Bridging Wales and London

The Shard

Author Mariordo Licence CC BY-SA 3,0 Source Wikimedia Commons

 

Jane Lambert

In Wales Week, London, I described the events that take place in the days leading up to and just after St David's Day as London's contribution to an annual worldwide festival of Wales.  This year's Wales Week, London promises to be the best ever.  One of those events was Bridging Wales and London hosted by M-SParc (the Menai Science Park) in conjunction with the Foresight Group and Menter Môn.

The event took place on the 23rd floor of the Shard between 16:00 and 18:00 on 25 Feb 2026.  According to Wikipedia, the building is 1,015 feet high.  In pre-metric times, it would have qualified as an artificial mountain.  A mountain was defined as an elevation over 1,000 feet.   A tower was constructed on Leith Hill in 1765 expressly to convert the 965-foot hill into Surrey's only mountain.   

Entering the building was like boarding an aircraft.   Visitors were asked for photo ID.  Possessions were screened by a metal detector.  Lifts were summoned by keying in the number of the destination floor on one of several screens at the lift entrance that resembled iPads.  On exiting the lift, the view was spectacular.  I jested with one of the speakers that, on a clear day, it ought to be possible to see Calais.  

At the entrance to the room where the event was to take place, I was greeted by M-SParc's director, Pryderi ap Rhisiart, who conducted me to a front row seat and offered me refreshments.  Among the first to arrive was Anna McMorrin, MP for Cardiff and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Wales Office.  I opined that the programme for this year's Wales Week, London, was the best ever, but ventured that it was somewhat London-centric.  There are many Welsh exiles in the rest of England, including my MP, keen to promote links between their birthplace and current home.  It is no coincidence that our region, which was once part of the possibly Welsh and certainly Brythonic speaking Kingdom of Elmet, has a lot in common with Wales, including hills, choirs and non-conformity   

Just after 16:00, Pryderi called the meeting to order and introduced Anna McMorrin MP as the keynote speaker.  She spoke about all the good things to be found in Wales, from its glorious mountains in the North to its magnificent coastal scenery.  Having established herself in London, she remembered her colleagues' surprise when she announced her return to Wales. "But we know better", she said to her audience with a smile.  There are now plenty of incentives to open a business in Wales.

Those incentives were explored in the first panel session by Johan Dyer of Buildboss, Dan Parry Evans of Vedri Virtual Production Studio, Dr Huw Vaughan Jones and Lisa Storey Evans of Cook Street Consulting.  In the Q&A, I observed that founders and business owners need the arts as well as outstanding scenery, business support and other incentives.  The Pontio Centre in Bangor, with its theatre, cinema, exhibition space and FabLab, meets those needs.

Another panel discussion, chaired by Kelly Davies of the Cymru Football Foundation, discussed sport, another important aspect of life.  The panellists were Iwan Pritchard of Pelly, Tristian Griffiths of Your Empowered Mindset and Neil Thomas of Brandified.  In the audience was a member of the English women's football team whom Kelly introduced at the end of the last session.   I met Kelly again on the tube later that evening.  She was going to Euston to catch a train to North Wales, while I was on my way to King's Cross for my connection to Doncaster.  I told her that the theme of this year's World Intellectual Property Day was  IP and Sports, which I discussed in World IP Day 2026 - IP and Sports: Ready, Set, Innovate! on 28 Dec 2025 in NIPC News.   She expressed considerable interest in the topic.

A lot was crammed into the two-hour event.   In addition to the talks and panel discussions that I have already mentioned, the Foresight Group spoke about the equity investments that it had made on behalf of the Investment Fund for Wales. David Wylie outlined Menter Môn's plans to promote Welsh food and drink.  I renewed many acquaintances that I had already made at M-SParc and made many more with UK and Welsh government civil servants, investors, entrepreneurs and business advisors.  The event was well worth the long journey on the first warm day of the year.

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