Securing a tenant for Swansea's empty Debenhams store is among the priorities for Labour in the first 100 days after the council elections. The party returned to power in May, continuing a 10-year unbroken stretch.
Council leader Rob Stewart wants to get moving on the party's many manifesto commitments, but has warned that councils face pressures after a relatively positive two years - financially-wise - when central Government funnelled money into them to shore up services during the Covid pandemic.
"I think it's going to get more difficult over the next couple of years," he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. You can get more Swansea news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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But he said the council would carry on helping families who were struggling to get by, and that Swansea had plenty to look forward to. There are around 70 commitments to get things done or in progress during the 100 days after May 5, including:
Education
- Start work on new sports and leisure facilities at Cefn Hengoed Community School, Bonymaen
- Begin delivery of new special school facilities
Care
- Progress a new children's care facility
- Undertake a review of post-pandemic care provision
Communities
- Start a £10 million programme of road upgrades, nearly twice as much as had been planned
- Complete bus shelter installations
- Seek to expand public space protection orders, which give councils more powers to clamp down on anti-social behaviour
Housing
- Move onto next phase of council-house building
- Review council house lettings policy You can read more stories about Swansea here.
Regeneration
- Secure a major new tenant for the Debenhams unit in the Quadrant Shopping Centre
- Move forward with a partnership to develop seven sites in the city, focusing initially on the second phase of the Copr Bay development by Oystermouth Road, the redevelopment of the Civic Centre site, and new development at a riverside site in St Thomas
- Begin the phased demolition of the former Ty Dewi Sant accommodation and the old multi-storey car park, both part of the Copr Bay phase two site
- Move forward with work on Castle Square Gardens project, and new central library and archive project at the nearby former BHS building
- Hold more discussions about a new interactive aquarium at the Civic Centre site, and about a hotel by the new arena and another by the Swansea.com Stadium
- Start delivering promenade improvements and developments, and new lighting around the bay. Read more here about the Debenhams stores sat empty in the middle of Welsh cities
Transport and energy
- Announce progress on the Blue Eden energy and housing proposal at Swansea docks
- Continue free bus travel at times during the school summer holidays and consider further extensions
- Try to progress discussions about a potential ferry link between Swansea and South-West England
Well-being
- Complete upgrades of council play areas across the county
- Continue building all-weather sports pitches, and move forward with skate facility upgrade plans.
Other manifesto commitments include allocating litter wardens to every area on a per-councillor basis, meaning wardens would spend more time in wards with several councillors as opposed to one. Cllr Stewart also said many thousands of trees would be planted in the next five years and more electric vehicle charging points installed. "The cost of living crisis and climate change will be among the biggest challenges any of us will face over the coming years," he said.
While central Government funding for the council is forecast to rise slightly, Cllr Stewart said the money wouldn't go as far due to inflationary pressures on energy, the price of materials, and wages. And he added that there was no guarantee of higher central Government funding because Westminster and Cardiff Bay were battling inflation and cost of living pressures.
Cllr Stewart said a national settlement for local Government workers hadn't been reached yet. A teachers' pay rise would also affect council finances. But he said the council had posted financial surpluses during the last two financial years and was in "a relatively strong position" compared to other local authorities.
The Swansea Labour leader also hit out at the "madness" of the Brexit deal embarked on by the UK Government, arguing that it had reduced the supply of potential employees. "Brexit impacts were suppressed during lockdown," he said. "We have lost a huge amount of trained staff who are not able to work in the UK. We are now starting to see the damage to the economy."
He said staff recruitment and retention was a significant issue, although this was partly explained by some employees deciding not to return to work after the pandemic. "It is a real, real challenge," he said. It was harder, he said, to recruit admin staff as well as the likes of carers and quantity surveyors.
Cllr Stewart said the personnel shortage was in turn helping to drive up wage inflation. "We don't want to get into a bidding war with other public sector organisations," he said.
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