AS THOSE in the medical world know all too well, Sepsis is a life-threatening condition triggered when the body’s reaction to infection causes its own host of damage to tissue and organs.

Sepsis has really moved to the forefront of people’s thinking over recent years thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of the many volunteers across the country who work tirelessly to raise awareness.

I was therefore pleased to support the latest in a series of well-being walks organised for the UK Sepsis Trust by Cardiff-based supporters Siobahn Corria and Terence Canning in Abergavenny’s Bailey Park - and to catch up with local supporters of the Trust.

Well done all of you, you’re doing a great job keeping up the profile of this condition and promoting a healthy lifestyle. Promoting wellbeing is, of course, a key role of our local authorities.

It now looks as though the local government map in Wales could change radically with plans to merge Monmouthshire with other adjacent counties back on the table following the publication of the Welsh Government’s Green Paper.

There are lots of interesting statistics in the Green Paper, ranging from population figures to council tax bases, but there’s no recognition of the importance of the feel of an area, its character - its brand, to use the modern term.

I can’t help but feel the Welsh Government is going about this process the wrong way, seeking to re-create distant super-authorities rather than looking at the factors that make Monmouthshire successful in harnessing the energy of its people, promoting its history and heritage, and growing the local economy by building on a brand that works.

There's no explanation about how “local government area 10” as it’s referred to in the paper (very Orwellian, I hope that’s just a working title!) will provide a more successful brand or will be accepted or respected by the people who will live in it.

True, the Heads of the Valleys road provides a new cross-boundary strategic route and there may be some arguments for building on that, but it doesn't seem to me that the public, the people out there that these embryonic new authorities should be aspiring to represent, are really involved or engaged in this at all.

I look forward to doing my own consultation and hearing what local people have to say about all this over the weeks and months ahead.