I spent Monday in London lobbying for the tidal lagoon and the UK City of Culture 2021. 
The Leader and Deputy Leader joined me, along with Nigel Short, owner of Penderyn Whisky. They delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street and took our giant postcard to the Wales Office in Whitehall.
It marked the end of the current phase of our Love the Lagoon campaign and was timed to drive the message home before the Chancellor’s budget speech. We hope the lagoon will be included in the UK Industrial Strategy when it’s unveiled soon.
We then went to the House of Commons for the UK City of Culture reception.
It was a well-attended event with speeches from Geraint Davies MP and our Leader, Rob Stewart. Alun Cairns, the Welsh Secretary, also spoke in support of our bid.
I met one of our cultural champions, Sir Peter Blake, best known, rather unfairly, for the design of the Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP cover.
His exhibition of illustrations for Under Milk Wood kicked-off our Dylan Thomas centenary events in 2014. His support is greatly appreciated.
“Dying to work” charter
We’ve signed a workers’ charter to provide further support to staff facing terminal illness. We already support key elements of the charter, including ensuring employees with a terminal illness have access to appropriate counselling and financial advice, and that we deal with terminal illness in a sensitive and supportive way.
Thanks to all the councillors, officers and trade unions who’ve been involved.
Leading the way
Congratulations to everyone involved in Monday’s event to celebrate our role in placing children’s rights at the heart of education. Schools have taken part in the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools initiative and more than 48,000 children and young people, 2,050 teaching staff and 1,320 non-teaching staff have played their part.
We’re the first council in the UK to embed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) at the heart of everything we do and that’s real cause for celebration.
Linked to this, the #IAMME Young People’s group collected their prestigious Diana Award, and were a credit to our looked after children. The awards’ roll of honour now states: “#Iamme are an incredible group of young people who have made a significant contribution to ensuring that the voice of looked after children is represented.” This is a fantastic achievement and I’m very proud!
Pontlliw Primary School
During a visit to Pontlliw Primary school I was delighted to see a clear focus on the STEMM subjects and a real commitment to promote science. The school will be visiting Valencia as part of the ERASMUS project to see how science and technology is taught elsewhere. Despite the uncertainty over Brexit and its impact on ERASMUS, I hope these exchanges continue. Thanks to headteacher Alison Norman, her team and the pupils for the warm welcome and I hope you bring back some great ideas from Valencia.
Well-being
In 2016, Swansea’s Public Services Board (PSB) started a conversation about well-being in the local area. People told us Swansea’s a great place to live but we need to work together to make sure everyone can live well, benefit from and be proud of Swansea.
Based on this we’ve developed a draft Local Well-being Plan, but we need your views to make sure we’ve got it right. I hope you can let us have your views by completing the survey here.
Christmas
I went to the fantastic Christmas Parade in the city centre along with 40,000 other people – the biggest crowd we’ve had at the lights switch-on. Congratulations to our events team for staging a successful parade and for getting Waterfront Winterland open on time.
Our cleansing team was on the case straight after the event – ensuring the city centre was back to normal for the start of the week.
We’ve already had loads of enquiries from people and organisations wanting to take part in next year’s parade and that speaks volumes. Thanks and congratulations to the many staff involved from all the departments who contributed.
Children in Need
Fund-raising events for Children in Need were held across the council. Just one example saw the Highways and Transportation team at Clydach raise £88 by selling cakes and dressing down.
Well done to all and here’s a picture of Lee O’Hara entering into the dressing down with gusto!
White Ribbon
A White Ribbon Day event will be held at Swansea’s Domestic Abuse One Stop Shop today as part of a national campaign. We’re working with Swansea Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Partnership to spread the message that domestic abuse and violence are unacceptable. You’ll find further information about the campaign here.
Sad loss
Grenville Phillips, Honorary Alderman and former Lord Mayor of Swansea, has passed away. Grenville was also Honorary Burgermeister of Mannheim and founder of the Portmead and Blaenymaes Community Centre. I worked alongside him as he strove to improve the lives of his constituents in the Penderry ward.
He was a deeply committed and fair politician and I‘ll always be grateful for his unwavering support, particularly through the challenging PRC homes project which saw the demolition and redevelopment of a large part of the Blaenymaes and Portmead estate.
Very sad to hear about Grenville; he was a brilliant Chair of Public Protection and gave me a huge amount of support and ‘protection’ when dealing with some very difficult hot topics. A pleasure to work with and a huge amount of community work done quietly behind the scenes.
Thanks Huw. He was indeed an excellent councillor and admired by fellow politicians and officers alike.