IT’S BEEN about eight months since Labour regained control of Merthyr Tydfil council for the first time since 2017.
Following a by-election in Bedlinog and Trelewis, the previous independent administration came to an end and Councillor Brent Carter of Labour became leader.
A councillor for the Plymouth ward since 2008, Cllr Carter has spoken to the Local Democracy Reporting Service about topics such as the winter fuel allowance, the rise of Reform, the council’s priorities for the town and his pride in leading the council in the place he was born and bred.
Reflecting on his new role, he said: “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the last eight or nine months. It’s been a challenging experience, very, very challenging, but something I really, really enjoyed.
“Since becoming leader, I wanted to make a difference. For me, that’s what it’s all about. Making a difference to the people of Merthyr Tydfil and our communities and making it a better place for them to work, live and enjoy being in and spend the rest of their lives in.
“It’s trying to enrich them and that’s for me, what it’s always been about.
“I’ve been a councillor since 2008 and it’s the want to do things to make things better for everybody out there so for me, that was the whole part about it.”
He added: “We’ve had quite a lot of curve balls thrown at us with the storms, we had Storm Bert and Storm Dara, which resulted in the not sinkhole in Pant.
“I’m saying not sinkhole because everybody seemed to call it a sinkhole but it was a collapsed culvert…
“We’ve experienced rainfall which we’ve never experienced previously, so there’s loads of different challenges coming through that, as well as the financial challenges.
“Money’s tight everywhere, we’re still in a cost-of-living crisis. Food has gone up, everything has gone up, wages have gone up slightly. So we’re still there, but you know, we seem to be coming through the other side.
“We had our engagement throughout the council tax and we went through everything. We wanted to talk about what we needed to safeguard, prioritise et cetera, that went very well.
“We tried to keep council tax to a minimum. So yeah, there’s lots of different challenges floating on the outside, but I want to make other things make a difference as well.”
He mentioned the festival coming to Penderyn Square on Saturday, June 28, which at the time of writing had only 100 tickets left available at £20 plus a small booking fee, which he said was great value for money.
He said events like this are about building a feel-good factor about the town again. He highlighted Trago, the leisure park, bowling, cinema and places to eat, as well as Bike Park Wales, which attracts visitors from all over the world.
He said: “Merthyr is an amazing place to be, and I’m really proud to be part of it and proud to be making a difference to actually what’s going on in the future and long may that continue… there’s loads of exciting projects that are going to happen in Merthyr Tydfil.”
Speaking about his council’s priorities, Cllr Carter said education is one of them, saying: “It was something we were keen to ensure is at the forefront of everything we do as a lead administration.
“We took the decision during the budget round consultations that we weren’t going to touch education. So we left it because that was a priority for us.
“We see then that children’s learning has a massive benefit for everybody in Merthyr Tydfil, whether they go on to college, university, they go away to study, they go away to work, they come back or they actually use their learning and work in Merthyr Tydfil. And we think that’s vitally vitally important. So that was our biggest priority.”
He said another thing they looked at was safer, cleaner streets, working in conjunction with the police and other agencies to make Merthyr a safe place for people to visit and enjoy.
Cllr Carter said: “What I’ve harped on about since day one is we’ve got to do something different. We’ve got to do things different in the town centre. We all know, Merthyr’s not on his own.
“People will say and complain and moan about the town centre and what shops are here and what not here, and quite rightly so.”
But he said everyone has a part to play in giving the town centre a boost as shopping habits have changed over the years.
He said: “We shop online. What used to bring us into the town centre previously, you come and do your banking, we don’t do that any more. We do it online.
“We’ve all played a part in this and we’ve obviously got out of town retail outlets as well, which haven’t helped. So I’m acutely aware, we’ve got to do something different.
“We’re bringing the market down from upstairs to downstairs. That’ll be open before Christmas.
“There’s a town centre masterplan, which is going to be coming online as well, where we need to do something different in the town centre to attract different people in.”
He added: “We’ve got everything on our doorstep. We’ve got the Beacons there, as I said, we’ve got Bike Park Wales.
“We’ve got the climbing centre, we’ve got the zip wire, we’re in the centre of everything.”
The leader also mentioned the Metro system and the Heads of the Valleys road, which he said is “amazing” now it’s finished.
