Author: Rhys Gregory

Several of Cardiff’s landmarks were lit up in purple this week to mark the start of City Hospice’s annual Light up a Life appeal and recognise the specialist palliative and end of life care the charity has been providing to the people of Cardiff for 40 years. The iconic locations across the city that turned purple included Cardiff Castle, Mermaid Quay, and Roath Park. The illuminations highlighted City Hospice’s Light up a Life appeal which aims to bring light and hope for people in Cardiff by remembering and celebrating the lives of loved ones in the lead up to Christmas.…

In its biggest simultaneous roll-out of funding rounds to date, Media Cymru has announced a bumper crop of funding opportunities for businesses, organisations and individuals working in the media sector in Wales, with a combined total of over £1.2 million available across five separate funds.  Following the successful funding of over 75 projects to date, the UKRI-funded Media Consortium has also unveiled two brand new funds designed to super-charge their fair, green and global ambitions to grow Welsh media innovation. The newly available funding opportunities follows news that Cardiff and surrounding cities Newport and Swansea make up a “creative cluster”…

Bluestone National Park Resort has this week launched a three-hectare solar farm which will power a third of the resort. The launch is a significant milestone for the holiday park – voted 3rd best in the UK for the second time running by Which? – and forms an integral part of Bluestone’s £30 million investment strategy to expand its facilities while championing sustainability projects to further protect and enhance the local area. The solar farm setup, with a lifespan of 40 years, aims to secure the long-term viability of Bluestone. Over a year, the solar farm is expected to generate…

GlobalWelsh, the non-profit Welsh diaspora organisation, has announced that it has relaunched its global hub in Ireland. Previously GlobalWelsh Dublin, GlobalWelsh Ireland is a ‘virtual’ hub led by long-time Dublin resident and businesswoman, Teresa Lewis. The hub will focus on growing and connecting the business diaspora network in Ireland and facilitating opportunities for mutual growth between Wales and Ireland. Through their shared Celtic history, Wales and Ireland are culturally and geographically very similar but economically very different, a factor making it a desirable destination for many Welsh people to emigrate. Ireland also has a long history of diaspora engagement success.…

Swansea Building Society has announced the launch of two new mortgage products available from October 1, 2024. These products are specifically designed for limited companies looking to invest in buy-to-let and holiday-let properties, offering flexible terms to support property purchases, remortgaging, and capital raising. The first product, the Limited Company Buy to Let Mortgage (LBTL60), is ideal for limited companies aiming to purchase, remortgage, or raise capital on residential properties to let. The mortgage offers a variable rate of 6.35%, which is 0.55% above the Society’s Base Rate, currently set at 5.80%. The product allows for loans ranging from £50,000 to…

Leading partnerships developer Lovell and Cardiff Council have hosted a ‘topping out’ ceremony, to celebrate the roof being installed on the first apartment block at the St Mellons Community Living Project, which will provide high-quality, independent living accommodation for older people. Situated on Crickhowell Road, on the site of the former Youth and Community Centre, the £17.2m development will deliver a total of 60 one and two-bedroom, self-contained apartments for social rent, that will be built to high sustainability standards, powered by a communal heating system and benefit from solar panels. The site will also be home to a wide…

A RAFT of innovative business support is boosting trade and the economy in West Wales. And nowhere more than Cardigan, where access to guidance and funding via Antur Cymru Enterprise has provided start-ups and entrepreneurs with a platform to grow in past months. The South Ceredigion Local Business Support project, delivered by Ceredigion County Council via the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund, has had a positive impact on ventures looking to develop their strategies and products. As well as advice and expertise, small businesses have been given space at the town’s historic Guildhall market, which reopened during the summer following…

A breast surgeon from Cowbridge, South Glamorgan, is attempting to break a Guinness World Record at the Principality Cardiff Half Marathon to show her twin daughters that they can do anything. Zoe Barber, who works at Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board (CTMUHB), will be dressing as a princess in her attempt to be the fastest female to run a half marathon dressed as a cartoon character. The current record stands at 1:53:26. The 38-year-old said: “I used to be a really keen runner before I had my girls and ran the Cardiff Half in 2017. I loved the atmosphere…

The founder of one of the UK’s most influential conferences dedicated to promoting women in technology is set to play a leading role in new initiative to address diversity challenges. Dr Hannah Dee, founder of the BCS Women Lovelace Colloquium and senior lecturer in computer science at Aberystwyth University, is the Equality Champion for Gender for the new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Hub+. The Hub will harness the engineering, physical and mathematical sciences (EPMS) research and innovation community’s collective effort to address diversity challenges specific to the sector. The four-year project is supported by the UKRI Engineering and Physical…

Tata Steel subsidiary UKSE has supported a Port Talbot welding skills academy aiming to retrain 300 ex-steelworkers and provide the platform to eventually create more than 50 new jobs. UKSE has provided a six-figure loan to local engineering contractor JES which is greatly increasing the capacity of its training centre. The firm has been a key contractor to the Tata Steel works, their business relationship stretching back some 40 years. The JES Skills Academy plans to eventually have 80 training bays where fabrication, welding and pipework will be taught offering new career paths to people leaving the steelworks and to others who…