NEWPORT councillor David Hando was last night on the mend after having heart surgery at Cardiff's University Hospital of Wales.

Cllr Hando, 73, the cabinet member for social services and housing, had gone into hospital for a routine gallbladder operation which he had been waiting for since last September, said wife Mary yesterday.

But tests had discovered a blockage in one of the arteries to his heart and surgeons this week had to insert three stents, a device to keep the artery open and let blood flow to the heart.

Mrs Hando said: "He was so excited to finally be getting the operation he had been waiting for since September, and it was lucky that they discovered the problem with his artery while he was there, rather than him having collapsed elsewhere.

"They put three stents in his artery and he is doing well now."

Cllr Hando, who represents Beechwood and is the honourary president of Newport County and chairman of the Friends of the Transporter Bridge, had been in intensive care at the hospital on Wednesday night after the heart operation, but has been recovering well and is due to be released from hospital today and return to his Newport home.