Message from the Chief Executive

Dear Colleagues,

As many of you will know, the Local Elections took place on Thursday 05 May this year.

Following the opportunity for residents to vote at polling stations across the Vale on Thursday, staff and volunteers attended the Memo Arts Centre on Friday for the count and declaration of results.

The count took place for all 54 County ward seats on the Vale Council and for those town and community councils where seats were being contested.

You may have already seen the full breakdown of the results on our website. We have welcomed many new Councillors, with 30 out of the 54 members being newly elected.

I was pleased to see that our new makeup has made the Vale Council one of two Councils in Wales to be exactly gender balanced, the other being Monmouthshire Council.

As I touched on in my end of week message, the ‘behind the scenes’ work in the run up to the elections has been intricate and large scale. I would again, like to pass my thanks to the Electoral Services team for their hard work. Not forgetting staff who committed to working long hours at polling stations and counting throughout the day and late into the evening - Diolch yn fawr pawb.

It was great to see everybody’s hard work come together .

This week, the baton has been passed on to the Democratic Services to support the new members. The induction process began on Monday, and I, along with the Directors have been meeting each of our new councillors.

Work is now underway to prepare for the Annual Meeting which will be held on 23 May. The meeting will confirm the Council’s new Leader, Cabinet members and which councillors will sit on different committees. I will update you further as the situation develops.

Diolch yn fawr pawb.

Rob