The former chair of a Carmarthenshire village has described six ways that life has improved for the local community.
Carey Thomas was acting chair for Llandybie Community Council between 2023 and 2024.
She focused on health and wellbeing, accessibility, maintaining services, improving green credentials, supporting key community groups, improving play areas, and supporting the community as a whole.
In a letter, Carey addressed every element of her leadership and highlighted the six following ways in which she feels like she has made a difference.
Health and wellbeing
She wrote: "The maintenance work to over 90 of our rights of way footpaths in conjunction with Carmarthenshire County Council has meant that access to stunning countryside was kept.
"To compliment our vision of health and wellbeing we installed open air gym facilities so that all of our community have access to fitness equipment.
"This was made possible by a mix of our community improvement budget and section 106 grant monies that allowed us to upgrade the Multi Use Games Area and install a bouncy mini trampoline facility."
"Within the improvements to our 11 parks in the ward, we installed access gates at both Penygroes and Llandybie Parks. This includes a picnic area and accessibility ramp installed at the latter.
"The bouncy mini-trampoline is also accessible to those with varying abilities."
Maintaining services
"Public conveniences at Llandybie and Penygroes have remained open with a programme of annual maintenance continuing to ensure that our stock remains in good order."
Improving our green credentials
"We have implemented a digital banking policy, a paperless office and paperless meeting policy.
"We were resolute in our work to limit the use of paper and support our environment along with the creation of environmental policies."
Supporting our key community groups
"It was with great personal satisfaction that I chaired our finance committees.
"In that role, we have overseen them award much needed community grants to support the work of volunteers and groups that provide key services and facilities as a lifeblood to our communities.
"Our presentation evenings at Saron and Penygroes saw us celebrate and support those groups."
Parks and play areas in our community
"We continued to provide safe and inclusive play areas for both health and social interaction for our young people across 11 parks and continued to invest in improving facilities to a high standard.
"We recently approved the upgrade of swings at Spien Road and Gors Ddu in Penygroes and have started a regeneration project at Capel Hendre Park.
"This comes with the support of our local primary schools, the county council and local residents."
Carey added: “It has been both an interesting and rewarding experience having gone through the learning curve of the procedural and statutory side of being a chair of a community council.
"I have had the privilege of meeting some hard-working champions within our communities.
“The work of the council has seen some positive achievements for the people of our communities.
“I would also like to thank the clerk and the administrative officer for their hard work and diligence.
“Lastly, I wish the new chair my best wishes and will offer support in the familiarisation process when they take over after our statutory meeting in May.”
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