Archives for May 2021

For the past year we’ve rightly been concerned about the pandemic and the impact of Brexit.  But in my view the biggest threat we face is climate change.  There hasn’t always been consensus over the issue but increasingly the evidence is persuading governments across the globe that we need to act now.  As a council we have a huge role to play and each and every one of us carries a personal obligation and responsibility for the well-being of future generations.  So I was delighted that Leadership Team this week had this item on the agenda with Suzy Richards and Rachel Lewis joining for the discussion.

We’ve long been committed to taking action on climate change.  A Climate Emergency was declared by Council in June 2019 and a Climate Emergency Declaration Policy Review and Proposed Action was reported at Council in December 2020.  Our aim is to work towards Net Zero carbon for our own “in scope” emissions by 2030, and Swansea as a whole by 2050 to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions. This will be a major challenge.

Our recent survey attracted almost 1,400 responses and this reflects the strength of public interest in the issue.  The overall message was “go faster, go further”.  We’ll use the survey feedback to inform the design and delivery of services and we’ll publish our 2030 Climate Report in the summer.

Among the changes will be to reduce staff travel, replace existing council vehicles with green vehicles, reduce our building emissions, invest in solar panels and new buildings to net zero standards.

Thanks to all those who’ve been working on this.  I hope as many of you as possible will engage with the work going forward. 

Mayhill

Following the disturbances last week in Mayhill and Waun Wen our teams are continuing to support and reassure the community and its residents.  I mentioned last week how well our staff had dealt with a very difficult situation and this has continued this week.  But the collective agencies still have much to do.  We’ve been working with the police to better understand the chain of events that led up to the worst display of anti-social behaviour in the city for decades.  The Leader and I have asked the Welsh Government to commission a review so that we can learn from the incident and ensure we’re better able to predict and respond to future events.  We met the Chief Constable for South Wales Police, Jeremy Vaughan, and the Police and Crime Commissioner, Alun Michael, on Tuesday to agree what needs to be considered in the review. I know many of you will contribute to this process and feed your thoughts and experiences in.

Great efforts

It’s great to see tour city centre management team is encouraging shoppers to visit Swansea Market as the venue bounces back from the pandemic. Above you’ll find their engaging new ad that’s appearing on social media and TV.

Our city centre cultural venues started to reopen this week, including the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and the Dylan Thomas Exhibition. Swansea Museum is preparing to reopen shortly.  All three venues require visitors to book visits in advance so everyone can follow the rules and stay safe. Thank you to the staff involved. More here.

Regional update

Discussions on regional working through the Corporate Joint Committee continue apace, as do the negotiations over our new regional school improvement model.  The next few weeks will be critical and as soon as I can release the details I will. 

Swans

Good luck to the Swans tomorrow as they attempt to return to the Premier League against Brentford at Wembley.  I’ll be watching from the comfort of my armchair. I only hope that any celebration or commiseration events on Saturday evening are safe and Covid aware.  The number of infections has remained low for a sustained period but we mustn’t be complacent.  We’re not out of the woods yet.

I’m sure you will all have heard about the scenes in Mayhill/Waun Wen last night. They were shocking and unacceptable. We all know it’s not representative of Mayhill or Swansea as a whole.

I want to thank our officers who were there last night working alongside the police and supporting residents directly affected as well as those who are leading the clean-up this morning and over the coming days.

We are reassuring residents we will support them to ensure their homes are safe and working closely with South Wales Police to investigate what happened and bring those responsible before the courts.

Pandemic update

Elsewhere, despite the uncertainty over the impact of coronavirus variants, we’re seeing more restrictions being lifted and society gradually opening-up.

We’re still at Alert Level 2 and we’re some distance away from any significant return to workplaces. My view is that hybrid working will become the norm for many staff, so we’re making preparations to manage this process so that we’re ready when it happens.

With the recovery in sight, for me there are four areas where we need to concentrate our efforts. Firstly, the health and social care system has been tested almost to destruction by the demands placed upon it nationally.  We’ll need to recover lost ground, particularly in terms of the preventative activity that has underpinned our approach to date.  Our experience during the pandemic has brought us closer to the NHS and fuelled our drive towards integration and a single system for health and social care.  This is a strong foundation on which to build.

