Archives for March 2024

A regeneration programme worth over £1bn is ongoing in Swansea to create more jobs and opportunities for local people and local businesses, while also helping to attract even more investment in future.

Although this includes a number of new buildings like Swansea Arena, we’re also doing all we can to celebrate Swansea’s heritage and breathe new life into the city’s historic gems.

This includes our work to restore and transform The Palace Theatre on High Street, which dates back to 1888.

Along with other officers including Mark Wade, Elliott Williams and Tracy Nichols, I visited the theatre building yesterday to see first-hand the progress that’s taking place on site.

Due to be managed by Welsh business Tramshed Tech, the development is now coming on in leaps and bounds. With the scheme anticipated for completion by the end of the year, there’s now a real wow factor inside because the central space is free of scaffolding and you can see the shape of the theatre as it once was. It’s part of a £100m investment to help transform the High Street area.

Other developments including the 71/72 Kingsway office scheme are making considerable progress too, as Swansea’s transformation continues to gather pace.

That development, as well as Swansea Arena and the Innovation Matrix scheme being led by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, are being part-funded by the Swansea Bay City Deal.

On Wednesday, I was at a City Deal event in the arena to hear about the progress of many projects throughout South West Wales. Over 150 businesses and partner organisations were in attendance and it’s so encouraging to see the public and private sectors working so closely together to create a brighter future for both Swansea and the broader City Region as a whole. It was great to meet colleagues from the regional teams and other businesses plus many delegates who were very positive about the progress being made in Swansea

We’ve also started remarketing a hotel opportunity in recent days for the site between the arena and the LC in a further boost for Swansea’s transformation.

During the last week, I also met staff in our welfare rights team who continue to do so much great work to benefit many thousands of local residents. This is especially important given the ongoing cost of living crisis, so my thanks to Jane Storer for talking me through their work and the challenges they face.

This week is National Social Work Week 2024, which helps shine a light on all the great work done by social workers across the country. That’s certainly the case here at the council, so my thanks to our social services team for all they do every day for children, young people, adults, carers and families.

Switching to education, cabinet yesterday approved a £3.25m investment in Townhill Primary School that will lead to an all-weather pitch, a new school dining area, kitchen and community facilities there. This follows-on from the recent addition of a new play area for local children at the Phoenix Centre as we continue to invest in communities across the city.

Well done to our trading standards team too for their recent work in seizing illegal vapes with a street value of more than £47,000, along with large amounts of counterfeit cigarettes and tobacco. They were found in a disused WW2 bunker in a Swansea garden.

This week marks the retirement of two long-serving members of staff – Paul Lilley and Dave Meyrick.

Paul has been with the council for 42 years, taking over the housing finance function in 2014. His knowledge of the Housing Revenue Account and the numerous financial functions will be hugely missed.

Dave joined the council in 1986, with his most recent role being housing programme and planning delivery manager. He had a big input into the work involved in preparing for and achieving the Welsh Housing Quality Standard and numerous other maintenance and improvement projects.

They’ll be enormously missed by their colleagues so I’d like to join them in wishing both Paul and Dave my best wishes for long, happy retirements.

I’ll be taking some leave next week, so it’s an early Happy Easter from me to all staff.

The blog will return two weeks today (Friday April 5).

I’m sure we all agree with the old Dylan Thomas quote that Swansea is the best place. Over the last decade or so Jack Straw, Phil Roberts and I have used the blog to update you about our leading role in city regeneration and the impact it has on our staff and the future of the city. We’ve been making great progress in recent years, thanks to the arena and developments like 71/72 Kingsway alongside the private sector, Welsh Government and UK Government investment. Now we, BID, universities and private sector businesses are looking at how to make sure our success story is used as a platform to attract yet more investment into Swansea and the wider region. Yesterday, the Leader, Cllr Robert Francis-Davies and myself met representatives from BID and private sector partners to consider setting up an inward investment initiative called the Swansea Investment Group. We’re all passionate about our city and believe a collective joined-up approach to telling the Swansea success story will encourage others from the UK and abroad to come here and invest in their future and ours. I’ll keep you posted on how this goes but I want to thank the many officers around the council who’ve helped turn our regeneration aspirations into the reality we see around us every day.

A practical example of our leadership role in city regeneration is the Destination Management Plan – our strategic approach to supporting the £500m-a-year local tourism industry. Recently our tourism team gave an update on the latest plan to more than 20 local tourism and hospitality businesses which was really well-received. We want tourists to go home and tell their friends great stories about us so they come and visit too. A strong partnership between us and local businesses helps make that happen and aligns with our USP for the wider investment opportunities referenced above. My thanks to Tracey McNulty, Steve Hopkins and the tourism team for their work in this area.

This week we earned architectural accolades for two of our landmark projects. The Penderyn Visitor Centre at Hafod Copperworks has been nominated for a heritage award by the Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors (RICS). And judges from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) were in the city to inspect Swansea Arena after it too was shortlisted for a major architectural award. Good luck to both.

The Police and Crime Commissioner elections are approaching in May and our elections team are looking for support staff, particularly presiding officers. If you can help, please drop an email to the team here: electionstaffing@swansea.gov.uk

Finally, it’s time to say farewell to three long-serving members of staff who are leaving this month after clocking up well over a century of service between them. Karen Telford from our Trading Standards team is retiring after 49 years protecting our communities from rogue traders. Sue Woodward leaves us after 29 years of supporting businesses and people into jobs through, not least, her work in inward investment business support and the Beyond Bricks and Mortar initiative. Also leaving at the end of the month is Liz Edmonds, a member of my support team. Liz joined our Lliw Valley predecessor authority in 1985 and worked in a variety of roles in leisure before becoming a key part of the team that’s supported me, Phil and Jack to do our jobs in recent years. My thanks to all three for their service and I wish them all the best for the future.

