Welcome to my first regular column for the South Wales Argus.

I’m really grateful for the opportunity to engage with local people and I’m looking forward to sharing some insights into the work the council is doing to support residents as we continue to navigate our way out of the pandemic, deliver essential services and improve the life chances of the people of Monmouthshire and south east Wales.

I was elected leader of Monmouthshire County Council a few weeks ago, taking over from Peter Fox – an inspiring man who has dedicated the last 25 years of his life to public service.

I’ve appointed a new cabinet, which is a perfect blend of experienced councillors and high calibre younger members, who all share a commitment to do the best we can for the county that we all call home.

My team and I are united by a sense of urgency to get things done. We want to do more to support our county’s recovery from the pandemic and continue investing in new schools.

Ensuring our businesses flourish remains one of our top priorities.

Our ‘Faces of Monmouthshire’ campaign aims to promote the wide range of businesses across the county and the people behind them. Shopping locally is more important than ever and I really hope our residents will support our campaign and help our town centres this summer.

We also want to make sure our most vulnerable residents have the support they need.

Our army of home carers sit at the heart of making that happen and we are currently looking for kind and caring people to join that team to deliver home care across the county. I would encourage anyone who thinks they could offer this caring role to please get in touch with the team by visiting monmouthshire.gov.uk/socialcarejobs

Elected representatives can’t work in isolation.

We’re building up a constructive working relationship with our MPs, MSs and are keen to work across political divides to benefit our communities.

We’ve already been working closely with councillors, MPs and MS’s of all parties in developing our bids to the UK government’s Levelling Up Fund – this is a great opportunity to bid for funding of up to £20m for major redevelopment projects, which in our case centre around Monmouth and Caldicot.

I look forward to engaging with readers in the weeks and months ahead and look forward to reading views from residents about how we can work together to make Monmouthshire an even better place to live.