A big thank you to the voters of Griffithstown and Sebastopol for their support in the recent elections.

I love being part of our community, and I’ll continue to work hard to repay your trust in me. I’m also grateful to councillors across Torfaen for re-electing me as council leader at the AGM last week.

As I told the council, this is not a time for celebration, it’s a time for getting on with the job at hand. As soon as the results were in, my mind went into overdrive thinking of the challenges that await us over the next five years.

The cost of living crisis is having a real impact on peoples’ lives, with costs rising and budgets being squeezed. We need to play our part in helping people through these tough times. Already, council staff have processed over 30,000 cost of living payments for local households, and we’re working on our discretionary scheme to help those in need. More needs to be done, but as a council we will not walk on by as people get pushed into poverty.

There are other challenges we can’t lose sight of. The need to live more sustainably for the sake of our planet and generations to come. We must take a lead as a council, cutting our carbon emissions and working more sustainably wherever possible.

The past two years have shown more than ever the need to work to tackle health inequalities and help people become more active. We must value our fantastic local environment as a way of encouraging people to get active outdoors. We have fantastic natural assets to make the most of – our canal, our mountains, our parks, green areas and riversides. We also need to work alongside partners like Torfaen Leisure Trust to invest in facilities for sports and leisure activities.

We need to work hard to ensure every young person gets the best possible start in life, with schools to be proud of as well as more and better jobs closer to home and housing that addresses the huge shortage of genuinely affordable options for people locally.

Social care is also a massive challenge – how do we look after an ageing population, giving people independent, fulfilling lives whilst also addressing the current unsustainable model of delivery across the country, which doesn’t work for care workers or recipients?

So in Torfaen as elsewhere, the challenges are huge. What unites them all is the need to work together with our communities – they simply won’t be solved by public services alone. We need to work with people, not do things to them.

Nothing will be resolved by politicians with big egos and three-word slogans stamping their feet or shouting at people. We’ll need imagination, innovation, co-operation and perspiration. But if we work together, we can build a better future.