As most of you will know, our Pre-Election Period (PEP) started on Wednesday evening, ahead of the Senedd elections on May 7. While it does not mean our activities or your day-to-day frontline work stops, PEP does place constraints on some of what we do. The purpose of the PEP period is to ensure that, as a council, we don’t take actions which may influence the political environment during an election campaign, while also supporting our approach to business as usual. Our legal team issued staff advice in January that still applies now and you can find it here. Please seek advice if you are in any doubt. In the meantime, Huw Evans, Alison O’Hara and the elections team are working towards ensuring polling day goes as smoothly as it always does. Find out more here.
On Wednesday Cabinet agreed the next phase of improvements to turn St Helen’s into a community sports and training venue, in collaboration with the Ospreys. An independent analysis shows that professional rugby is worth £15m a year to the Swansea economy and it’s just one of the reasons why we want to see the Ospreys continue as a fully professional local club, competing at the highest level. Upgrades at St Helen’s are due to start next month. But, regardless of what the future may bring for the Ospreys, our communities will have a brilliant facility accessible to all that everyone can be proud of.
Yesterday I was part of a UK Government officials’ delegation taking a tour of Dyfatty and High Street areas to help develop their understanding of the area ahead of the start of the Pride in Place programme. It was also great to visit Matthew’s House – a great facility for the community and an excellent example of how the community can support some our most vulnerable residents. Pride in Place is a £20m UK government-funded scheme that aims to help revitalise the area and our visitors saw for themselves the challenges but also the great opportunities that the programme will be able to help address and support. The programme is managed by Paul Relf and his team in regeneration, but it’s going to be led by the local community, supported by an independent chair whose post is being advertised in the coming weeks. It will work alongside our PSB-led Clear. Hold Build. project which was launched last week. My thanks to the many teams involved in these two projects which are hoping to be the catalyst for positive and lasting change for these communities. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going.
The Welsh Government has now approved the full business case for significant improvements at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe. The £32m project exemplifies how the Education team is addressing our shared corporate aim of improving education and skills in Swansea. Re-modelled facilities will mean more Welsh-medium school places, modernised learning spaces and brand-new inclusion provision. This project also brings back happy memories for me as one of the first major projects I worked on as Head of Building Services back in 2003 was the creation of the new Bryn Tawe school on the site of the former Penlan school. It shows the continuing commitment of our teams towards our Welsh Education Strategic Plan and ensuring our city’s young people and our get the best-possible learning environments.
This week CMT had an update on corporate performance on our Net Zero 2030 ambition. We saw how our initiatives to reduce energy consumption in non-domestic buildings, with streetlighting and business mileage are all making progress. However, there’s still lots to do and we need your support. You can help by doing straightforward things more consistently such as switching off lights and computers at work before going home and making sure you recycle materials correctly. We are also reviewing our green fleet strategy to try and minimise vehicle emissions. If you want to go a bit further, join our climate champions; you can find out what they’re up to here. I’ll keep you updated on how things are going.
Today it was great to visit our teams at our baling plant in Llansamlet to thank them for their efforts. The team manage the waste sorted after collection and also run the household recycling centres across the city. We were also to discuss some of the challenges and opportunities facing the teams there including depot improvements and working conditions. I am always happy to come to you to discuss your services so feel free to drop me a note.
Well done to the housing team on the launch of their new tenants’ handbook at the Brangwyn Hall. The handbook called Building Great Communities aims to strengthen wellbeing and encourage social connections was well-received. My thanks to all involved in its production.
Congratulations to Richard Jones (right) and Rob Malt (left) from our parks and cleansing team on their long service recognition certificates. Richard has clocked up 30 years with us, most recently as a key member of the fly-tipping team. Rob has been with us for 40 years and is groundsman at St Helen’s, alongside his role as a gardener in Victoria Park. Cabinet Member for Community Services, Cllr Cyril Anderson, presented them with their awards.
It’s farewell to Jeremy Parkhouse from our Democratic Services team after 33 years at the council. Jeremy is a well-known figure among councillors, statutory co-opted Members and senior officers, as a patient and professional guide to de-mystifying the machinery of democratic services and much else besides. We all wish you well in in retirement, Jeremy. It’s also goodbye and thank you to Paul Calvert from contact centre tea. Paul has worked in many roles, including Revs and Bens and Customer Services, and was a leading figure in the establishment of the Contact Centre in the Civic Centre, providing service excellence to residents on behalf of many services.
And finally I will be taking a few days leave in the next couple of weeks so the next blog will be in two weeks’ time. I hope you all manage to take some time off to relax over the Easter period and will catch up with all developments on my return.
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