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Cover Wales

New homes going up in Llanwern, Newport, with foundation piles marking plots still to be built. Photo: Alan Hughes, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph (geograph.org.uk/photo/7883867) and Wikimedia Commons

Planning

Newport's new plan asks for 431 fewer homes than the last one, and the first four years of it ran 39 a year short of even that

Newport City Council's replacement local development plan, the document that will set where homes, jobs and green space go in the city to 2036 once it is adopted, had its first committee consideration as a full draft at the Performance Scrutiny Committee on Monday 7 September, three days after the council announced it had reached the deposit stage. Cabinet and full council must both agree before the consultation the council intends to open in October, and the next scheduled meetings are 15 and 29 September. Over the plan's first four years the council's own figures put completions behind even the lower target, though its latest published year beat it.

Tue 8 Sept, 07:40

Today / tonight

19:45Cardiff City v Stoke CityCardiff City StadiumSky Sports+
19:45Southampton v Swansea CitySt Mary's StadiumSky Sports+
19:45Wrexham v BurnleyRacecourse GroundSky Sports+

Crime

A second person is jailed under Operation Krypton in Newport. Gwent Police have printed the same 200-arrest total three times in four days

Mohammed Salam, 38, has been jailed for 18 months for two commercial burglaries, a shop theft and a fraud. He appeared before Newport magistrates on Friday 4 September and is the second person Gwent Police count as sentenced under the operation. The force has given the same 200 arrest count in three releases across four days, a tally of arrests rather than of charges or convictions.

Crime

Six people are jailed for a total of 31 years and 10 months after Operation Eagle, the South Wales Police investigation into vehicle theft and drug supply in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot

South Wales Police says eight people have been sentenced after an investigation into drug supply, organised vehicle theft and related fraud in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot. Six were jailed for terms totalling 31 years and 10 months, and two sentences were suspended. Vehicle theft is one of the offences Swansea most rarely charges anyone for: 3.3 per cent of the cases police closed in the year to July.

Recorded crime

Welsh police recorded 31,031 crimes in July, the highest July since at least 2020

These are crimes police wrote down, not crimes committed. The count rose 16 per cent from June, where the five earlier June to July moves in the archive ran from 0.3 per cent to 6.7. Violence and sexual offences, anti-social behaviour and public order carry three quarters of the rise on last July. Dyfed-Powys Police is the one force of four that did not rise, four crimes down on last July.

Council finance · Conwy council may be £25.7m short in 2027/28, on an estimate written before the Welsh Government says what it will pay

Cover WalesTuesday, 8 September 2026 · 1

The Nation

The Cover

Senedd

The Senedd's biggest open petition carries more English signatures than Welsh ones

The Senedd is the Welsh parliament, and its Petitions Committee weighs what proportion of the names on a petition come from within Wales when it decides whether to ask for a debate. Across the four largest open petitions that proportion ran from 24.8 per cent to 95.4 per cent on Monday morning, and the most Welsh of the four closes on 18 September.

Mon 7 Sept, 07:33

Schools

Caerphilly wants to split its only Welsh-language secondary in two. Its own report says that would not clear the school's £2.717m

Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni, the only Welsh-medium secondary school serving Caerphilly County Borough in the south Wales valleys, runs across two sites seven miles apart. Its deficit balance stood at £2.717m at the end of 2025/26, and the council's report says that accumulated sum cannot be recovered inside five years even though it expects two separate schools to run within budget. Caerphilly's scrutiny committee is asked on Tuesday 8 September to endorse consulting on the split.

NHS

Wales sets out how it will spend £145m more on the NHS this year, with no date for ending two-year waits

The Welsh Government announced the money on 17 June and set out on Thursday how it will be used: £100m of revenue to cut waiting times, plus £45m of capital for surgical and diagnostic hubs and for repairs. It gives no date for ending two-year waits.

