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Smaller companies to get £150m fund
Finance Wales, the investment subsidiary of the Welsh Assembly Government, will unveil a £150m fund to invest in small and growing businesses early in the new year. The cash will come in part from the European Union’s Jeremie fund for small companies. It will invest along similar lines to Finance Wales’ existing services, help a wider range of companies and should be sustained by the return on its investments. The Assembly hopes it will help soften the effect of the economic slowdown and counteract any reluctance by banks to fund smaller businesses.
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Hotel in store for SA1
Property company Waterstone Estates has acquired part of the SA1 development area in Swansea from the Welsh Assembly Government for a £9m mixed-use scheme, which will feature a 132-bed hotel and Tesco store. The site, bordering Langdon Road and overlooking Prince of Wales Dock, will include 63,000 sq ft of commercial space including the hotel for Whitbread Group, which owns the Premier Inn hotel chain, and a Tesco Express. The development, funded by Allied Irish Bank, is designed by CW Architects and will be built by Jehu Project Services. Waterstone is part of the Jehu Group. 
Green housing scheme planned
Up to 400 environmentally sustainable homes will be built across Wales as part of a project promoted by Jocelyn Davies, the deputy minister for housing. The £80m scheme will kick-start 22 housing projects across Wales in response to the Essex Report into affordable housing in Wales. The properties will be built to high green standards – levels four and five of the Code for Sustainable Houses.
Focus on M4, say property bosses
Property chiefs will put pressure on the Assembly to divert funding away from remote and deprived locations and invest more along the M4 corridor. The Cardiff Commercial Property Forum is seeking a meeting with deputy first minister Ieuan Wyn Jones to press the case on issues including regeneration and rates on empty property. It is a first move into lobbying for the group, which previously focused on promoting Cardiff to London investors and developers. Forum chairman Roger Thomas, who is also chairman of surveyor Cooke & Arkwright, said: “If you invest in Cardiff it has much more effect than in other parts of Wales. If the money the former Welsh Development Agency spent in former coal and steel areas had been spent along the M4, taxpayers would have had more for their money.”
Call for community bank
Housing associations are seeking Welsh Assembly and UK government help to set up a financial institution for deprived communities. Ian Williams, chair of Community Housing Cymru, said: “The sector is looking at the feasibility of developing a community development financial institution in Wales, but we need support in achieving this.” Welsh housing associations spent £407m in the last financial year, of which £338m stayed in Wales, according to a report for Community Housing Cymru by Cardiff Business School. The report estimates that 36.2 per cent of housing association spending went on construction, 23.1 per cent on labour costs and 21.9 per cent on maintenance and repairing stock.
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Senedd’s bionic man
A consortium led by the Welsh Assembly Government is developing technology that will allow severely injured patients to control their limbs by reading brain messages. The XGEN consortium includes three Welsh technology centres funded by the Assembly and the UK Government’s Nanotechnology Fund. Its technology will be used to help a sensor that sits as an implant in the surface of the brain and send signals to artificial limbs.
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Super for tenants
The Welsh Assembly Government has launched a residential landlord accreditation scheme. The scheme aims to differentiate between good and bad landlords, and help tenants find professional landlords who offer good, well-managed accommodation. Landlords who join will sign a code of conduct, which requires them to work within legal rules and carry out repairs promptly. Those who join will attend a short course to get advice on landlord and tenancy issues; health and safety; and contracts and property management.
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Local PR will help Labour, says Morgan
Proportional representation (PR) in local elections would help revive the Labour Party in west Wales, according to the first minister. In the introduction to a new book, Politics in 21st Century Wales, Rhodri Morgan writes that a revival in those areas will only come about through PR, “a form of election which would, undoubtedly, improve our representation in counties such as Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, Ynys Môn and Gwynedd”. The book is published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs and Cardiff University, which this week signed an agreement to work together on analysing Welsh politics.
Countryside cash in Carmarthenshire
Carmarthenshire County Council has won £1.4m in funding to regenerate rural towns and villages. European-backed Rural Development Plan cash will be used to support projects in Newcastle Emlyn, Drefach Felindre, Whitland, St Clears, Carmarthen, Llandovery, Llandeilo, Llanybydder and Lampeter. It will support transport, leisure facilities and threatened local services.
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