Llanwern is an electoral district (ward) and smaller community (parish) in the urban-rural fringe of the City of Newport.
The ward is bounded the M4 and Langstone ward to the north, Ringland, Liswerry and the River Usk to the west, the River Severn to the south and the city boundary to the east.
Llanwern House was the home of Lord Rhondda of Llanwern (David Alfred Thomas) who was Food Controller during the First World War. It was demolished in the 1950s, although the site, on a hill overlooking the church, is still visible and the park intact. D. A. Thomas is buried in the graveyard of the tiny church.
The ward is home to Llanwern Steelworks — although steel making ceased in 2001, there is still a sizable rolling mill and steel coating operation based there. The redundant part of the works is set to be transformed into a residential development in coming years.
The Mittal Affair: "Cash for Influence" Controversy erupted in 2002 as Plaid MP Adam Price exposed the link between U.K. prime minister Tony Blair and steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal in the Mittal Affair, also known as 'Garbagegate' or Cash for Infuence. Mittal's LNM steel company, registered in the Dutch Antilles and maintaining less than 1% of its 100,000 plus workforce in the U.K., sought Blair's aid in its bid to purchase Romania's state steel industry. The letter from Blair to the Romanian government, a copy of which Price was able to obtain, hinted that the privatisation of the firm and sale to Mittal might help smooth the way for Romania's entry into the European Union.
The letter had a passage in it removed just prior to Blair's signing of it, describing Mittal as "a friend."
In exchange for Blair's support Mittal, already a Labour contributor, donated £125,000 more to Labour party funds a week after the 2001 U.K. General Elections, while as many as six-thousand of Welsh steelworkers were laid off that same year, Price and others pointed out. Mittal's company, then the fourth largest in the world, was a "major global competitor of Britain's own struggling steel industry, Corus, formerly known as British Steel." Corus and Valkia Limited were two of the primary employers in South Wales, particularly in Ebbw Vale, Llanwern, and Port Talbot..
The Llanwern ward contains the parishes of Bishton, Goldcliff and Redwick, as well as the parish of Llanwern (population 333) . The parish itself contains Llanwern village and the western half of the steelworks.
The area has a football team, Llanwern AFC.
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