This week I went to the UK Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF) along with Joint Deputy Leader David Hopkins and our Regeneration and Development Manager, Lee Richards. It’s one of the biggest events of its kind anywhere in the UK. It gave us the opportunity to promote Swansea to influential investors and continue to build on our city centre regeneration and reputation. These are both among my appraisal themes and it was an unmissable chance to tell Swansea’s story. More than 16,000 delegates and investors were there – and by the end I felt like we’d spoken to many of them!
They were looking for sites in cities on the up where they can see growth and investment opportunities and there was real interest in Swansea, thanks to tangible successes like Swansea Arena, 71/72 Kingsway and Y Storfa. There was also strong interest from investors in housing development and how they might be able to take what we’re doing here even further. We were also able to present, along with partners, the regional investment and development opportunities across South West Wales and I’ll keep you posted on how things go.
Today I’ll be meeting one-to-one with Sally Loudon, chair of the Panel Performance Assessment (PPA) team visiting us in early June. For those who don’t know, the PPA will be doing an in-depth review of the way we operate. You can find out more about it here, but PPAs are a new way of assessing how councils are performing, and all Welsh councils are taking part. Our PPA aims to provide independent assurance about how we run things, our leadership and how we use our resources – money as well as staff. It also aims to provide fresh ideas on how we can continue to improve performance and effectiveness. The panel won’t only be talking to me and CMT as there are sessions planned with members, partner organisations and community representatives too. As managers or staff, some of you will also be joining focus groups run by the PPA team. It’s your opportunity to have your say. If you are part of a focus group, please do go through the scoping document and FAQs which you can download from this article. It’ll be worth your ti to be prepared as this is about you helping us to tell the story for Swansea and the way the Council delivers its services.
Our Education and IT teams are supporting schools with the rollout of a new digital management information system called Bromcom. The new system aims to cut administrative and financial burdens and more than 250 school staff got a first look at it at an introductory discovery day run by Mike Jones and Iranga Hartnoll recently. My thanks to them both.
Also thank you to Tim Kingham from our emergency planning team for organising a major gas pipeline emergency preparedness exercise at South Wales Fire HQ. Incidents like it are thankfully rare, but stress-testing our response capabilities are absolutely critical towards ensuring we keep residents safe should the worst happen. More than 20 different organisations were involved in the event, including officers from our emergency management, highways and pollution teams.
Well done to our team in economic regeneration for collecting yet more awards for the Hafod Morfa Copperworks project, featuring the new Penderyn Whisky distillery and visitor centre. This time they picked up the RSAW (RIBA) Welsh Architecture Award 2025 and the RSAW (RIBA) Conservation Award for 2025. The project has been a really great example of how we and our partners invest in the city’s heritage.
Congratulations to the Dylan Thomas Centre are in order this week for achieving Arts Centre of Sanctuary status, awarded by the City of Sanctuary organisation. The award is based on the centre’s engagement with the sanctuary-seeking community which has been going for around 20 years. Well done to Jo Furber and the team.
I’d like to flag-up a reminder for staff to donate to the Welsh Blood Service. As you know, it’s a cause that’s close to me, so if you can give blood, please do.
And finally, there will be no blog next week as I am on leave. I look forward to seeing you the week after.
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