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.
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