
New fund launched to help improve towns across Wales
Ms Morgan said: "When our surroundings feel cared for, we feel cared for too and our new Tidy Towns Fund is a direct investment this year in the places we call home.
"Tidy Towns is about more than just bricks and mortar.
"It's about belonging and pride of place, because when a town centre feels alive, a street is tidy or a park is looked after, pride in our places means pride in ourselves."
The funding will be distributed to all local authorities in Wales and could be used for a range of projects, including footpath repairs, replacing signage, refurbishing bus shelters, and maintaining street furniture.
Other potential uses include litter removal, clearing fly-tipping, tidying overgrown areas, and painting community murals.
The fund builds on the Welsh Labour Government's ongoing investment in community spaces.
Since 2015, the £63 million Communities Facilities Programme has supported the creation, improvement, or preservation of more than 450 community spaces across Wales.
It also complements the existing £100 million Transforming Towns programme, which focuses on bringing underused or derelict properties back into use as businesses, housing, leisure facilities, commercial space, or community hubs.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Wave goodbye to wobbling on ladders as this extendable hedge trimmer gets axed by £60
If you need to upgrade your garden maintenance equipment but don't want to splash too much cash, you're not going to want to miss this gardening sale that could save £60 Thompson & Morgan is currently offering a range of deals on gardening equipment, including products from the beloved brand Garden Gear. This sale includes a 5-star-rated extendable trimmer that would normally set you back a steep £149.99, but which can now be added to your garden shed for the reduced price of £89.99 while this deal lasts. The Garden Gear 900W Extendable Hedge Trimmer is an extendable hedge trimmer that allows you to trim even the tallest hedges without the need for wobbly and unstable ladders or steps. Easily trim branches, stems, and bushes without struggling or straining and with your feet firmly on solid ground, ensuring safe and easy garden maintenance every time. Boasting a maximum cutting length of 0.4 metres, this trimmer can easily cut through stems of up to 22mm in diameter. It is perfectly designed for dealing with awkwardly placed and hard-to-reach hedges and shrubs of almost any height or shape, as it lets you simply add on the extension pole and extend your reach up to 2.5 metres without needing a ladder. You can also adjust the angle of the hedge trimmer by 180 degrees, to ensure you can reach any plant that needs a trim. With a razor-sharp blade that promises effortless trimming, this gadget boasts a range of different safety features incorporated, including a front handle locking knob, blade cover, and safety button, to ensure there's no risk of harm whenever it's used. The position lock lever ensures that it will stay in position until you decide to change the angle, while the shoulder strap is comfortable and attaches to the trimmer to ensure even weight distribution and safe, easy handling. Plus, the red power cord is easily visible among shrubbery and hedges to reduce any trip hazards while you're working. One green-thumbed shopper who picked up this device leaves a glowing review, writing: " Very good extendable hedge trimmer, excellent for our higher bushes. It is quite heavy but it isn't flimsy, very pleased with it so far." Further prasie comes from this buyer who beams: "Easy to put together, cut through the hedge without any problems." Though one customer did share their less than ideal experience, saying: "I started to use the brand-new trimmer and the cutting head stopped working in under two minutes despite cutting only very light foliage. The supplier has sent a replacement which works well, and I am now extremely pleased with the item."

