FIVE weeks of frenetic activity has seen an idea to bring the Knife Angel to Newtown, turned into reality.

Last Saturday, January 4, the hard work of Cllr Joy Jones (Non-aligned – Newtown East) paid off as the Knife Angel winged its way from its birthplace at the British Ironworks Centre in Oswestry down the A483 to the park at the Oriel Davies Gallery in Newtown.

The Angel is already attracting visitors to Newtown with Cllr Jones saying that people from, all over the UK had already been to see it.

Cllr Jones said: “The coloured lights has had an effect with people saying that the Angel looks differently with the lights the mood changes with every colour and they like to see that.

“I do think to see the whole effect you need to see it at night.”

Dyfed-Powys Police Commissioner, Dafydd Llywelyn, worked with Cllr Jones to bring the 27 foot high Angel to Wales for the first time

Cllr Jones says that she was inspired to bring the Angel to Newtown due to some issues that had affected her own family.

Cllr Jones said: “”People have told us some incredible and heartbreaking stories of things that have happened in their lives not necessarily knife crime and that seeing the Angel has given them some peace.

“It’s been overwhelming, it’s not what I thought would happen.”

Dyfed-Powys Police and Crime Commissioner, Dafydd Llywelyn explained why his office became involved in the campaign.

He said:  “I got involved specifically after a conversation with Joy that she had seen the knife angel and the message it delivers and she wanted to my support to try and make it happen.”

“At the outset the British Ironworks Centre offered a date in 2021.”

Mr Llywelyn added: “The date would have been in two years time.

“I went back to suggest, that because there is a Police and Crime Commissioner’s election in May, I might not be the commissioner in two years time and as a result of that could we have it quicker?

“It does have a tight schedule travelling around the country but we were lucky that there was a slot free in January.

“It was an opportunity we could not turn down as it resonates with people and the message of preventing violent crime.”

Cllr Jones added: “They do have it at the Ironworks for a couple of months in winter.

“When we found out we’d have to wait two years I was horrified.

“And we found out that Wrexham were going to get it later this year and would have been the first in Wales. I’m not very good at waiting.”

Another conversation took place with the Ironworks and it was offered to Newtown for January.

Mr Llywelyn added: “These things don’t just happen it’s a lot of hard work with so many facets, on a personal level I’m very grateful for Joy’s work, it would not have happened without her.

“There is a lot of partnership working, Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn Town Council, Powys County Council the Police as well as my office all pulled together, with volunteers as well as businesses also coming to help.”

“I’m hoping that in a few years time before the Knife Angel’s tour ends, I  want to bring it to another location in the  Dyfed-Powys Police area in a few years time, hopefully that will be Aberystwyth.”