PIONEERS in food production, home building, community ownership, healing etc met to tell their stories to the public and to delegates at the recent Plaid Cymru annual conference which took place in Cardigan.

It was an inspiring event. Each story was one of struggle against major barriers leading to eventual success.

Glen Peters, of Rhosygilwen, built a small village of solar houses in Moylegrove which are rented to local families at an affordable rent. The homes are designed and built entirely by local craftsmen and made of natural and recycled materials.

Their roofs are unusual, being made entirely of solar panels. The homes put more power into the grid than they take out and are climate savers. Their spacious light warm interiors make a quality home available to people on low wages.

After years of struggle, the model is now being taken up several councils in Wales.

Adam Yorke of Glebelands, St. Dogmaels and Cardigan is pioneering the return of the market garden to the outskirts of towns. His six organic acres keeps a large workforce busy producing healthy, low priced vegetables and fruit for two neighbouring towns. The business is a model benefiting wildlife, people and climate.

Jim Bowen of Clynfyw Abercych runs a care farm on the land that has been in his family for 300 years. The farm once again sees 40 people working at a variety of tasks to gain healthy and meaningful lives. His enterprises are part of a movement to provide a health service through activity with nature. They have a turnover of £1million.

Cllr Cris Tomos, from Hermon, has enabled communities to buy back essential assets and to develop them.

Canolfan Hermon grew from the village school that the community bought back when it was closed against their wishes. It includes a large modern hall and several businesses are based at it.

He helped Cardigan town group 4CG buy back nearly an acre of inner town, now hosting a number of successful enterprises including the El Salsa restaurant, Jig-So children’s centre and the Ecoshop.

His model has spread to neighbouring towns who have bought community wind turbines and a swimming pool to stop it being closed converting it to run on biomass. He arranges community share offers and peer-to-peer lending to make up any financial shortfall.

Croeso Teifi is one of the Welsh charities pioneering the community sponsorship of refugee families in local towns. Three local women reported on the town’s success in settling in the first family who fled war torn Syria. A second family is expected this winter.

New Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price said that this sort of innovative thinking and action would inspire his party’s manifesto.

“Pioneering and innovation are essential to drive the economic transformation that Wales needs. We can’t get there without you,” he said.

“Local and sustainable housing, food production, health and finance are part of the foundation economy we want to rebuild. Wales has a unique role internationally as illustrated by community sponsorship.

“We as a party want to learn from your examples, remove the barriers to your work and incorporate the lessons into our manifesto and programme for government."