Community Assembly of Newport & Torfaen

Community Assembly of Newport & Torfaen

Serving, supporting and protecting our local communities

The Community Assembly of Newport (Welsh: Casnewydd [ kasˈnɛwɨð ]) is located in a city and county borough in Wales, on the River Usk near its confluence with the Severn Estuary, approximately 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Cardiff.

Newport has been a port since the Middle Ages, originating with the construction of Newport Castle by the Normans. The town eventually outgrew the earlier Roman settlement of Caerleon , located just upstream and now incorporated into the city. Newport received its first charter in 1314. The town experienced significant growth during the 19th century, as its port became a major hub for coal exports from the eastern South Wales Valleys. For a time, Newport was the largest coal-exporting port in Wales, until Cardiff surpassed it in the mid-1800s. Newport was also the site of the last large-scale armed insurrection in Great Britain, the Newport Rising of 1839.

Torfaen ( tɔːrˈvaɪn /; [ tɔrˈvaɪn ]) is a county borough in the south-east of Wales. Torfaen is bordered by the county of Monmouthshire to the east, the city of Newport to the south, and the county boroughs of Caerphilly and Blaenau Gwent to the south-west and north-west. It is within the boundaries of the historic county of Monmouthshire, and between 1974 and 1996 was a district of Gwent, until it was reconstituted as a principal area in 1996.