Anyone who has been to Mumbles recently will have seen the incredible transformation of the prom. On Wednesday, I joined the Leader, the Welsh Government’s Deputy First Minister Huw Irranca-Davies and a host of others for the official opening of the new sea wall and the modernised prom that goes with it. If you’ve not been there yet, take the opportunity this summer to go and take a look – it’ll be very much worth your while. The prom is wider, fantastic to look at and with a full range of new features including a play area, new artworks, benches, litter bins and lights. We’ve added 40 new trees and more than 8,000 new plants in improved landscaping as well.
Of course, the main point of the upgrade is to protect Mumbles from rising sea levels for the next century. But, thanks to the imagination and effort of our teams, our contractors Knights Brown Construction and many others, the sea wall has achieved much more. It has been completed pretty much to universal acclaim from the public, who’ve taken to social media to praise us for the achievement. Coming after Swansea Arena and 71/72 Kingsway a couple of weeks ago, the Mumbles sea wall project is a great boost to our reputation for delivering major projects that our residents want to see. Congratulations to all our teams that were involved in getting this project over the line so successfully, as I know it’s been a really difficult one to deliver.
Next up, of course, is Castle Square Gardens where work on its transformation is getting underway. Our contractors on the project are Knights Brown Construction, the same contractors who delivered the Mumbles project. Hoardings have been going up around the square to protect the public from the works and we’re anticipating it’ll take until towards the end of 2026 to see it through to completion. It promises to be yet another great landmark for our city. If you want to know more, there’s some useful FAQs here. My thanks to our teams in regeneration for getting us to this point.
Yesterday Cabinet agreed three reports that highlight our continuing commitment worth hundreds of millions of pounds to improving our schools with state-of-the-art facilities. The reports reinforce our commitment to building a brand-new school for Bishop Vaughan alongside huge improvements at Gowerton Comprehensive. In addition to this Cabinet also approved plans to spend almost £1.5m in the coming year on improving specialist teaching facilities at our schools to support children with additional learning needs. My thanks to Louise Herbert-Evans, Kate Phillips and our teams in Education for their work on these important projects.
Taken together with the sea wall and Castle Square gardens, this work is further demonstration of how we are here for the people of Swansea, delivering on their priorities in many different ways. This week’s diary also included a number of meetings which help demonstrate this. Firstly, on Monday we had a meeting with Welsh Government about enhancing links with China to build relationships and knowledge transfer across a range of business sectors and our universities. Secondly, we had the opportunity to meet a local digital entrepreneur who has grown a significant business in Swansea and wants to work with the Council on moving to the next stage and doubling the number of employees to 50. Thirdly the opportunity to meet one of our national banks about exploring opportunities to work with Swansea on the next stage of our regeneration programme.
This week we’ve also been shortlisted in this year’s APSE awards in two different categories – best collaborative working initiative for our work in delivering Cwtch Mawr with Faith in Families and best health and wellbeing initiative for our Ageing Well Engagement Programme. Both these projects are supported through our Tackling Poverty and Enabling Communities teams, which are helping change lives for the better every day. Congratulations to Jane Whitmore and her teams for this much-deserved recognition.
Also, this week, six of our parks were once again awarded Green Flag status by Keep Wales Tidy. People have become so used to high standards at our parks over the years that they are almost taken for granted. But they are wonderful green gems in the heart of our communities and green flag status has to be earned, so well done to Jeremy Davies, Simon Lydiard and the parks and cleansing for this success.
All of the above are great examples of the role of the council in our community and how reputation and delivery is at the forefront in everything we do – helping us to stand out from the crowd. So thank you to all of you for your focus on people, working together and innovation for helping secure the transformation our residents see and appreciate.
Today we say farewell to Julian Morgans, Head of Revenues and Benefits after almost 41 years’ service. I want to pass on my personal thanks to Julian for all of his support and his colleagues within the service, council and in local government across Wales wish him well in his new chapter outside of revs and bens. And I add my best wishes to theirs.
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