My thanks to Clixx Photography of Aberdare for their work in putting the film together. The first site, and in many ways the most prominent site, is the Phurnacite site. Located in Abercwmboi, this is spread over a huge 168 acres. The sharp-eyed amongst you may have noticed the football pitch on the right hand side of the screen a few seconds in. I think that usefully shows the scale of the land we are talking about. It is also literally in the heart of my constituency, a doughnut-like hole in the centre of Cynon.

For 50 years, until its closure and demolition in 1991, the Phurnacite produced smokeless fuel in the form of briquettes. At its peak, it was producing over a million of these annually. Changes in consumption saw the closure of the Phurnacite, but not before it had inflicted intolerable damage on the health of its workforce and neighbours, and on the local environment. Yet, reclamation works in the last decade mean it is now a key strategic site for Rhondda Cynon Taf. Ambitious proposals for housing, recreational facilities and infrastructure have been discussed. But, 27 years on, this privately owned site remains unused and unappreciated.

The second site in the footage is the former workmen's hall and institute in Abercynon. Belonging to the golden age of workmen's clubs, this was opened in 1905. Locally designed and constructed, its four-storeyed frontage once towered over the local skyline. The building was demolished, like many of its era, after a fire in the 1990s. Two decades later, its footprint remains at the centre of a network of Valleys terraced streets, as the video showed. Yet it's owned by an absentee landlord, who, unlike local residents, doesn't have to live next to this derelict site, day after day, year after year.

A similar situation is found in the third clip, where disused land also lies like a chalk outline at a crime scene. It is right in the centre of Mountain Ash on Oxford Street, adjacent to the focal point statue of Guto Nyth Brân. A derelict eyesore building was pulled down there around a decade ago, but the disused site remains. The local authority has even had to install railings around the plot for safety reasons. However, the owner refuses to sell the site, despite appeals from RCT.

The final site in my video is the former Aberdare hospital. This opened in 1917 and in due course treated thousands of patients each year. The old hospital site was handed over for demolition in 2012, its services replaced by the state-of-the-art Ysbyty Cwm Cynon. Despite the land being allocated for housing in the LDP and bought by a developer who said they intended to use it as such, you may have noticed it is currently home to a flock of sheep, which I think is quite symbolic.