Author: Rhys Gregory

Five talented chefs must wait until this evening (Thursday) night to discover which of them is the new National Chef of Wales. The two-day final ended today with three chefs involved in a cook-off in the heat of the kitchen at the Welsh International Culinary Championships (WICC), organised by the Culinary Association of Wales (CAW), at Grŵp Llandrillo Menai’s campus in Rhos-on-Sea. It was the turn of Matthew Smith, 38, sous chef at Chartists 1770 at The Trewythen Hotel, Llanidloes, Wayne Barnard, 39, sous chef at Manor Parc Country Hotel and Restaurant, Thornhill, Cardiff and Thomas Herbert, 24, from Bridgend, chef…

An application for outline planning permission to build 1,800 new homes at the Coed Darcy development near Neath has been submitted to Neath Port Talbot Council by St. Modwen Developments, the UK’s leading developer of new communities and high-quality homes. The new planning application registered this week (23 February 2022) covers around 316 acres (128 hectares) of the former thousand-acre BP oil refinery acquired by St. Modwen in 2008. It is the culmination of more than two years of detailed research, partnership work and community engagement, to arrive at an exciting new masterplan that will reinvigorate Coed Darcy, and meet…

The value of fraud cases heard in the Welsh courts in 2021 reached almost £7.9m, nearly double the value of £4.1m in 2020, according to KPMG UK’s latest Fraud Barometer. This substantial increase is largely attributable to a general rise in the value of cases heard in the region’s courts: in 2021 the three highest value cases had a combined value of £5.5m, whereas in 2020 the three highest value cases totalled £2.5m. There was also a 60 per cent increase in the number of alleged fraud cases heard in the region’s courts, from ten in 2020 to 16 in…

A biodiversity project will receive more green shoots to grow from for 2022. Denbighshire County Council’s local provenance tree nursery at Green Gates Farm, St Asaph, is seeing the first signs of a successful boost for the Wildflower Meadows Project. This project has also been funded by Welsh Government, through the Local Nature Partnerships Cymru ENRaW project and Local Places for Nature grant. The nursery aims to produce 5,000 native wildflower plants a year alongside 5,000 native trees And already the team at the site is seeing the fruits of their labour with the first native wildflower seeds germinating. Following…

A midwife who has helped mums give birth in the frozen Canadian Arctic and the parched heat of the Australian Outback is leading the way in looking after expectant women in Wales. Glasgow-born Sheila Brown worked in Canada’s Arctic Circle and in the stifling heat of Australia’s Red Centre before moving to North Wales and now trains the next generation of midwives for Bangor University. The University’s team have just retained their Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative accreditation for their midwifery programme, the only programme with this endorsement of excellence in Wales, which pays special attention to the importance of…

The health board’s Fabian Way drive-through Covid testing unit has made the short journey to a new home in Port Talbot. The unit carried out around 94,000 tests, since being set up last July, but has now relocated to Longlands Lane, in Margam, to allow the Fabian Way Park and Ride site to return to full use as Covid restrictions are eased. Simone Manning, Swansea Bay’s Operational Lead of Covid Testing, said: “We have taken somewhere in the region of 94,000 drive-through tests here at Fabian Way since last year. “We would like to say a very big thank you…

Specialist marketplace lender Assetz Capital has announced the appointment of Jason Way as Business Development Director as the firm targets ambitious growth plans in 2022. Jason’s appointment follows a series of recent senior hires as Assetz supercharges growth in the origination side of the business to meet growing demand. Based in South Wales, Jason joins from The Route Finance where he was Head of Client Relationships for the past year. In the role he focused on strategic partnerships and investment strategy for new and existing clients. This follows five years as Director at Capitalwest Ltd where he also facilitated strategic…

A quarter of the homes being built at a new housing development in Cardiff have now been completed, and more than half of the homes have been sold. Bellway is providing a total of 120 new-build homes at Rhiwlas at Plasdŵr, off Llantrisant Road bordering Radyr, where residents have moved into 34 properties. So far, 64 homes have been sold. Launched in August 2020, the project provides a variety of detached, semi-detached and terraced properties for private sale, ranging from two to four-bedroom designs, and also includes 18 homes allocated for those in need of affordable housing. The site presents…

The former Prestatyn library will be demolished and the site will be redeveloped to create new commercial space and apartments available for social rent. Denbighshire County Council cabinet members recently awarded the contract for the works, which are expected to begin in the next few weeks. The Denbighshire Housing development which has been named Llyn Llên to celebrate the site’s previous use as a library, will provide energy efficient apartments designed for older persons including those with limited mobility. Energy in the apartments will be generated by ground source heat pumps and solar panels on the roof to create improved…

A £20MILLION cheese factory development received international recognition ahead of its opening this Spring. Lauded as the cream of sustainability and innovation in the sector, Mona Dairy was visited by Australia’s High Commissioner George Brandis QC and Virginia Crosbie, MP for Ynys Mon. The 25,000 sq ft Anglesey facility will be the most modern anywhere in Europe, capable of producing 7,000 tons of Welsh and continental cheeses every year. Just weeks after the UK signed a historic trade deal with Australia – expected to unlock more than £10bn in contracts annually, and worth a reported £60m to the Welsh economy…