Taxpayers have been left furious after the Welsh Labour government spent £250,000 on a project to count moths – while it cuts public services.
The ‘Cryptic Creatures of the Creuddyn’ project is surveying the moths’ limestone habitats on Llandudno’s Great Orme headland and in neighbouring areas.
It was handed a grant of £248,348 by the Government’s Nature Networks Fund, and will be delivered by the Heritage Fund.
The under-fire government claims it with help protect at-risk insects, including the Horehound Plume micro-moth.
A Tory councillor branded the spending ‘ridiculous’ – as families struggle with the cost of living and local authorities cut frontline services.
Llandudno’s Louise Emery hit out after a grant was awarded by the Welsh Government to Conwy county council.
She said: ‘Rather than for the benefit of invertebrates, how about Welsh Government benefit schools and communities by properly funding local authorities to improve education and provide basic services such as maintaining highways and public toilets?
‘It’s about priorities, and establishing the number of moths on specific limestone headlands should not be a priority when Welsh Labour in Cardiff continue to tell local authorities they have no money. This is utterly ridiculous.’
The project, which also works with schools, found ‘a staggering’ 1,109 horehound plume moth caterpillars on the Great Orme in Llandudno.
Cllr Emery continued: ‘There is money available from Welsh Government but only for certain things, so while local authority budgets are really being squeezed, Welsh Government finds money for projects such as the Cryptic Creatures of the Creuddyn.
Hellbound and Down 