Cabinet outline exciting and ambitious ‘vision’ for Carmarthenshire

RESIDENTS and businesses in Carmarthenshire are being asked to help shape the council’s Cabinet ‘vision’ for the next five years.

Council Leader Cllr Darren Price outlined an exciting and ambitious vision for the county reflecting key issues and themes that have been identified since the elections took place in May.

Residents are being urged to share their views via the residents’ survey, which together with feedback from staff, and engagement with local members across all political groups, will help to develop the corporate strategy which will be published in the autumn and will set out the council’s strategic objectives over the next five years.

Cllr Price has made a number of changes to the Cabinet portfolios in response to local and global events. It includes for the first time a dedicated climate change portfolio to focus on and drive the council’s ambition to be net zero carbon by 2030, and a lead member for tackling poverty.

Cllr Price said that although we are now into the recovery stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cabinet could not ignore its impact on communities.

“Coupled with the current cost of living crisis, we know that times are already hard and are likely to get worse before they get better,” he said.

“We are committed to understanding local needs and working with partners to meet them.”

As well as tackling climate change and poverty, the Cabinet’s vision statement also includes strengthening the economy and increasing prosperity, and investing in housing, education, culture, infrastructure and the environment to make a real difference to people’s lives.

Cllr Price said:

“I am genuinely excited about the programme and our commitments particularly around tackling poverty, climate change, town centre regeneration, providing quality homes, addressing the capacity issues and rebalancing the care sector, and providing quality education services across the county amongst others. This is our starting point as a Cabinet of the direction of travel and type of areas that we want to focus on over the next five years. This is what we care about, the really important issues that we need to get to grips with. But it’s not just our view that counts, and we are keen to listen to a number of voices, that includes of course the residents of Carmarthenshire who are absolutely central in everything that we do.”