Minutes

Councillor Bright asked:

My ward colleague, Cllr Hourihane and I have regularly visited the Warm Hub at St Julian’s Methodist Church and have been heartened by the commitment of volunteers. It is clear that this has been a successful initiative. What level of public engagement has there been with the network of warm hubs that Newport City council has supported across the city and would the Cabinet member view this as a successful initiative?

Councillor D Harvey responded:

Warm Spaces provided by the local community and the council have been in place across the winter. There are currently 19 warm spaces in operation across the city with a further 3 in development. The council worked in partnership with Gavo to administer £44K funding to support community organisations deliver Warm Spaces. By the end of January £19K has been utilised which is supporting 10 warm spaces and based on currently demand Gavo are hopeful the full allocation will be used. Footfall data is being collated for February’s reporting cycle. Overall, we feel that the initiative has been a success but, as with any other new initiative, there are learning points. Feedback from users suggests that warm spaces work best where they are integrated into and expand existing provision rather than standalone offers. We will be reviewing the learning from the project in the spring and working with the Council’s Cost of Living Task group to roll out provision which takes this learning into account next winter. At this stage it is unclear whether funding will be available to support this work.