Archives for October 2025

Thousands more people will soon be working in Swansea city centre – a major step forward for the city’s regeneration and a clear sign of growing business confidence in Swansea.

This increase in footfall is vital. It will help support existing traders, create new opportunities for shops, cafés and services, and attract further investment in the months and years ahead.

We know our residents want a vibrant city centre with more places to shop, work, and spend time, but – like many other cities across the UK – Swansea faces the ongoing challenge of changing retail habits and the rise of online shopping, which means the traditional city centre model needs to evolve.

That’s why these latest developments are so important.

Office space at our 71/72 Kingsway development is already 80% let, and positive talks are ongoing about the remaining space at the scheme. Travel and leisure company TUI recently celebrated their official opening there, joining financial firm Futures First and flexible workspace provider IWG, who have also signed-up. More tenants will be announced soon – another sign of confidence in the city’s direction.

Later this year, we’ll also see the opening of Y Storfa – our new community services hub at the former BHS building on Oxford Street. This major project will bring together a range of council and partner services under one roof, including a new Central Library, the West Glamorgan Archive Service, Housing Options, Housing Support, the Contact Centre, and Revenues and Benefits.

These developments matter. When businesses consider where to invest, numbers count – from city centre footfall to office occupancy. That’s why the regeneration schemes delivered by the council, our partners, and the private sector are so crucial to Swansea’s future.

It’s also been a productive week or so for regional collaboration. The Welsh Government has now approved a regional transport plan for South West Wales, and new local energy plans have been announced for each local authority in the region. These will play a key role in supporting our journey towards net zero.

With Christmas fast approaching, plans are already in motion for another fantastic festive season. I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the officers involved in last year’s Christmas Parade. Thanks to their hard work, the council has been shortlisted for the Event of the Year Award in the local authority category at the National Outdoor Events Association (NOEA) Awards 2025. Good luck to all involved!

Our annual fireworks display is also taking place at St Helen’s on Wednesday (November 5), helping to further reinforce the importance of events to Swansea’s success.

Congratulations to Maggie Bassett from Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Bryn y Môr, who was one of five UK finalists in the National Awards for Pastoral Care in Education, shortlisted in the Pastoral Member of Staff of the Year category.

A special mention also to Viv Rees from our legal team, who will retire on November 14 after 40 years of service. Viv’s dedication and professionalism have made a lasting impact, and she will be greatly missed by her colleagues. I wish her a long and happy retirement.

The council has evolved enormously since Viv joined in 1985, but one thing has never changed – the vital contribution of our staff. Your ideas, feedback, and daily commitment are what keep improving our services and make Swansea a great place to live and work. This is why I’d like to remind all staff to take part in this year’s staff survey so that your views can help shape the next phase of improvements across the council.

The expectation is that all staff will have the opportunity to participate in the staff survey – either online through this link or as part of a team session with their managers, who are all obliged to hold a team brief to discuss the staff survey.

If you are a manager, then please ensure this takes place and – for employees who haven’t heard anything – please speak to your manager so that it’s diarised. The deadline for staff survey completion is mid-November, so I look forward to receiving your feedback shortly.

Finally, it was with great sadness that we recently learned of the passing of David Daycock, a former head of legal here at the council. Dave was a trusted colleague and a good friend to many. My deepest condolences go to his family and friends.

The first phase of our work on the budget proposals for the next financial year were completed this week, following a meeting of CMT and Cabinet. The UK financial outlook is challenging and there’s the usual uncertainty due to the Chancellor’s budget coming soon and its impact on Welsh Government and local authority funding. In Swansea we’ve completed the review of directorate budgets, with further work on capital budgets and the Housing Revenue Account to come in November. Our overall assessment is that we’re in a fairly positive position to manage the financial challenges we’ll be facing in the coming months. Council will set the budget in March and between now and then you’ll have a formal chance to have your say on the proposals. I will keep you posted in the meantime.

