Town council to say farewell to its clerk after decade
PORTHCAWL Town Council’s clerk is leaving the role after 10 years.
Over the last decade Alison Thomas has seen the town council take on a significant expansion of its duties as Bridgend County Borough Council continues to make cuts to services.
Among other areas the town council has taken on the Grade II listed public toilets in John Street and is building a new public toilets at Griffin Park.
It has also just signed a one-year licence for the Griffin Park health and wellbeing centre.
Town council mayor Graham Walter said: “We are really sorry to see Alison go – she’s been absolutely outstanding for us.
“She’s professional, she’s shown enormous resilience when we’ve had difficulties, and she deals with councillors tactfully.
“She’s completely apolitical as you would expect.
“As local authorities’ finances have got more and more challenging our town council has needed to move from being a relatively small town council, with fairly limited aspirations, into something that has had to grow quite significantly in terms of its financial responsibility and staffing responsibility.”
Over the last decade Ms Thomas, who is also the financial officer for the town council, has worked under three different councils, having had two elections since being in post.
She said: “Getting used to the way a new council works is sometimes quite a challenge. I did my best to remain apolitical and really get the most of that town council.
“It wasn’t a bad challenge – it was something I enjoyed doing.”
Her highlights have involved working with local organisations and seeing the benefit the town council was able to offer them.
She said: “The town council was able to help with funding the refurbishment of the Y Centre and Porthcawl Museum and it’s been great seeing those organisations develop.
“Being a part of that and working with all the local organisations who want the best for Porthcawl has been a highlight for me.”
Ms Thomas is taking on a new role as the clerk at Glynneath Town Council.