Social care

2,927 referrals for adults at risk of abuse or neglect in Wales in July, the most since the count began

Referrals rose in 17 of the 22 Welsh councils on the month. Neath Port Talbot more than doubled on the year, 117 to 236. Flintshire went the other way, 254 to 123.

Data protection

A Natural Resources Wales spreadsheet that may have listed staff ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation was published by mistake, and NRW has reported itself to the regulator

NRW is the arm's length statutory body behind flood warnings, forests, fisheries and river pollution checks in Wales. Its notice of 4 September says a spreadsheet of employee diversity records was disclosed by mistake and taken down from a website, covering people it employed between April 2013 and March 2018. NRW has published no figure for how many that is. Anyone who thinks they may be affected and has had no letter can email peopledata@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk, NRW's Welsh-language address.

The NationTuesday, 8 September 2026 · 3

Cardiff

The Cover

Crime

Car thief who took two cars in nineteen days of July is jailed for a year and nine months

Two cars and two shops between 8 and 27 July brought Liam McDonald a 91-week sentence, a year and nine months, at Cardiff Crown Court on 4 September, and a three-year driving ban. Within a mile of the city centre, 1,006 of the 1,097 vehicle crime cases South Wales Police closed in the year to July ended with nobody identified at all.

Sun 6 Sept, 00:22

CardiffTuesday, 8 September 2026 · 5

News

The Cover

The A40 south of Bwlch, Powys, the road closed between Cefn Brynich and Tretower. Photo: Jaggery, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph (geograph.org.uk/photo/6129358) and Wikimedia Commons

Roads

The A40 is open again at Bwlch, after a crash shut it on Saturday afternoon between Brecon and Crickhowell

Traffic Wales had the trunk road closed in both directions at Bwlch, in Powys in mid Wales, from Saturday afternoon until some time overnight. Another stretch of the A40, at Monmouth, closes overnight from tonight until 10 September for resurfacing.

Sat 5 Sept, 20:45

NewsTuesday, 8 September 2026 · 7

Sport

The Cover

Newport County

Newport County owed its directors £1,175,000. A year earlier it was £280,000

The money Newport County owes to company directors rose by £895,000 in the year to 30 June 2025, almost exactly the £915,007 by which the club's net liabilities widened. The going concern note says the company is reliant on the director's continuing support. Cash at the year end was £27,262.

Tue 8 Sept, 10:26

Football

Wrexham

Wrexham hire Newcastle's Steve Nickson as a first sporting director, at the one Welsh club whose wage bill still fits inside its income

Steve Nickson takes scouting, football administration, sports medical and performance and the academy at the only one of the three Welsh clubs Cover has read whose staff bill still sits inside its income. Wrexham got there fast: 41 pence of every pound of income one year, 60 the next.

Kick off

Glamorgan Women host Kent Women at Sophia Gardens on 13 September, one win from a final, and entry is free

A 10-wicket defeat at Middlesex Women on Sunday 6 September cost Glamorgan Women first place in League 2 but not the home tie, because second place hosts third. Play starts at 10:30 and entry is free. You can just turn up; booking a ticket in advance costs £1 in fees.

Championship

Swansea City 0-0 Wrexham: the leaders held at home as Wrexham have the better of the chances

For all that Swansea City sit top of the Championship, Wrexham got into the better positions at the Swansea.com Stadium: eight shots to six, and six of Wrexham's inside the box against three, though only one of the eight was on target. Wrexham's clean sheet was a second in three days on the road, after Wednesday's win at Millwall.

SportTuesday, 8 September 2026 · 9

The back page

The Cover

Welsh person of the week

Jan Morris

1926–2020 · born Somerset, lived Llanystumdwy

Wrote the British Empire, Everest and Venice, then Wales, plainly, as home. Transitioned in 1972 and kept filing.

Welsh word of the day

Llais

hlice

Voice. A singer’s, a valley’s, a paper’s.

Cover Wales

Independent Welsh news, filed from primary sources and checked before it goes out.

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The back pageTuesday, 8 September 2026 · 11