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REFORMING Wales’s tourist industry will be made a key issue in Ynys Mon at the Senedd Election next year.

New Welsh Independence party GWLAD have announced their intention to stand on the island next May, with a firm pledge to tackle ‘saturation tourism’ all over Wales.

The announcement was made following the party’s revelations last week about Lancashire Tory MP Jake Berry and his exploitation of the island to build up his property empire there.

It has since emerged that the MP paid £780,000 to buy a house in Rhoscolyn as his second home.

‘We will say that this blatant colonialism and exploitation of Wales’s resources has got to end’ said GWLAD leader, Gwyn Wigley Evans.

‘We’ve got to completely change the whole idea of what ‘Visit Wales’ means. We like visitors – they come here and see what’s here, and then they go home.’

‘What we don’t like is the ‘flood’, which brings with it devastation, be that in Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), beaches, pathways, even roads, etc. And of course the biggest problem of the ‘flood’ is the blight of second homes’.

‘It’s not a problem unique to Wales, as the Lake District and Cornwall suffer in the same way. Indeed St Ives have decided recently to ban second homes entirely. But, here in Wales we now need new Welsh answers to these deep-seated problems’.

Amongst GWLAD’s tourist promises for next year’s election will be:

• A 500% council tax on second homes.
• A tourist tax per person per night as is the case in many European cities/nations. This money to be invested in local services and helping locals get on to the housing market.
• A move away from ‘cheap and cheerful’ tourism to a new upmarket tourism, less visitors spending more money.
• Encouraging more Welsh-owned and Welsh-staffed serviced accomodation.

‘Everybody knows that the current tourism model here is unsustainable. Only the greedy, who don’t care about Wales, can defend the tourism Wales is suffering today’ added Mr Evans.

‘The greedy and exploitative antics of Tory MP Jake Berry on Ynys Mon has really brought this home for many people of late’.

‘We promise that if people vote for us next May, we will change this situation’.

Mr Evans said that the candidate for the Ynys Mon constituency will be announced shortly.

With a raft of other candidates for seats all over Wales to be unveiled over the coming months.

‘Vote for us for real change next May’.