A key part of our work to stay on course budget-wise is our transformation strategy, Successful and Sustainable Swansea. The strategy sets out how we’re changing the services you deliver every day so that they are modern, meet the expectations of residents and deliver the financial savings we need to keep the budget on track. Find out more about progress here. It’s supported by a transformation board of officers and Cabinet members which meets quarterly to monitor progress. The latest meeting was yesterday. I’m pleased to say that, thanks to your efforts, good progress is being made, and the plan is broadly where it needs to be. Challenges are being addressed around homelessness and social services due mainly to rising demand for services that all councils face. There’s also good evidence to show our work on other strands including digital transformation, regeneration, schools waste services and More Homes are delivering results for staff and residents. My thanks to all of you for helping make the difference in our communities every day.

Congratulations to our Community Engagement Team, CMET and all other council staff who helped support this summer’s Chill City youth engagement project in the city centre. They staged almost 100 events and activities that helped contribute to a reduction in anti-social behaviour in the city centre during the school summer holidays for the second year running. You can read more about that here. Working with police and more than 60 other partners it saw the initiative shortlisted for the Best Problem Solving in Partnership Award at this week’s South Wales Police Awards held at the Brangwyn Hall. Although we did not win, to be nominated as a Top Three finalist was a great achievement. Well done to all involvement.

My thanks to all the teams who helped deliver this summer’s IRONMAN 70.3 event. Our latest economic impact assessment revealed this week shows it contributed more than £4.3m to the local economy, boosting jobs, tourism and hospitality businesses. It’s a significant increase on last year and adds further endorsement of its growing popularity in Swansea and far beyond that enhances our reputation for delivering great events.

As our Central Library staff continue their work on the big move to Y Storfa, they’ve been praised by the people they serve. One message from a member of the public read: “In your Civic Centre base you gave us book recommendations, a kind smile – and so much more. We look forward to the new library opening!”  Y Storfa, complete with the new library and a range of other public services, is due to open before Christmas and my thanks to all the teams who are working to ensure this complex operation goes well.

Well done to our cleansing teams who are currently on their annual rounds clearing tonnes of autumn leaves from our roads and paths to keep traffic on the move and drains as free from blockages as possible.

And, finally, if you’re in the city centre tomorrow it’ll be almost impossible to miss Spooks in the City events and Swansea Market’s ‘Terror at the Market Garden’. My thanks to all the teams involved in ensuring they’ll be a spectacular success.

Some of you may remember we hosted a Panel Performance Assessment (PPA) visit by independent experts in the summer. All councils in Wales have these peer reviews every five years. The panel’s job is to look closely at a range of things including our governance, resources and performance, highlighting what we do well and point out areas needing attention. I’m pleased to say the panel was very impressed. They didn’t just interview staff, and councillors, they spoke to businesses, residents, stakeholders and partner organisations to get a full picture. Their conclusion was that your ‘Team Swansea’ approach to delivering quality services for local residents is making a real difference. The PPA team are experts in local government and public service, so they know good performance when they see it. Their report is a real endorsement of your hard work and commitment. Thank you for your dedication, professionalism and the way you support each other and our residents every day. The panel also highlighted areas where we can improve, and we’ll be responding with an action plan to make sure our successful and sustainable approach to transformation stays on track. The report and our response is being presented to governance and audit committee next week and you can view the agenda item here.

At Cabinet this week, members saw a report (agenda item 12) about how we look after our partnerships with other public bodies and regional collaborations like the Public Service Board, education consortium, our regional health and social care and the South West Wales city Deal and Corporate Joint Committee. It might seem a bit dry, but it’s important for our reputation because we lead on many of these partnerships and their actions have an impact across our services, supporting regeneration and jobs, education, tackling poverty, improving infrastructure, and climate action. For staff, working with strategic partners means economies of scale and more joined-up working across the region, helping us make a real difference in people’s lives. My thanks to all officers who contributed to this review and continue to drive partnership working forward.

Cabinet also agreed that Swansea will be the lead partner in the new DWP Connect to Work programme for South West Wales (agenda item 14), supporting people with disabilities, health conditions and complex barriers into sustainable employment. We already have a strong reputation in this area, and this latest move will only strengthen that. Under the programme, residents will get tailored help to find and keep jobs, boosting confidence, skills and wellbeing, and helping tackle poverty and economic inactivity. Thank you to everyone involved in creating this important programme – your work will have a lasting impact in our communities.

