I mentioned last week that reputation is one of my priorities, and improving the city centre is a big reputation issue for us. The public and businesses expect us to take the lead in creating the right conditions such as modern buildings and a clean and safe city centre to help attract investors and jobs. It was therefore great this week to meet some potential businesses looking to invest in Swansea and also see the continuing progress across a range of projects both by the council and private sector. Three of these flagship regeneration projects will be coming to fruition shortly creating jobs footfall and interest in the city centre.
The sites at 71/72 Kingsway, Palace Theatre and Albert Hall are looking great and will soon be welcoming tenants. That’s why these projects are so important to the city and the council. On Friday I was able to attend to see the progress at 71/72 Kingsway, the former Oceana nightclub site, into a high-quality office space for 600 workers. I will also shortly be visiting the 136-year-old Palace Theatre which is being brought back to life as a shared workspace, thanks to funding from the council and the Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns programme. The Albert Hall, which dates back to 1864, will include new offices, health and lifestyle services, rooftop garden, workspace, gym, food hall, performance area and stage, private dining rooms and a children’s play centre. My thanks to all our officers for their work in bringing the schemes towards completion. We’re also working with businesses in the city to refresh the way we promote Swansea to investors. We know we have a great offer but now it’s about making it easier for companies to seize those opportunities for investing and locating here.
Later this month we’re going to the UKREiif event in Leeds where investors and developers gather to look at new investment opportunities. It’s a chance for us to promote Swansea and hopefully attract further interest and jobs. All the major towns and cities will be there but it’s up to put Swansea on the map through a series of talks and presentations. DST, the company working with us on the tidal lagoon and related developments, will be at the event and we hope to have some positive news from them.
On the theme of internal reputation we’re just putting the final touches to our latest staff survey which we’ll be issuing as part of our staff engagement efforts in the next few weeks. Staff will be able to make individual responses in the usual way and managers will also be gathering feedback as part of a team survey during your regular team meetings. Getting feedback from teams is a new way of doing it but the idea came from our staff engagement group so hopefully it’ll prove popular with you. It’s another chance for us to get feedback to learn more about how you’re feeling and to see whether our engagement efforts to date are having a positive effect. It’s a few years since we’ve done a staff survey so I really hope you’ll take the opportunity to participate and please take the opportunity to input as I really am keen to understand if we’re making progress with our staff engagement.
It’s great to see one of our completed development sites has been recognised by a prestigious awards scheme. The project to create a Penderyn Distillery & Visitor Centre at Landore is shortlisted in this year’s Insider Wales Property Awards, as commercial development of the year.It’s also shortlisted for the RICS regional awards and the Constructing Excellence in Wales Awards 2024. Congrats to all involved!
Finally, some of you may be aware that our transport team undertake work for the Welsh Ambulance service transporting non-emergency patients to and from hospital. As part of a recent audit, it was great to see that service received an excellent rating which is a testament to all the team who work to deliver such an outstanding service which is fully funded by WAST. My thanks and congratulations to Cathy Williams and all of the team based in our Fforestfach transport depot.
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