Twenty million pounds is coming to the Upper Afan Valley. Sixteen local people will decide where it goes.
Neath Port Talbot Council has named them: residents drawn from every village in the valley, appointed to the Pride in Place Neighbourhood Board.
They meet for the first time on Friday.
After that they have until the end of November to write the plan that says what the money buys first. Four months.
A valley chosen for its deprivation
The valley was chosen in January as Neath Port Talbot’s single nomination for the UK Government scheme. Council officers had ranked it the most deprived area in the county borough.
One patch of it sits among the 15 most deprived in Wales. Parts of the valley have appeared in the country’s 50 most deprived communities in every official index since 2005. Two decades on the same list.
A former health minister, but no youth representation – yet
Seven of the sixteen speak for a village each.
David Roberts (Cymmer), Dr Brian Gibbons (Gwynfi), Laurence Davies (Glyncorrwg), Lisa Millichap (Dyffryn Rhondda), Vicki Sloan (Cynonville), Barbara Trahar (Croeserw) and Wayne Finnemore (Sunnyside/Heol y Glyn).
One name will be familiar. Gibbons is a GP who was Labour’s Assembly Member for Aberavon from 1999 to 2011, and Wales’s health minister from 2005 to 2007. He later ran social justice and local government. He was a director of the Welsh Refugee Council until 2022.
He has also been a director of Gwynfi Miners Community Hall since October 2012, according to Companies House. Exactly the sort of building Pride in Place money is meant to fix up.
Two local business owners take seats: Ryan Thomas and David Teague. Three come from the voluntary sector: Darren Johnson, Ceri Thomas and Tiff Dew. Jazzmine Roberts covers safeguarding.
The last three places go to Roxanne Collins of social landlord Tai Tarian, Gemma Charnock of NPT Group of Colleges and Tony Potts of Neath Port Talbot Council for Voluntary Service.
One chair is still empty. It is reserved for a young person, and the council says it will be filled after more work with young people across the valley.
The Welsh Secretary with a seat at the table
Three elected representatives also sit on the board: Cllr Scott Jones (Gwynfi and Croeserw), Cllr Jeff Jones (Cymmer and Glyncorrwg) and Stephen Kinnock, the MP for Aberafan Maesteg.
Kinnock was appointed Secretary of State for Wales a week ago. So a serving UK Government cabinet minister will help decide how UK Government money is spent in his own constituency.
Four months to write the first spending plan
Karen Jones MBE chairs the board. She ran Neath Port Talbot Council as its chief executive and was named to the chair in June. An MBE followed in the King’s Birthday Honours days later.
Jones thanked everyone who came forward and said the process had produced a board drawn from a broad cross-section of the upper valley. “All Board members share a pride in the Upper Afan Valley and are committed to using this programme to create a positive legacy for people who will live and work in the valley in the years to come,” she said.
Her first job is to ask people what they want.
She will canvass residents, businesses and voluntary organisations before anything is committed. “Their views will inform the first four-year investment plan that we need to put in place by the end of November,” she added.
More people applied than there were seats. Those who missed out are being offered roles elsewhere in the programme, Jones said.
Friday’s meeting will set the board’s programme of work for the months ahead.
Council leader Cllr Stephen Hunt congratulated every appointee and called the £20m the valley’s chance to turn local ambition into lasting change. “My commitment is clear: this programme will be driven by local voices, delivered with transparency and measured by real outcomes,” he said.
He promised the council would publish its investment priorities and report progress openly, and make every pound work for communities from Cymmer and Gwynfi through to Dyffryn Rhondda, Cynonville, Croeserw and Sunnyside.
His priorities: “good jobs and skills, thriving centres, better connectivity, safer and warmer homes, and vibrant green spaces”. The door was open to everyone, he said, and especially to young people.
Kinnock congratulated the board and said he would be working alongside its members himself. “The strength of Pride in Place lies in the people who know the Valley best, and I am delighted to see such a broad range of residents, businesses and organisations represented on the Neighbourhood Board,” he said.
He wants a shared vision that builds on the valley’s strengths and opens up new opportunities for local people.
A bridge closure and 25 new homes already in the queue
Nothing is committed yet. But the valley is not short of schemes waiting on money.
The council has drawn up plans to reshape Cymmer that would close its historic bridge to traffic and pull down a failing Victorian railway bridge.
Tai Tarian wants to build 25 affordable homes and assisted-living flats on long-vacant land at Menai Avenue in Croeserw.
Three boards, three £20m programmes
The Upper Afan Valley is one of three Pride in Place areas in the region, each handed £20m over a decade. It is the first of the three to name a full board.
In Swansea the money goes to the communities north of the railway station, now branded North Gate Swansea: North Hill, Upper High Street, Dyfatty, Hafod, Brynmelyn and Waun Wen.
That board is chaired by Thom Lynch, who co-founded the High Street homelessness charity Matthew’s House. Applications for places closed on 16 July.
Carmarthenshire’s programme covers the Llanelli town area, taking in parts of the Bigyn, Elli, Lliedi, Tyisha and Glanymor wards. Stephen Donoghue chairs that board, which closed its application window on 6 July.
Llanelli MP Dame Nia Griffith was blunt about who the town needed. “Doers not talkers,” she said when recruitment opened.
The three awards are part of £214m allocated across Wales.
The money comes straight from Westminster, not through the Welsh Government. That bypass drew objections from senior Senedd Labour figures when it was announced.