Secondly, we’ve seen our young learners suffer disruption to their education.  Whilst we’ve seen incredible efforts by our colleagues in education and schools to counter this, the limitations of blended learning have for me become more evident.  The importance of socialising and human interaction is fundamental to development and there’s more lost ground to recover.

Thirdly, we must continue the council’s transformation journey – Achieving Better Together – and embrace the new ways of working where they bring benefits and reduce costs.  This will become increasingly important given the likely state of the public finances in the medium term.  We’ve managed well during the pandemic but the cost will eventually be borne, in my view, by the public sector and in particular by councils.  Financial resilience will therefore be an increasingly important priority for us if and when austerity bites again.

Last, but not least, is the importance of economic recovery for our city and our region. The impacts of the pandemic on the economy have been devastating and we as a council have a central role in delivering a brighter future.  We’re once again in a relatively strong place and a number of people have commented about the continued regeneration of Swansea and the visible difference our major projects are making.  For the avoidance of doubt, none of this would have happened without our intervention and involvement.

And so it was a real boost to be at Cabinet yesterday where our plan for economic recovery was formally approved.  In short the £20m package of support for our communities aims to ensure no-one is left behind as we emerge from the pandemic. Among the highlights are:

• School meal prices frozen this financial year
• More than 20 new or upgraded children’s play areas
• Investment in shop fronts and commercial areas.
• Extra parking promotions for outlying retail areas
• Free wi-fi in communities
• Free use of non-3G sports and recreation playing fields for sports groups, charities and fetes.
• More dog waste bins and extra resources to tackle littering, weeds and overflowing bins
• More investment for road repairs
• Extra resources to tackle blocked drains and flooding

This is a vital package of support and I’m grateful to officers and councillors working on these initiatives.

Another important part of our economic recovery is being spearheaded by our tourism team’s ‘Happy Place’ campaign. It features new ‘Happy Place’ videos, already viewed almost 80,000 times. Our Visit Swansea Bay’s social media accounts have high levels of engagement, with the Facebook page liked by over 80k potential visitors. Easing restrictions and demand for staycations, should see visitors returning in the same numbers that they were pre-pandemic. I’m also grateful to colleagues in other services such as public health and licensing who are making sure visitor attractions, accommodation and restaurants are safe.    

One of our Local Area Co-ordinators, Emma Shears, compiled a book based on neighbourly stories collected during the first lockdown. Emma has written a two-part blog in which she and the author, David Jones, reflect on the ten powerful principles of Local Area Coordination. This blog has been shared on the LAC National Network and can be found here. It highlights the many strengths of our communities and how LACs help bring them together. Well done Emma and thank you to all our LACs.

Well, the multiple elections are now done and dusted and a huge thank you to all who helped make them a success.  It was a real team effort with staff from multiple departments working seamlessly together to organise a safe and proper poll.  It wasn’t without its challenges, including dealing with candidates and agents who refused to wear face masks and a very unwelcome fire alarm at around 10pm – just 10 minutes before we were due to announce the regional results at the Brangwyn Hall! This meant everyone had to be evacuated until the fire service had given us the all clear. 

A particular thank you to Huw Evans and the elections team who helped us to be the first region to declare both the Senedd and PCC results.  As regional returning officer I had the benefit of working with the other elections teams and RROs and I can say with some confidence that ours is the best of them all. And thanks to our DesignPrint team for providing poll cards, ballot papers and posters to very tight deadlines. Since the first lockdown, DesignPrint staff have been on hand for vital jobs like council tax bills, invoices, payslips and a plethora of other letters, when many of their suppliers (and sometimes competitors) had to shut down.

We now have two new members of the Council with Hannah Lawson being elected in Castle ward and Matthew Jones in Llansamlet.  I‘m sure you’ll all join me in congratulations and a warm welcome to both.