The next major step of the big move to Y Storfa starts on Monday with the closure of Central Library at Civic Centre. Coming soon will be the transfer of Housing Options from its home on High Street to Y Storfa. More, including the West Glamorgan Archive Service and the Contact Centre, will follow. My thanks to the Facilities team leading the way, as well as library, archive, housing staff and others for their involvement. It’s a great opportunity to join up more services in a single place whilst also boosting our footfall in the city centre aiding its ongoing regeneration.

It’s Fly-Tipping Awareness Week and our teams have been out with Keep Wales Tidy around the city, speaking to residents about simple steps we can all take to clean up our communities. My thanks to all those involved in the door-knocking in our communities this week.

Today we’ll see the launch of the Poppy Appeal at Swansea Market. As always, our teams will be supporting veterans and the Royal British Legion in the fundraising effort and civic events. If you can contribute, please do.

This week the LC has been hosting the World Championships of the International Combat Organisation (ICO). More than 900 people from all over the world have been here for the martial arts event organised by a Swansea group with quite a bit of support from our tourism and special events teams, among others. I attended the opening ceremony, and it was pretty impressive. My thanks to our teams who helped make it happen and good luck to the Wales team and all those from Swansea participating.

Congratulations to Claire Williams from our Parks and Cleansing team who’s just clocked up 30 years’ service. And farewell to Alison Morgan who’s retiring after 42 years with the council, 25 of them with Tre Uchaf Primary School and their nursery class. My thanks to Claire and Alison for their service.

Finally, Swansea will be on BBC TV this weekend with an edition of Antiques Roadshow from the National Waterfront Museum. The show wouldn’t have been possible without help from our staff behind and in front of the camera. Catch it if you can at 8pm on Sunday.

This week our work started on our budget plans for the budget for 2025/26 with a meeting between CMT and Cabinet. The budget proposals are at a very early stage but there were initial discussions on the challenges and opportunities in social services and education – the places where, necessarily,  the majority of our budget goes. More discussions about them and other departments will follow in the coming weeks and we’ll be picking up thoughts from heads of service as well. If you have views and ideas, please share them with your manager initially. Council takes the final decision next March and both staff and public will be consulted before any final decisions are made. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted.

On a related subject, along with senior colleagues, I caught up this week with Audit Wales for one of our regular discussions about their overview of our governance arrangements including financial management and performance. They make an important contribution towards providing reassurance that our arrangements are appropriate and transparent, identifying areas for improvement. Audit Wales provide a valued external challenge to how we operate but it’s also our opportunity to demonstrate good practice to an influential external regulator, and I’m pleased to say we agreed a constructive way forward.

This week, along with the deputy leader Cllr Andrea Williams and senior officers, I also met colleagues on the Registered Social Landlords group including Pobl and Beacon, formerly Coastal Housing. It’s a quarterly meeting to discuss areas of common interest around housing supply, homelessness and how we manage our stock. We’re the biggest social landlord in the city and our housing teams are making a difference to people’s lives every day. These regular meetings ensure all of us play our part to support our tenants at a time when there is intense pressure on the housing market.

On Monday, the Leader and senior officers met with business representatives, public bodies and others in what’s called the Development Advisory Group. It might appear a bit dry and high level, but its members include some of the major private sector players with influence, interest and financial muscle to support the ongoing regeneration of our city. Sharing ideas, insights and working together has helped attract hundreds of millions of pounds of private and public sector investment as well as build our reputation locally and further afield as a place for business and investment.

Staying with reputation and regeneration, I want to congratulate everyone involved in the recent Placemaking Wales Charter fifth anniversary event at 71/72 Kingsway, which showcased our leadership in creating places that put people and communities first. Delegates were given a walking tour of the city centre to show off some of what’s been achieved. Hosting this milestone event was recognition of the council’s commitment to partnership, innovation, and a shared vision for our city’s future. My thanks to our placemaking and heritage team including Steve Smith, Krystyna Williams and Toby O’Connor. 

