Author: Rhys Gregory

Merthyr County Borough Council has announced ambitious long-term plans to help Merthyr Tydfil ‘buck the national trend of high street decline’ and transform into a thriving town centre. A team of urban designers, commercial property experts and engineering specialists providing transport advice have drawn up a 15-year Town Centre Masterplan. The ‘placemaking’ plan envisages that by 2035, the centre will have high quality residential, office, leisure and retail, new plazas, green spaces and ‘an active riverside’.  It says the aim is to create a centre ‘with inviting streets, squares and routes, where people feel safe, welcomed and uplifted’. The document…

RCT Council has confirmed that the A4233 Maerdy Mountain Road will be subject to daytime road closures on Mondays to Fridays throughout the school summer holiday, enabling necessary work to rectify storm damage. The mountain route, between Monk Street in Aberdare and Station Road in Maerdy, was damaged by Storm Dennis. The Council carried out works under a road closure during the ‘firebreak’ lockdown at the end of October 2020, to carry out significant drainage work as a result of a landslip – scheduled when ‘stay at home’ restrictions were in place in order to minimise disruption. This summer, further…

A series of works near A4061 Station Road and Treorchy Library will begin shortly – in order to widen the footway on the main road, remove the disused toilet block and future-proof several existing highways structures. Advanced work has been undertaken at this location over the past few weeks, in preparation for the Council’s contractor Walters Ltd to start the main element of the work from Wednesday, July 14. Demolition work will incorporate the disused toilet block opposite Treorchy Library, the river retaining wall which supports the grass verge, and the sub-standard cantilever which supports the footway on the main…

The Welsh Government has published its new five-year Work Programme for Cymraeg 2050, the national strategy to reach 1 million Welsh speakers by 2050. The Work Programme, the second since the launch of Cymraeg 2050 in 2017, sets out the policies Welsh Government will implement over the next five years towards reaching the 2050 targets. In addition to reaching a million speakers, there is also a goal to double the daily use of Welsh by 2050. One of the interim milestones is for 30% of children in Year 1 to be in Welsh-medium education by 2031. To help achieve that,…

The Deputy Minister for Climate Change Lee Waters today issued a “national call to arms” to ask the people of Wales to help to deliver real change to tackle the climate emergency. According to the Climate Change Committee, Wales needs to plant around 86 million trees over the next nine years to achieve its ambition of reaching net zero by 2050 The Deputy Minister was visiting Stump up for Trees a small charity planting 100,000 native broadleaf trees in an area called Bryn Arw, near Abergavenny – it is the first significant tree planting on common land in Wales. The…

Are you looking for some valuable information on IVA? If yes, you’ve come to the right spot. Before you consider IVA, it is important that you weigh the pros and cons of this option. However, before we move forward to discuss the crux of this discussion, it is important, to begin with, a formal introduction. What is Individual Voluntary Arrangement? In simple words, the individual voluntary agreement is an agreement between you and the creditors. This means you get to pay off the debts at an affordable rate.  An insolvency practitioner will help you make payments. Therefore, if you have…

A Maesteg veteran is at the centre of the national Strong Made Stronger campaign launched by Armed Forces charity Help for Heroes. Having found the strength to serve his country, in conflict zones from Kosovo to Iraq, Bruce Falkenberg, 43, lost both legs below the knee following injury and had to find a different kind of strength: the strength to learn to walk again. And his remarkable story is pivotal to Help for Heroes’ Strong Made Stronger campaign to highlight the daily battles faced by veterans and the strength it takes to overcome them. It also shows how the Charity…

Business leaders are putting their weight behind a planned new bid to achieve city status for Wrexham and believe a bit of Hollywood magic can help them get over the line. Wrexham Business Professionals say that the takeover of Wrexham AFC by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney could be a gamechanger because the profile of the town has never been higher. Solicitor Ian Edwards, a senior member of the group, spoke out after it was revealed that Wrexham County Borough Council is considering launching a fourth bid to become a city. The competition due to be held next year to…

Work-based learning provider Cambrian Training is working closely with the largest meat processing plant and abattoir in Wales to deliver apprenticeships tailored to the company’s need to develop skilled butchers. Kepak, which has 830 employees at the company’s flagship facilities at St Merryn Merthyr, has already signed up 50 staff on the Welsh Government’s Apprenticeship Programme to upskill and develop its workforce with more being added every month. All new recruits to the business go through a 12-week training and assessment programme that leads seamlessly on to apprenticeships. Staff recruited in the lamb and beef boning departments must complete a…

A DEDICATED community figure has been hailed as a local hero after his “tireless efforts” to help his neighbours. Colin Matthews has become a familiar and trusted face on the Fron estate in Old Colwyn after “going above and beyond” to assist his fellow residents. The 74-year-old community stalwart devotes much of his spare time to acts of kindness to his friends around the estate, managed by social housing provider Cartrefi Conwy. From collecting prescriptions to going shopping on their behalf and helping to resolve any issues they may have, Colin always goes out of his way to help others.…