Swansea Bay city deal ‘well on its way’

Chris Haines - ICNN Senedd reporter

The Swansea Bay city deal is “well on its way” despite having created less than 900 jobs against an initial target of more than 9,000, a committee heard.

Rob Stewart said six projects had been completed – to a value of £210m – by the end of 2024/25 as part of the £1.3bn Swansea Bay city deal, which was signed in 2017.

Cllr Stewart, who chairs the Swansea Bay city region joint committee, told the Senedd’s economy committee a further 19 projects, valued at £761m, are in the pipeline.

The leader of Swansea council pointed to “significant progress” in moving projects from the feasibility stage to completion, with the 71/72 Kingsway project in Swansea set to open.

He stressed the Swansea deal had very different terms and conditions to the Cardiff capital region city deal, which was agreed with a different UK Government.

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‘On our way’

Cllr Stewart explained that the nine programmes and 36 projects in Swansea were set out in advance, with all the capital funding committed, in the deal with Theresa May’s government.

“We’re well on our way to delivering,” he told the economy committee, adding that “we did a lot more thinking upfront than perhaps other city deals”.

The Labour politician said 896 jobs have been created so far – against an initial target of 9,700 – and the city deal has leveraged £133m of private-sector investment.

Jon Burnes, portfolio director of the 15-year city deal which is in its ninth year, suggested many more jobs will have been created in the wider supply chain.

Pressed about jobs numbers, Cllr Stewart said councils had to jump through a lot of hoops, which took a long time, and the job creation numbers have started to accelerate. He was hopeful of hitting or even exceeding the 9,700 target.

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‘Fantastic’

He added: “Those are just the direct jobs, there is also work going on to identify what we believe are the secondary jobs and consequential jobs… and we expect that to be a multiple of the sort of numbers we’re talking about today.”

Cllr Stewart said the Swansea Arena has welcomed more than 750,000 visitors since opening in 2022, contributing to the local economy.

Giving evidence on June 26, he told the committee that Pembroke Dock infrastructure upgrades and Trinity Saint David’s “innovation matrix” building have been completed.

Cllr Stewart said the Pentre Awel zone one project – a state-of-the-art sports and leisure centre in Carmarthenshire – is “looking fantastic” and due to open this summer. He added that the Bay Technology Centre in Neath Port Talbot is more than 80% occupied.

He told Senedd members the static nature of the Swansea deal has created challenges, with a pandemic, war in Ukraine and spiralling inflation since it was signed.

‘Double-edged sword’

Describing the inflexible deal as a “double-edged sword”, he said: “We’ve experienced very high inflation… yet there is no acknowledgement of that in terms of any flexibility of the funding from central or Welsh Government.”

The Labour council leader said he has lobbied the UK Government to get electrification of the main railway line to Swansea back on track but it is not part of the city deal.

“We’ve always felt it unfair that electrification goes to Cardiff then we’re back to diesel trains running to Swansea and the west,” he told the committee. “We hope that, in time, we will get the necessary funding from UK and Welsh Government.”

Asked about investments in the four council areas covered, and suggestions some areas have “sucked in” more, Cllr Stewart said there is a good spread across the region.

He told Senedd members: “To my mind, as chair of the region, we’ve seen really good delivery across all four local authorities.”