New Library

As the Evening Post reports tonight work on providing a new Central Library for Swansea is well underway. So much so that the task of moving the books is due to start within weeks.

The failure to address the provision of a modern central library is yet another legacy left to us by Labour. The Administration has responded by opening up Labour's County Hall citadel to the public and creating a real civic centre.

The investment that the current Administration has put into libraries is being noticed outside the City as well as in local communities. As Peter Gaw comments on the Evening Post site:

Last May a new library opened in Killay and Clydach library had a major refurbishment in July. St Thomas library will be replaced with a purpose built public library within the new St Thomas Community School. The new library is due to open at the end of April. All these projects have seen an increased level of use both in terms of book, film and music borrowing and use of internet services.

There has also been a major refurbishment of Oystermouth Library and improvements have also taken place elsewhere.

Partnership

We have already reported here how some Labour politicians have been seeking to associate themselves with initiatives on crime in Blaenymaes and Portmead, despite running down the community elsewhere.

Now it transpires that news of the successful partnership that has led to a 20% cut in crime across the City has spread as far as Number 10 Downing Street. The Council has had an important part to play in that turn-around as is evident from the comments of the interim head of community regeneration.

If the Prime Minister can learn that proper cross agency working is more effective than demonising young people and overfilling prisons then the visit of Jeremy Marlow will have been worthwhile.

Shameful Act

For once the Evening Post editorial has summed up the situation regarding Ioan Richard's bid to be next year's Lord Mayor perfectly.

For all their squawking about who is and who is not to blame, the fact is that a large number of opposition Councillors banded together last Thursday to deny Ioan Richard the position of Lord Mayor for purely spiteful and personal reasons. In doing so they denied a long-standing and hard-working local Councillor his reward for decades of hard work on behalf of the people who elected him.

The Evening Post correctly points out that the vote was contrary to the protocol adopted by the Council. They say the attempt by one Labour councillor to blame the coalition for failing to drum up enough support for Councillor Richard is a contemptible and pathetic smokescreen - 'shame on him, and the others involved in this spiteful episode.'

Rather predictably this article has caused Tory Leader, Rene Kinzett, to unleash yet another flame-mail. His diatribe is full of the self-serving arguments that the Post condemns. As usual he tries to put the blame onto others rather than accept responsibility for his own actions. The editor must be shaking in his shoes at the threat to involve the office of Nick Bourne and Tory Central Office.

Investing in the future

Whilst the PLC coalition play games in Council the Administration are getting on with the job of running Swansea and putting right Labour's neglect.

This investment in a new Morriston Comprehensive School's new £3 million science and maths block is one of a number of projects where we are seeking to improve schools across Swansea.

Guest Contributor

Todays guest contributor is the editor of the South Wales Evening Post. Writing in last night's paper, he said:

The council leader stood in front of a room full of property developers. Behind him, alluring images of his city, as imagined by artists, shone out. "This is our time," he said. "This is Swansea's time. This is the developers' time."As bids to flog off chunks of public real estate to private developers go, this was a pretty brazen effort. And no apologies should be made for it.

We all know that Swansea has been ridiculed in the past as the city of artists' impressions. The suggestion has been made - too often to be dismissed as coincidence - that developers' visions have foundered on the rocks of planners' intransigence and councillors' parochialism.

So, what is different about the Swansea Strategic Plan launched by Chris Holley at the Dragon Hotel this week? Quite a few things. Take the venue, for a start.

Once, The Dragon was at the heart of the city. That profile has been restored. Outside, The Kingsway is being transformed for a new transport system. Some people dismiss this as a waste of time and money. I think it is essential to turn Swansea into a proper city.

Walk down Princess Way and you pass Thurleigh Estates' redevelopment of David Evans, and the Longford Group's Excelsior hotel and apartments building.

On the shoreline side of Oystermouth Road - to be turned into a "European-style boulevard" in the strategic plan - Earthquake are building Meridian Quay on the marina, Persimmon Homes are at Swansea Point, and a number of companies are working on different projects in SA1.

My point is the developers are already here and delivering results. So, while I understand why Swansea Tourism boss Geoff Haden was yesterday calling for "the biggest incentives possible" to lure developers, I believe there is already a momentum behind the city's regeneration to justify Councillor Holley's optimism about this being Swansea's time.

So perhaps we can dispense with the usual cynicism over this week's launch, which identified some of the city's current weaknesses, and offered them up as golden development opportunities.

The strategic plan for the city centre is part of a jigsaw that includes other strategies for the bay and the river corridor. Together, they show how Swansea could finally begin to exploit its glorious setting. We have a chance here to unite bay and city in a way that Cardiff, for example, cannot match.

Stuffed of Swansea

If the Labour lot over at Inside Out think that the Administration 'got stuffed in two successive debates over school sprinkler systems and housing stock transfer' then perhaps they need to stop and think what exactly they are achieving on the Council.

Our recollection was that so incompetent were the drafters of the two motions that they were forced to run with heavily emascualated versions after the intervention of the Council's legal eagles.

Despite the fact that the Adminstration's amendment to the Housing Stock Transfer motion failed to pass, the fact is that what was eventually voted on was a meaningless and inaccurate mish-mash that will not stop the ballot. In fact the only person it is likely to embarrass is the Labour Minister for Social Justice, who just happens to represent Gower and is clearly out of step with her local party. Even her cousin voted against her.

PLC Coalition politicise mayoralty

There were disgraceful scenes in the Council chamber this evening as Labour Councillors joined with Plaid Cymru and some Tories to scupper the chances of Ioan Richard becoming Lord Mayor.

Members of the PLC Coalition ignored a protocol they had all voted for only weeks before to settle a personal score against the Mawr Councillor.

Attempts to occupy the moral high ground were effectively abandoned when Tory Leader, Rene Kinzett, stood up and admitted that he and the other opposition parties had tried to do a deal behind closed doors.

As Councillor Peter Black pointed out, he was effectively seeking to bring party politics into the mayoralty. Was this really what it was all about - trying to secure better sinecures in return for supporting a particular candidate? No wonder the Administration refused to go along with such a grubby deal.

Update: I have been forwarded a lengthy. self-justifying e-mail from Councillor Kinzett to all Councillors in which surely he protests too much about this post. What he fails to mention is that he demanded of the Council Leader that in return for the support of his group for Ioan Richard, he wanted the Administration to back Lady Pennard as the Deputy.

This was unanimously rejected by the Adminstration Group, including the Leader. Despite claims by Kinzett that Chris Holley cannot command the support of his group, the evidence demonstrates the contrary view to be correct. Keep digging Rene.