IN response to this week’s headline I too am appalled by Cllr Sarah Burch’s comments highlighted in your article made by the Councillor at a public meeting in Magor.

Her conduct will I am sure be scrutinized and the appropriate action taken by the Standard’s Committee at MCC. I consider that her comments make her a totally unsuitable person to hold the position of Cabinet Member for Inclusive and ActiveCommunities.

As a direct descendant of Welsh travellers through my grandmother a Powell, that were active in the Brecon area from the 15th Century working as hauliers, (there is a book in Somerset House detailing their unusual Welsh names written by a cousin of mine), I feel deeply ashamed that 62 per cent of Gypsies and Travellers have experienced racial abuse and they also experience the highest levels of social and economic deprivation. These facts were reported in a survey carried out by the Centre on the Dynamics of Diversity and supported by Friends, Families and Travellers published in April 2023.

It also concluded that ‘the Government needs to listen to Romany Traveller and Roma people and concrete steps must be taken so that everyone can live healthy lives with dignity, respect and free from hate’.

MCC has a legal responsibility like every other council to provide these sites and needs to get on with it, they are long overdue.

Any elected member involved in these decisions has a responsibility to uphold the standards clearly laid out in the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act 2021.

Jane Pratt (Resident of Llanelly Hill, Abergavenny and former MCC cabinet member)