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The Update: 13 December 2024
Here is your Friday update, covering:
- Work officially begins on constructing new school buildings for The Court School
- Preferred bidder identified for Cardiff and Vale House-building Partnership
- Surviving Storm Darragh on Flat Holm island
Work officially begins on constructing new school buildings for The Court School
A special ground-breaking ceremony has marked the start of construction of two new school buildings for The Court School.
The project worth over £23m investment, is to be delivered under Cardiff Council and Welsh Governments Sustainable Communities for Learning Rolling Programme and will increase the capacity of the school by relocating and rebuilding it across two sites. One is to be located on land to the south of Fairwater Primary School on Wellwright Road, the other will be south of Pen Y Bryn Primary School at Dunster Road in Llanrumney.
The ground was cut at the Llanrumney site by Cardiff Council's Leader, Cllr Huw Thomas and Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Education, Cllr Sarah Merry.
They were joined by Headteacher of The Court School, Jamyn Beesley, pupils and headteachers from Fairwater and Pen y Bryn Primary Schools.
Also in attendance were representatives from Kier, the contractor chosen to undertake the detailed design and build of the scheme and local ward members from Fairwater, Llanrumney and Llanishen where the current school is located.
Preferred bidder identified for Cardiff and Vale House-building Partnership
Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan Councils have reached a significant milestone in their exciting partnership to build high quality, sustainable affordable homes at pace across the region.
Following a competitive dialogue procurement process which has identified the preferred bidder to deliver the Cardiff and Vale Housing Partnership, Cardiff Council Cabinet will consider recommendations to approve the appointment of the preferred bidder as development partner at its next meeting on Thursday, December 12.
The partnership is Cardiff's second housing programme following the success of its award-winning Cardiff Living scheme, and forms part of its wider development plans - the largest council-led development programme in Wales, that has the capacity to deliver more than 4,000 new homes in the city, including at least 2,800 new council homes.
The collaboration with the Vale of Glamorgan is the result of the two authorities' commitment and vision to create exemplary homes and communities across the region to help tackle current housing pressures by delivering at least 2,260 new homes over the next 10 years.
Around half of all the new homes will be affordable properties to be retained by the Councils for social rent or shared ownership schemes, while the rest will be sold on the open market.
Surviving Storm Darragh on Flat Holm island
On a sunny day, there aren't many better places to escape city life and reconnect with nature, than on an isolated island like Flat Holm. But during a storm, life on a tiny island in the Bristol Channel is far from paradise, as Simon Parker the island's resident warden found out during Storm Darragh.
"It was wild. I've had a few storms out here, but this was by far the worst. The farmhouse is a pretty solid building, but it was just shaking. You couldn't sleep because of the noise, glass smashing, roof tiles smashing. These huge waves just battering the island."
Storm Darragh saw the Met Office issue a rare red weather warning for wind. At the centre of the warning area was Flat Holm, a few miles off the coast of Cardiff, in the Bristol Channel.
"We knew it was coming," said Simon, "so we took a lot of precautions, fastened everything down and made sure there was nothing lying around but there was still lots of debris flying around, bits of corrugated iron from shelters. I lost a few doors."
During the storm itself, it was too dangerous to venture out, so Simon's only option was to hunker down in the farmhouse, catch up on some admin work and watch "bad Christmas movies" until the weather improved, and he could get out to inspect the damage.