Finextra
a day ago
- Finextra
MTN completes first transaction using JPMorgan's new Electronic Bill of Exchange offering
Mobile Technology Network South Africa (Pty) Ltd. (MTN SA), a major mobile telecommunications provider, has successfully completed the first transaction using J.P. Morgan's new Electronic Bill of Exchange (eBoE) offering – marking a pivotal step in the digitization of global trade finance. 0 The transaction facilitated the shipment of goods from Asia to the United Kingdom (UK). Today, large portions of the global trade finance industry still use paper and wet ink signatures for the selling or procuring of goods and/or services. As part of the industry's digitization shift, we are one of the first banks to transition eligible programs to Electronic Negotiable Instruments (eNIs) incorporating electronic signatures. The Electronic Trade Document Act (ETDA), which passed in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2023, is helping facilitate this trend by mandating that certain Negotiable Instruments - such as Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes - in electronic form are to be treated in the same way as they would be in physical form. Dino Molefe, Chief Finance Officer at MTN SA said, 'MTN South Africa has been a leader in developing our working capital strategy as it pertains to our procurement of devices. J.P. Morgan and MTN SA have collaborated closely to unlock additional liquidity through innovative solutions, making us the ideal collaborator to pioneer this digital tool.' We have implemented Enigio's trace:original solution to facilitate the creation, management, and storage of eNIs, which satisfy the legal requirements of the ETDA. Using Enigio's blockchain infrastructure, an eBoE is securely signed and updated throughout its lifecycle, improving transparency and streamlining workflows, while enabling automatic data transfer and reducing risks and errors associated with traditional manual processes. The offering is initially available to companies transacting under English law. 'Our goal is to be at the forefront of the future of trade, as one of the first banks to approve the financing of a select set of Electronic Negotiable Instruments,' said Natasha Condon, Global Head of Trade Sales and Head of EMEA Trade at J.P. Morgan. 'By collaborating with Enigio, we are able to further the digitization of trade, ultimately helping corporations access working capital benefits in a much more streamlined way, how and when they need it.' 'Our trace:original solution has been designed to address the complexities of global trade while ensuring compliance with evolving regulations,' said Patrik Zekkar, CEO of Enigio. 'This transaction is a significant step forward in proving that electronic trade solutions can operate at scale - and that they are already doing so.'


BBC News
4 days ago
- BBC News
Holyhead Port to reopen fully after Storm Darragh damage
One of UK's busiest ports will fully reopen on Friday, seven months after a berth was shut due to damage caused by a car ferry docking during a berths at Holyhead, the UK's second busiest passenger port, were damaged in two separate incidents hours before the height of a rare red weather wind warning that battered Wales in port was closed for five weeks, including at Christmas and new year, as engineers fixed one of the damaged berths before Holyhead partially reopened in January and services resumed to a revised other berth has taken seven months to repair and reopened on Friday with the economic impact of the closures an estimated £500m in lost trade. "It's the busiest time of year and is really important and timely," said Wales' First Minister Eluned comes as schoolchildren in Wales will finish their term within the next few days while most Republic of Ireland schools have already closed for the than 1.5m people pass through Holyhead every year making it the most popular sea route between the UK mainland and the Republic of Ireland. Why did Holyhead Port close? Holyhead's operators have said its closure was after successive ferries made "contact" with berthing terminals at the port just before the height of Storm Darragh in December incidents shut both of Holyhead's terminals because of the "interconnecting nature" of the support structures as the terminals run parallel to each blocked the busiest and shortest route between the UK mainland and Republic and Ireland over the busy Christmas and new year 40-day closure, before one berth reopened on 16 January, caused chaos for passengers and truck drivers using the four daily services of both Stena Line and Irish Ferries as people and freight had to find alternative routes over the Irish Sea. A boss of Stena Line, which runs the port, gave evidence to a Welsh Parliament committee and said berths were designed to "take contact but very slow-speed contact"."These contacts, maybe of a different magnitude, happen all the time," Stena's head of UK Ports Ian Davies told the Senedd's Economy and Trade port or ferry companies say they would not elaborate on how these specific contacts closed the port despite both the Welsh and UK governments asking."Those incidents are now subject to an insurance claim and I can give no further details without prejudicing that insurance claims at this time I'm afraid," Mr Davies told the UK Parliament's Welsh Affairs Committee earlier this chair Ruth Jones