As expected, there’ve been some Ministerial changes in the Welsh Government with Julie James, our former Assistant Chief Executive, becoming Minister for Climate Change. Gower MS Rebecca Evans has been appointed Minister for Finance and Local Government. We have excellent relationships with Cardiff Bay, so for us it’s business usual. We now expect the move towards regional working and Corporate Joint Committees (CJC) to press ahead. We’re already working on CJC proposals for the City Deal and I hope we’ll be able to share the developing proposals prior to formal consultation.  Thanks to Martin Nicholls who’s been leading on this for the region.  We’re also continuing to make progress on the new regional model for school improvement and I hope we’ll be able to share this very soon too.

Covid

I’m delighted with the latest figures showing Swansea has just five cases per 100,000 people and that 241,000 have had their first vaccine and 99,000 their second. This is a great effort as we continue to see further restrictions lifted. Next week it’s the turn of indoor hospitality and I’m grateful again to officers who are supporting businesses to re-open safely. I’m also pleased that the Swans’ home play-off game will be one of the forthcoming “test events” which is another step towards returning to normality. Again, thanks to the staff who’ll be working to ensure this game and spectators are managed safely. Although things are moving in the right direction, the advice is to continue working from home where your job allows.

Appointments

On Wednesday the Appointments Committee met to appoint our new Head of Achievement & Partnership in the Education Directorate.  Congratulations to Kate Phillips who was appointed to the post at the end of a long and challenging interview process.

Congratulations

The first 20 participants have completed our carbon literacy training pilot, including basic climate science and how to reduce carbon emissions. Thanks to Suzi Richards and Penny Gruffydd for leading this.

Well done to staff and pupils at Penyrheol Primary after winning the Sustrans Wales Big Pedal 2021 competition.

“There’s no such thing as a vote that doesn’t matter. It all matters.”

Not my words, but those of Barack Obama. Hopefully as many people as possible have voted in Swansea and across Wales. We have a democracy and I believe we should cherish it.

Even for those not interested in politics, the outcome of the Senedd elections will have a huge impact on our lives as citizens but also as a council. Whoever is in power after this weekend gets the chance to introduce laws and policies that will affect us all from what our children are taught in school to how we deal with our household waste. And those decisions filter down to us as a council because we have to follow legislation and directives brought in by the incoming administration. It will affect the amount of money we receive and what we spend it on.

Regardless of the outcome, we’ve spent many years building relationships with Cardiff Bay and we must continue to do that for the benefit of our citizens.

So after a busy day yesterday visiting many of our polling stations and seeing up close the brilliant work of our staff, the various counts start today with the Senedd and local by-elections. On Sunday it’s the Police and Crime Commissioner votes.

It’s been a huge effort by everyone involved. Elections always need detailed planning, but this year has been like no other and I’m so grateful for everyone’s hard work and patience. It’s not over yet, but it’s been a brilliant effort and I’m very proud of our staff and volunteers.

Support

Away from the elections it was great to see Welsh Office Minister David Davies give support for our ambitious Dragon Energy Island proposal. The previous proposals for a lagoon didn’t convince Whitehall that the numbers stacked up, but we now have positive noises for our new scheme.

He told a cross-party committee of MPs, “Both myself and the Secretary of State have met with Swansea Council to discuss the Dragon Energy Island scheme which, I think, is a very positive development – and I’m very confident in the abilities of the Labour council, who have some great people, and the scheme put forward is one of great interest.”

His comments also highlight the relationships we’ve built not just in Cardiff Bay but also with the UK Government. Officers and Members are working behind the scenes and hopefully we’ll have more positive news soon for a project that could transform the local economy and our city.

Thank you

Well done to all our staff in various services who supported the likes of gyms, leisure centres and community centres re-opening this week. It’s been a great effort by everyone involved and I know people are very grateful to be able to use these facilities once again. Once again, please be sensible and stay safe.

And our highways and trees teams deserve huge thanks after spending their Bank Holiday Monday clearing trees and debris from roads across the city during the rain and high winds. Too often people forget the great job they do in the most testing of conditions.