I’m always pleased to hear of occasions when our staff go above and beyond the norm to support our residents. This week I want to thank rents officer Lisa Cox for her quick and compassionate thinking while speaking to a diabetic tenant in distress. Thanks to her prompt actions an ambulance and a friend were able to get to his home with the support he needed in good time. And while I’m about it, tune in to BBC1’s DIY SOS show at 8pm tonight where you’ll see the heartwarming story of local man Dan Richards and the role we and others played in supporting him following a freak surfing accident. Our teams helped make the show possible and my thanks again to them for that.

There are farewells this week for two members of staff, Ray Foulston from Trading Standards and Barrie Gilbert from the transport team, after a collective 65 years’ commitment to serving our residents. Thank you both for your service and we all wish you well in retirement. Also, congratulations to Louise Gough, project support officer in the development and physical regeneration team, for clocking up 40 years’ service with the council. Thank you for your continued dedication, Louise.

Don’t forget it’s the Swansea Arts Weekend tomorrow and Sunday. Led by our cultural services team, the entire event is free of charge, so why not check it out here and choose the things you want to see. My thanks to the cultural services team, special events, highways, and other council staff for their commitment to making it a success.

And finally, a reminder to join the conversation about the council in our 2025 staff survey. It’ll only take a few minutes so click on the link now. Thank you.

The 2025 staff survey is launched this week. You can find the link here. You can do it either individually or as part of your team at a team meeting. If you want to do it as a team, please have a chat with your manager. This is an important task as it allows us to understand if your communications across the council is improving and you are finding out what you need to know. As such, both I and Corporate Management Team feel strongly that as we’re asking you to take a few minutes out of your day to do the survey, it’s important we show you we take action on what you say and that’s our commitment this year as it was last year. You can find out more about some of the things we did after your feedback on the 2024 staff survey here. If you want to know more detail about what happened in your area, please speak to your manager or head of service.

Our directors and  heads of service  met this week to discuss a range of issues. Rachael Davies, our head of HR and OD, presented a report about the next round of Oracle upgrades featuring even more self-service accessibility for you and your managers. We also got an update about progress and impact so far of our commitment to tackling climate change. And as the start of the 2026/27 budget process gets on the starting blocks, our director of finance Ben Smith gave us an update on where we are and what the timeline’s going to be. It starts shortly with Cabinet, CMT and heads of service discussions. Early in the New Year you’ll have your formal opportunity to have your say ahead of a final report to Council. If you’ve got any thoughts or ideas in the meantime , please raise them with your manager.

On Tuesday I joined up with the Western Bay Area Planning Board to look at a new report by the Drugs Commission about the problem of previous increased  drugs in South West Wales. The board includes colleagues from Neath Port Talbot, health services, the voluntary sector and South Wales Police. As a board, we commissioned the report ourselves and it makes for sobering and challenging reading. Tuesday’s event was set up to look at how we can deliver meaningful changes to substance abuse services which have an impact on the ground. As a council we need to play our part, and I’ll keep you posted on the action the Council will be taking on the coming weeks and months.

This week I’m pleased to say Welsh Government Minister for North Wales and Transport Ken Skates has signed off our Regional Transport Plan. The work was led by Stuart Davies and our transport team. It’s a vital document setting out plans for improving public transport services across our region from St David’s in the west to Neath in the east. Welsh Government endorsement matters because it means millions of pounds of grants will follow to help deliver on the ambition it has agreed to. My thanks to all for getting it over the line as getting a consensus across a range of partners is not always easy.

Last week I mentioned the countdown has started on the move of library and other frontline services to their new city centre home at Y Storfa. Have a look at the fly-through to see what our staff and customers can expect. It is pretty impressive and I’m grateful to all those involved in making this flagship project a success.

Staying in the city centre a little longer, there’s been significant progress at 71/72 Kingsway which is now filling up with our keynote tenants TUi and others. Find out more here. Its important we all continue to stress the message that our strategy to improve the city centre is to have more people working and living there allowing city centre retailers  to feel the benefit of higher footfall on the back of both these important schemes and I’d like to thank the regeneration team for their continuing commitment to the cause.

Finally, its Swansea Arts Weekend on October 11 and 12, organised by our cultural services team. It says something about their work, our reputation and Swansea’s cultural pulling power that names like Michael Sheen and Russell T Davies are appearing. My thanks to the teams who are making this happen.