Our royal approval

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On Wednesday we hosted a royal visit by HRH The Countess of Wessex to celebrate Swansea as a Queen’s Green Canopy “Champion City”. Swansea was given this recognition as a result of our programme to plant thousands of trees across the city.   Our royal guest, ably assisted by school children, planted a Jubilee tree at the city’s new coastal park alongside the newly opened Swansea Arena. 

Tree canopy cover across Swansea is approximately 18.8% compared to national average of 16.8% and as a council we own more than half a million trees. There are more than 1,400 woodlands and tree groupings, including six Local Nature Reserves and more than 50,000 protected trees.  During the Platinum Jubilee year over 100 standard trees and more than 5,500 small trees will be planted on land in council ownership

We can all be proud of these achievements which started a long time ago when the council at the time created one of largest areas of urban forest in the UK in the Lower Swansea Valley.

Our approach is making a real difference with a recent study showing 3,000 tonnes of carbon removed from the atmosphere, 252 million litres of rainfall intercepted, 136 tonnes of air pollution removed and the equivalent financial value of these is more than £1.7m every year.

It was a splendid event where our staff and partners got to showcase the work they are doing to combat climate change and nature emergency.  It was really pleasing to meet the staff and hear in their own words the work they’re doing in this critical programme.

 The Countess toured the park, which is the first new urban park in Swansea for a century, and met local groups and school children who are green champions in their communities, planting trees and promoting environmental initiatives in their areas.

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The highlight once again was to meet the children and talk to them about the work being done. Lee Richards and I gave some of them a sneak peek at the auditorium of the new arena and a walk across the new bridge.  Their reaction made the whole project worthwhile in itself and I’m really grateful for the teachers and pupils for their participation in this event.

Thanks also to the staff who worked on the logistics of the event which ran, like all our events, like clockwork.

Ukraine

The scenes from Ukraine continue to shock us all and I fear where this is going to end. We’re continuing to do all we can to join the opposition to Russia by ensuring we review contracts etc so that none of our funding goes to that regime. We’re also preparing for the expected arrival of Ukrainian refugees as millions flee the bloodshed. We’ve also raised the Ukrainian flag outside the Guildhall this week in a further show of support.

Farewell

Rob (Chick) Feathers – a gully machine operative in Highways is retiring after a staggering 47 years’ service. His first day on the job on the April 3, 1975. Over the last 30 years, Rob has worked with the gully crew has been a tremendous asset. I have mentioned regularly in blogs the essential work our teams do to protect us from the impacts of storms and bad weather.  Rob takes with him an encyclopaedic knowledge of our gully network which I hope he’ll pass on.  I know his workmates will miss him not just for his knowledge but for his companionship and commitment. Well done Rob. Happy retirement.