Vale of Glamorgan

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**Vale of Glamorgan county borough**

Geography
Area - Total - % Water	Ranked 15th 335 km² Negligible
Admin HQ	Barry
ISO 3166-2	GB-VGL
ONS code	00PD
Demographics
Population: - Total (2005 est.) - Density	Ranked 12th 122,900 Ranked 10th 365 / km²
Ethnicity	97.0% White 1.4% S. Asian 1.1% Afro-Caribbean
Welsh language - Any skills	Ranked 16th 16.9%
Politics
Vale of Glamorgan Council http://www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/
Control	NOC (Conservative administration)
MPs	Alun Michael Madeleine Moon John Smith

For other uses, see Vale of Glamorgan (disambiguation).

The Vale of Glamorgan (Welsh: Bro (or rarely Dyffryn) Morgannwg) is an exceptionally rich agricultural area in the southern part of Glamorgan, Wales. It has a rugged coastline, but its rolling countryside is quite untypical of Wales as a whole.

The Vale also boasts many tourist attractions which lure many visitors every year, including Barry Island Pleasure Park, Vale of Glamorgan Railway, St Donat's Castle, Cosmeston Country Park and many more. It is also the location of Atlantic College, one of the United World Colleges.

The rich countryside of the Vale of Glamorgan

1 Geography
2 Government
- 2.1 International links
3 See also

[edit] Geography

It has been a county borough since 1996, previously being part of South Glamorgan. It is also a parliamentary constituency, with John Smith as its Member of Parliament. The main town and largest centre of population is Barry. Other towns are Cowbridge, Llantwit Major and Penarth which is the Vale first fairtrade town, but a large proportion of the population inhabits villages, hamlets and individual farms.

The awesome yellow-grey cliffs on the Glamorgan Heritage Coast (which stretches between Llantwit Major to Ogmore-by-Sea) are absolutely unique on the Celtic Sea coastline (i.e Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Brittany) as they are formed of a combination of liassic limestone, shale and carboniferous sandstone/limestone. They were formed 200 million years ago when Wales (as well as Cornwall, Brittany and Ireland) lay underneath a warm, shallow, equatorial sea during the beginning of the Jurassic age. Today the cliffs contain elements of Jurassic age sea-creatures (although not land dinosaurs - what is now the Celtic Sea coastline was underneath the sea), such as ammonites. The stratification of overlapping shale, sandstone and limestone was caused by a geological upheaval known as the Variscan orogeny, which literally pushed the cliffs out of the sea, contorting them as they did so. (This stratification can also be found on other parts of the Celtic seaboard, such as Bude in Cornwall, across the Bristol Channel). As the cliffs and land contain elements of calcium carbonate found in the limestone, it allows farmers in the vale to grow crops which would be difficult elsewhere in Wales or the West country, such as Devon and Cornwall (whose soil is predominantly acidic as most of the west country is made of poor quality Devonian soils). The liassic limestone and carboniferous sandstone is also used in the vale for building materials; in previous centuries it was taken by sloops across the Bristol Channel to north Cornish ports such as Bude, Boscastle and Port Isaac to fertilise Cornwall's poor slate soils for the farming communities; while the hard Devonian slate of cornwall was brought back as a roofing material for houses in the Vale.

As the Glamorgan Heritage Coast faces westwards out to the Alantic, it bears the brunt of brutal on-shore (west, south-westerly) winds; ideal for surfing, but a nightmare for ships trying to sail up the Bristol Channel into Cardiff. Just like North Cornwall or South-West Ireland, the fierce Alantic gales created ideal conditions for pre-meditated shipwrecking, which up until 100 years was very common along the coast (although shipwrecking was common across all the Celtic Sea). Nash Point, Southerndown and Ogmore-by-Sea have some of the highest shipwreck victims on the coast of Wales; as recently as 1962 an oil tanker, the BP Driver crashed into Nash point during a violent westerly storm, was torn to shreds by the brutal reefs and eventually sank, although thanks to a courageous effort by various Bristol Channel lifeboats and helicopters the crew were saved.

The district borders Cardiff, Rhondda Cynon Taff and Bridgend to the north, and the Bristol Channel to the south.

[edit] Government

The Bristol Channel from Barry, January 2007

The region is governed by the Vale of Glamorgan Council. The county is currently governed by a Labour, Plaid Cymru alliance. The leader is Ms Margaret Alexander, and the current mayor is Nic Hodges. The previous leader lost two votes of no-confidence. It's Penarth members are Lis Burnett, Rhiannon Birch, Nigel Gibbs, Janice Birch and Mayor of Penarth, Mark Wilson.

[edit] International links

The Vale of Glamorgan is twinned with:

and has friendship agreements with:

Once every year, there is a twinning event in one of the Vale of Glamorgan's towns where representatives are invited from each of the twin cities. The event focuses on culture and economic regeneration.