After months of discussion we’ve now agreed the council’s budget for next year. Thank you to all the staff who’ve been part of those discussions and helped get us through this lengthy and challenging process. We now have a clear budget for the year ahead and we can begin to plan to deliver services based on that funding. Unfortunately, it means some posts are at risk, but we’re doing all we can to support those staff affected by the budget. I know this is an unsettling time, but we’re making every effort to avoid compulsory redundancies wherever possible.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown was in Swansea this week to officially open Cwtch Mawr – Wales’ first multi-bank. Based on the concept of foodbanks it provides a range of essentials such as clothing, household items and baby goods to people in need. Since it started in December more than 7,000 people have benefitted and it’s making a real difference to lives. The Multibank initiative was co-founded Mr Brown and Amazon and is being run in Swansea by Faith in Families. The council has secured an asset for the initiative and provided some financial support via ERF monies to get it up and running. It’s also given a significant amount of support so my thanks to all the staff involved with particular thanks to Jane Whitmore for the work on this initiative.

It was great to see the It’s Your Swansea conference yesterday at Swansea Arena. More than 1,000 people attended, along with hundreds of inspiring local businesses helping raise Swansea’s profile as a city of opportunity. The council gave an update on the £1bn regeneration programme that’s transforming our city, and staff were on hand to give information on major projects and business grants. On a similar note I met with officials from the UK business and trade officials at the university to showcase Swansea and the great work being done on life sciences and how our City Region is moving forward.

Congratulations to our land charges team who are the first in Wales to win the Customer Satisfaction Award in the 2024 Land Data Awards for Excellence. Our team manages conveyancing searches which is an essential part of moving home for our residents. It’s voted for by conveyancers and solicitors who are asked to consider quality, efficiency, reliability and value for money. Swansea is the first Welsh Authority to win an award.

Another proud moment this week saw the charity Heartbeat Trust UK visit the Guildhall to present us with an award for our support in helping Swansea become the UK’s first Defib Friendly City. There’s now a network of more than 650 life-saving defibrillators across the city, and the council has helped fund many of those. My thanks to all involved in this life-saving initiative.

Finally my thanks to Steve Bennett, one of our city centre cleansing team, who gave first aid and assistance to an elderly gentleman who had fallen and sustained a significant head injury. Steve started initial first aid, phoned an ambulance and assisted with getting him into an emergency vehicle to hospital. Since that time, the gentleman has recovered and called into the office with a card and box of chocolates for Steve. Well done Steve.

Many of you will know that we had to close Bishopston Comprehensive School just before half-term after ground movement was discovered, forcing us to switch off all the utilities to its buildings. I’m delighted to say that thanks to the incredible efforts of our education and building services teams and, of course, the school plus many others, Bishopston re-opens on March 6 to all pupils. Working every day since the discovery, often in atrocious weather conditions, building services and our contractors have completed the hugely complex job of re-routing water, electricity and gas mains to make this happen. While this has been going on, our education teams and the school staff have pulled out all the stops to maintain learning online for more than 1,000 pupils. Among other things, re-opening means pupils due to sit vitally-important GCSE exams using equipment only available at the school will be able to carry on. I want to pay tribute to Nigel Williams, Louise Herbert-Evans and their teams for their perseverance, professionalism and can-do attitude under pressure. I’d also like to thank Bishopston headteacher Jeff Bird, his staff, governors, pupils and parents for their resilience and patience at a very challenging time. Our response to this incident shows Swansea Council at its very best.

I had a very productive catch-up with the staff engagement group on Wednesday. We discussed a range of topics, focussing particularly on ways we can consult effectively with staff on the issues that matter to them. We all recognised that meaningful consultation must include an effort to ensure everyone has the opportunity to have their voice listened to – and that action on concerns and interests raised are seen to take place. The plan is to carry out some further staff engagement from April to understand how effective these processes are across the Council.

We have also approved our reward and recognition scheme which will now be discussed with our trade unions and councillors before being launched shortly. If you’ve ideas you want to share on this subject, please feedback via your staff representatives or let me know directly.

It’s International Women’s Day next Friday and we’ll be marking the event in a number of ways. It’ll include announcing that the coastal park next to Swansea arena is being named for renowned Swansea businesswoman and writer Amy Dilwyn. Staff events include an online drop-in session on Teams providing advice and support for women. My thanks to Tracey McNulty for pulling together the relevant details and arrangements for the naming event.

Our final budget proposals go to Full Council on March 6 for its decision. It has been a challenging process over a number of months. But if you follow any of the local and national news you will see many other councils facing the same or more difficult choices and challenges. My thanks to all of you who took part in the consultation and to Ben Smith, Sarah Willis and the finance team for their effort in getting us to the finish line. Also on a finance issue, Cabinet and CMT met on Thursday and one of the things discussed was around grant visibility and how announcements from Welsh Government impact on the services we are delivering to our communities. We will be carrying out some further work on the grant process and visibility during this year.

Finally, I can’t let the day pass without wishing you a very happy St David’s Day. If you want to get into the spirit of the occasion there’s three days of our Croeso Festival still to enjoy. Well done to the team in cultural services and their partners for making the festival such a colourful annual event.