MP replied: "That is very frustrating for us but, obviously, we understand where you are coming from." When Mr Davies was before the Welsh Parliament's economy committee, he was asked by chair Andrew RT Davies was it "not necessarily the storm caused the damage, but the actual seamanship?"Mr Davies replied to the Senedd committee: "All we can say is there's an ongoing investigation into the actual cause, and part of that is a claim going on." Ferries that use Holyhead include the 50,000-tonnes Ulysses, which was the world's largest car ferry when it launched in terminal five reopened on 16 January and the port has been able to operate its normal daily number of sailings - eight arrivals and eight to accommodate that, both Irish Ferries and Stena Line had to adjust their timetables to synchronise arrivals and departures at the only operational told the Senedd the damage had happened to part of terminal three, which is "predominantly" used by Irish the port operators or the ferry companies would confirm who was taking action against whom. Both Stena Line and Irish Ferries have both declined to berthing incidents happened during Storm Darragh - but before the red weather warning for wind kicked in at 03:00 GMT on 7 to Met Office data, three of the UK's five strongest gusts during Storm Darragh were in north included wind speeds of 79mph (127km/h) at Valley - about eight miles (13km) inland from Holyhead - which is the highest recorded gust on Anglesey for 27 years. The Health and Safety Executive did not investigate the incidents, while the Marine Accident Investigation Branch made some "preliminary enquiries" into the "maritime aspects" of the added in a statement: "The information gathered does not indicate any significant safety issues that would necessitate further investigation at this time."Mr Davies said there was a "onward-going investigation" about the incidents and the port and ferry operators would review what happened once Holyhead was fully reopened. Why has it taken so long to fully reopen Holyhead? Seven months may seem like a long time without half of its berthing capacity but port bosses explained replacing Holyhead's damaged infrastructure was complex."The berths are a series of very large steel pile structures... roughly 2m (6ft 7in) in diameter and 50m (164 ft 1in) in total length and driven into the seabed," Mr Davies of Stena explained in his Senedd evidence. He said the affected structure on terminal three "partially collapsed and had fallen at an angle" so engineers needed to charter specialist barges to get to the site and remove the fallen 120-tonne needed to design, order, check and fit their new pile and its associated mechanisms."It was hoped we could replace the pile in the same pile socket, like replacing a false tooth, but that was not possible," added Mr have had to drive the new pile into the sea bed and test before declaring the berth ready for passenger ferries."To be frank, seven months is a short amount of time," said maritime expert Dr Stavros Karamperidis. "The analogy is having a car accident, insurance companies investigate and might offer money, the other company might dispute that and it goes back and forth."I'm sure the authorities have all the information but you can't give that publicly," added Dr Karamperidis, head of Plymouth University's maritime transport research group. How important is Holyhead Port? At just over 100 miles (161km) between Holyhead and Dublin, the three-hour and 15 minute crossing from north Wales is the quickest route between the UK mainland and the Republic of more than 400,000 lorries and 400,000 cars a year using it every year, Holyhead is the second busiest passenger ferry port to is Wales' biggest international transport hub with almost double the amount of annual passengers of Wales' only major airport in Cardiff. "It is one of the large corridors that connects Wales and the UK to Ireland because of the shortness and frequency of the crossing," Mr Davies told Parliament."It adds a dynamic, especially to the just-in-time logistics industry, which perhaps other corridors do not have. I cannot overemphasise how important it is. It is critical."He added night ferries could create freight lorry convoys of up to three miles (5km) long, such is the strategic importance to both the UK and Republic of Ireland."Holyhead is a huge economic driver for us here in Ireland because so much of our exports by sea go through Holyhead into the UK," said Irish government Minister Sean Canney. He said more than a third of roll-on, roll-off traffic traffic to the Republic of Ireland came through Holyhead, emphasising the importance part of another country is to his nation."Both countries rely on Holyhead for stuff coming in and out between the UK and Ireland, it's a huge vein across the Irish Sea," added estimate the economic impact of Holyhead Port and its supply chain in north Wales is more than £100m a year with 1,000 jobs locally relying on it. Bangor University's senior economics lecturer Edward Jones also told Parliament an "additional 1,600 to 1,700 jobs at a national level is dependent" on Holyhead.A Senedd Committee heard in April the value of trade going through Holyhead during the complete closure was almost £500m less than the year the Welsh and Irish government also hoped everyone involved could "learn lessons" on how they react to incidents like this.