We’re looking to improve the ways we engage and provide contact with our customers. It’s right we want to provide the most appropriate methods of contact for our customers but also in ways that support our staff. As such our new customer contact operating model is being developed in ways that’ll promote efficient and effective digital services while ensuring customers can still contact us by phone or face-to-face where necessary – which for some other organisations appears to have gone out of fashion! CMT went through the draft model this week and we’ll be discussing with our cabinet and Leadership Team and then engaging with staff and then the public to ensure we get the right fit across the council.
We met with senior executives from Amazon this week to discuss their operations in Swansea and to encourage them to invest further in the city. They already have a big presence in the Swansea area including SA1 with Veeqo, a technology firm that’s part of the Amazon family. We shared the wider Swansea vision and ongoing regeneration programme and also discussed any potential opportunities for them to further increase their presence in Swansea. It was a very positive meeting with a global company and I’m hopeful we can continue to develop these working relationships in the future. The feedback we had was very encouraging and they stated they hadn’t seen a council with such a clear and comprehensive regeneration vision. I’ve spoken many times about our reputation as a council and a city, so I’m delighted with this feedback, and it can only help to further promote our reputation and encourage more investment in Swansea. My continued thanks to everyone involved.
Sticking with regeneration we’re making good progress on one of our strategic development sites at St Thomas. Our partner Urban Splash has been working with house builder Lovell Homes to bring forward plans for more than 200 new homes, including a significant number of affordable homes. Their vision is very much aligned with the Council’s priorities in terms of the local economic benefits through our Beyond Bricks and Mortar initiative, sustainable home-building, supporting veterans and bringing wider social benefits. My thanks to officers who’ve been working to make this happen.
I’m grateful to officers who’ve been working on Swansea Airport for many months, and probably years, to improve the way the facility operates and meets the needs of users. It’s been a long-running and complex issue, but we’ve now reached the point where an interim lease has been provided to a group of users who have set up an alliance. Hopefully this will give everyone an opportunity to agree new arrangements to run the airport. Thanks to Geoff Bacon and his team, especially Alex O’Brien, for all their efforts on this.
Well done to staff at Pen-y-bryn school who came to the aid of a taxi driver who suffered a cardiac arrest. The driver was due to pick-up pupils at the end of the school day. Two members of staff rushed to provide CPR and were supported by an off-duty fireman. The CPR continued for a long period of time and for a period the taxi driver was not responding. Ambulances and the police arrived, and I’m pleased to say the taxi driver was conscious when he was taken by ambulance to hospital.
Good luck to Huw Evans in Democratic Services who’ll be cycling 700 miles in eight days. Huw and his friends will make the journey from Gothenburg to Amsterdam, through Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Netherlands. The aim is to raise money for Blood Cancer UK, a charity dedicated to fund research and provide support to improve blood cancer patients’ lives. You can support Huw either by donating directly with him or via the Cader Man Just Giving page https://www.justgiving.com/page/caderman2024. This charity is very close to my heart and you can get further information here www.bloodcancer.org.uk Congratulations to Alan Webster, our tree officer, who’s been selected to play cricket for Wales in the Over-50s World Cup in Sri Lanka. Alan plays for Neyland Cricket Club and so far he’s made six international appearances. He’ll play in group stage matches against Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan, South Africa and West Indies.
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