A Plaid Cymru AM has criticised a senior councillor who said it was too cold for “crims” to steal his car wheels during a visit to two areas in the Rhondda.
South Wales Central member Leanne Wood has now called upon Tonyrefail East councillor Robert McDonald to retract comments he posted on Facebook following a visit to Penrhys and Penygraig.
Replying to a question asking whether he had his “hard hat and steel toe caps” for the trip, councillor McDonald said: “Got back to my car and it still had four wheels and nothing missing. It was so bloody cold all the crims were at home cuched (sic) up to the radiators =D.”
Before the visit, councillor McDonald said: “Off to see the delights of Penygraig and Penrhys this morning, oh joy =D.”
Councillor McDonald is a chairman on several committees on Rhondda Cynon Taf council including the Rhondda Area Development Control Committee, the Environmental Services Scrutiny Committee, and the Co-ordinating Development Control Committee.
Leanne Wood AM, who lives in Penygraig, said: “Councillor McDonald should retract these comments straight away.
“He should really think about the impact comments like this have on our communities. Council workers are making great efforts to attract tourism and business to the Rhondda yet one of the senior councillors is condemning local people as criminals.
“Councillor McDonald chairs a number of the council’s development control committees and although they may have been meant as a joke, these discriminatory and prejudicial comments are bound to colour his judgement when making decisions which affect people in Penygraig and Penrhys and the Rhondda more widely.
“A lot of people in Tonyrefail have family connections with the Rhondda and I know plenty of Penygraig people who live there now, so Councillor McDonald is effectively insulting his own electorate which voters will no doubt remember at the next elections.”