“So we’ve got it all, we’ve got the transport links now coming forward,” he said. “Everything is here, it’s ready, geared ready to push forward. So I’m really excited for the future of Merthyr Tydfil.”
Turning to the rise of Reform, he said: “They seem to be able to say what they want and get away with saying what they want without any consequence or any meaning to it.
“It’s easy to jump on board and say, we’ll stop immigration, we’ll do this and we’ll do that. Obviously it’s easier said than done.
“But people seem to be jumping on the bandwagon and seeing ‘oh they’re going to do this and they’re going to do that’. But underneath, do Reform really want us to have a free NHS, et cetera, going forward?”
“I think people can see a lot of these things and they jump onto it without realising the full consequences. And I think it’s very, very similar to what we did with the EU.
“You know, you look at Merthyr Tydfil. Merthyr Tydfil was built on immigration. It was, people come from all over the world to work here.
“European money paid for a vast amount of the regeneration in Merthyr Tydfil, paid for the road network across the Heads of the Valleys.
“We don’t realise that, and I don’t think we sang enough about it. You know, we’ve seen the signs go up across the roads built by European funding et cetera but you don’t quite realise it and it just gets swept along.
“So it is a worry. I do hope people will see through it come the 2026 Senedd elections and the 2027 local elections as well and see Reform for what they are really. hey’re just jumping on the bandwagon, very similar to what Ukip did a few years ago.”
On the cost of living, Cllr Carter said: “It has affected us all. And it is obviously it is a national issue and, you know, the Labour government have had to make some really difficult decisions during the first year.
“Whether we all agree with them or not, you know, I’m quite quite open and I think a lot of people agree that the winter fuel was an own goal. We shouldn’t have done it.
“We should have looked at things differently, perhaps looked at an approach where it was staged, you looked at what people were earning, et cetera.
“However, I get they got to save money as well. So we are in really difficult times and what we’re looking at as a local authority is we try to point people in the right direction, where we can help them.
“We’ve got a hub in the town centre, where we have different surgeries and advice centres of various different topics throughout the week and we’ve done that for months.”
He said if people need support or guidance, they can go to the hub for advice on benefits and savings, and support on dementia and Alzheimer’s, which he said is a key focus this week in the town centre.
Speaking about what it means to be the council leader, he said: “It means everything to me, it really, really does. I’m so passionate about this town. I was born and bred here. Didn’t want to move anywhere else. I love living here.
“I’m proud and I feel absolutely privileged to be the leader of this authority, and to be making a difference. And that’s what it’s all about is to do that thing to make a difference to people’s lives out there.
“Some may see things differently to others, but I can guarantee to everybody out there that I will move heaven and earth to make sure their lives are as good as they possibly can in Merthyr Tydfil.
“So for me, it’s a passion of mine and yeah, I’m privileged and absolutely honoured to be the leader of this authority.”
Moving on to the importance of engaging with residents, Cllr Carter said: “I think for me, when I took over, I think one of my first speeches in the chamber was about being open, transparent and honest and engaging with the community. We’ve got to, we’ve got to be in a position to do that. We’ve got an excellent corporate comms team here, which we use to the best we possibly can.
“We’ve got staff here who’ve worked for the authority for quite a long time. The majority of staff are local staff, you know, so for us, that element is vitally vitally important because they can go out and they can sell Merthyr Tydfil, they can sell the authority as well, the things we do well and listen to what people say out there and bring it back in and feed back into us so we can look to improve services, et cetera, going forward.”
He also mentioned they’ve introduced a weekly update for residents in terms of what he has done the previous week and what is coming up.
Cllr Carter said: “That engagement process is vital for us to continue and grow as an authority, because, you know, we are one of the smallest authorities, but we are punching above our weight.
“You know, you look at everything, we’ve got in Merthyr Tydfil compared to other areas. It’s fantastic…
“I work full time as well, but my commitment to this role is right to the very top could be. I’m here every single day of the week. I’m walking the corridors, my door is open, people come in to see me.
“And I think it’s vitally important I’ve got that presence as well. I’m approachable, if people want me, they can come in.
“And I’m lucky in the fact that we’ve built up an excellent working relationship with key officers, with the senior leadership team, with the communications team, because without those, you know, I couldn’t function and do my role.
“So you know, building relationships internally has been vitally important to the successful transition which I’m doing as well.”
