Cllr Rob Stewart, lead Leader of the Swansea Bay City Region and Leader of Swansea City Council, said: “In today’s written budget statement, the Chancellor has noted that good progress is being made towards the signing of the Swansea Bay City Deal. The project board has also held a positive meeting with senior officers from the Treasury and Welsh Government in Swansea today, so we are hoping that the City Deal will be signed as soon as possible. We are ready to sign.
“An approved City Deal will improve people’s lives in Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea by generating up to 10,000 jobs and investing in world class technology that will revolutionise the way sectors like energy, social care, healthcare and entrepreneurship are delivered and supported here.
“Our bid is about making sure Swansea and South West Wales gets its fair share of investment.
“The state-of-the-art projects the investment will facilitate will put more money in people’s pockets and enable residents to lead happier and healthier lives, while turbo-charging the regional economy and helping attract even more investment in future.
“An approved City Deal would also be terrific news for our businesses because not only will the introduction of cutting-edge digital infrastructure help embrace and harness innovation, but the construction of new developments will boost the regional supply chain as well.
“Enormous credit should go to everyone involved in the City Deal bid for reaching this stage. The ‘Team Swansea Bay’ approach we’ve developed between the public and private sectors is aimed at benefitting many thousands of people in the near future.”
Note that this statement was released by Welsh Government earlier this afternoon…
Responding to the Budget, Welsh Government finance secretary Mark Drakeford said: “We have said for some time that the Swansea Bay Region city deal is ready to be signed – we fully recognise the importance of the deal and the positive long-term economic benefits it will bring across the region. It is disappointing the Chancellor didn’t use this Budget to bring the deal to its conclusion immediately.”
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