh valleys. Deprivation is rife, with its population struggling with high levels of unemployment, low pay, an ageing population, long NHS waiting lists and poor distribution of services.
They are issues that Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru and Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK are both hoping to use to their advantage, with early polls ahead of next May’s Senedd elections suggesting that Labour may lose its 100-year hold on Wales.
In the former mining town of Maesteg, a short drive up the Llynfi Valley from Bridgend, Farage’s promise that his party’s policies will be “very different to the status quo” has grabbed the attention of locals.
Jason Ryall, 55, is among those who are switching to Reform, citing immigration, poor support for local businesses and lack of opportunity for young people as his key reasons. “Practically every one of my friends are going to vote Reform,” he said.
“They’re killing all the Labour heartlands up north because people are sick of it. We’ve had Labour for 100 years here, and nothing’s changed, and all the scandals coming out of parliament with their MPs like Angela Rayner has been ridiculous,” he said.
Another shop owner, who did not wish to be named, said: “Labour has always been God in these parts. Not any more, they’ve lost our trust.”
Despite it being a rainy Monday morning, the local Wetherspoons pub, The Sawyers Arms, is busy. For just £3.79, a punter can buy a full English breakfast and a pint, and there is a mix of pensioners, regulars and young people sitting inside.
When asked for their thoughts on their high street, several criticised the high number of takeaways and the brightly coloured vape shops with names such as ‘ESCAPE2VAPE’ and ‘Liquid Lab’ that have become increasingly commonplace.
One thing is certain: community ties are close. Shouts of “alright butt” and ‘how’s it going, pal’ can be heard shouted across the street, and it is evident that the town and its locals are still deeply passionate about their ties to its industrial past.
During the 1920s, more than 7,000 miners were working for the coal industry in Maesteg, with the valley gaining a worldwide reputation for its high-quality steam coal.
Yet the closure of the final mine in 1985 put an end to generations’ worth of families working in the pits, with unemployment rates skyrocketing due to a lack of public and private investment.
“Unemployment and drugs is a key issue here,” says one 76-year-old local, David John Waters. “There’s no opportunity for young people here, without question. All of these places used to be thriving; they’re now like ghost towns.”
Another recent blow has been the closure of the Port Talbot steelworks, one of the main employers in the area. While Tata Steel has started work to build a £1.25bn electric arc furnace, 2,000 employees lost their jobs last year when the last of its coal-burning blast furnaces closed down.
“Families worked in the steelworks, fathers and sons and their sons. There’s nothing around here that they can move on to,” he said. In line with Reform’s policy that net zero is an expensive farce, Farage has vowed to reopen the furnaces, despite that being impossible.
Mr Waters remains sceptical. “It’ll make no difference whatsoever who comes in. No disrespect, but it’s all talk. If you speak to the boys who have worked here all their lives, they’d say the same and if you went anywhere in the valleys, they’d say the same.”
Dotted around Maesteg are smaller villages such as Caerau, which was identified in a 2019 Welsh government report as the fifth most deprived area in Wales. Rows of grey-coloured social housing stretch down the valley, while its formerly grand Station Hotel remains abandoned after a police raid in 2021 found weapons and drugs.
Driving along the winding roads between the two Rhondda valleys, little remains of the coal mines that formerly blighted the countryside. For over a century, Labour have been able to rely on the support of these former mining communities to propel them into power in both Westminster and the Senedd.
But while the terraced houses remain, loyalty towards Sir Keir Starmer’s party has all but vanished, with Wales’ first minister, Eluned Morgan, now facing an uphill battle to regain trust ahead of the May elections.
At a pub in Treorchy, one local woman says: “The way it’s going with Labour is cruel. Everything is going up and up, the prices in the pub, the amount we pay for the food. I have been a lifelong Labour voter, but I won’t vote for them again.”
Not all are critical of their local Labour councils, with Nigel and Lesley Locke, 56 and 50, praising the work Rhondda Cynon Taff has done to support their charity Valley Veterans. Aiming to help the 7,500 former armed service members who live in the area to access housing and mental health services, they have described the work of local councillors as “marvellous”.
“It’s the bigger people up top who have let us all down,” Lesley says. “It’s general disenchantment with the whole lot of it.” Her husband Nigel adds: “The Conservatives have never really featured around here or been in the valleys. With Reform UK, it’s a groundswell to watch, judging from what we can hear around here.
“Our local council have been very supportive of us as a charity, but it’s the local ones that suffer for what goes on nationally. Starmer is not looked on in a good light anywhere across the world. Nearly every day, there’s a controversy.”
While the pub they sit in is busy, with locals gathering for a bingo competition, the community in Tonypandy faces the same issues as others across the valleys.
“The valleys and west Wales are two of Europe’s most deprived regions,” Joe Rossiter of the Institute of Welsh Affairs says. “They had a lot of infrastructure spending from the EU and it’s not led to the economic transformation of those communities, really.
“When that money is gone, where is the scale of investment that is going to provide long-term jobs in the future? The Welsh government don’t have the money to do that.”
In mid-December, a YouGov poll showed a two-horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK, with Labour trailing dismally, some 20 points adrift, in third place, tied with the Tories and only one point ahead of the Green Party.
“If those polls come to fruition, that is a fundamental realignment of Welsh politics and will see the end of Labour being prominent for over 100 years,” he said.
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