Mawr is both an electoral ward and a community

Community council

A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain.In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies...

 of the City and County of Swansea

Swansea

Swansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...

, in south Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, U.K. Mawr has its own elected community council

Community council

A community council is a public representative body in Great Britain.In England they may be statutory parish councils by another name, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, or they may be non-statutory bodies...

.

Mawr falls within in the parliamentary constituency of Gower

Gower (UK Parliament constituency)

Gower is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament , using the first-past-the-post voting system....

. It is bounded by the wards of Pontarddulais

Pontarddulais (electoral ward)

Pontarddulais is a name of an electoral ward and parish of the City and County of Swansea, south Wales. The parish of Pontarddulais has its own elected town council....

 to the west; Llangyfelach

Llangyfelach (electoral ward)

Llangyfelach is the name of an electoral ward, a community in the county of Swansea, Wales, UK. The community has its own elected community council....

 and Morriston

Morriston (electoral ward)

Morriston is an electoral ward in Swansea, Wales. Morriston is one of two five member wards in the City and County of Swansea local authority area...

 to the south; Clydach

Clydach (electoral ward)

Clydach is the name of an electoral ward, a community and a town in the City and County of Swansea, Wales, UK. The town has its own elected community council serving the community....

 to the southeast; Pontardawe

Pontardawe

Pontardawe is a town of some 5,000 inhabitants in the Swansea Valley in south Wales...

 of Neath Port Talbot

Neath Port Talbot

Neath Port Talbot is a county borough and one of the unitary authority areas of Wales. Neath Port Talbot is the 8th most populous county in Wales and the third most populous county borough....

 to the northeast; Betws

Betws

Betws is a small village on the River Amman, some 15 miles north of Swansea, Wales; it is part of the ecclesiastical parish of Betws and Ammanford...

 to the north and Tycroes

Tycroes

Tycroes is a village in Carmarthenshire, Wales. As measured in the 2001 Census, the population of Tycroes was 2,156 persons . Tycroes School has around 180 pupils....

 to the north west. For the purposes of local elections it is broken down into three polling districts: Garnswllt, Craigcefnparc and Felindre. Mawr returns one councillor to the City and County of Swansea council. It is currently represented by Ioan Richard (Independent

Independent (politician)

In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...

).

Mawr consists of some or all of the following villages: Felindre

Felindre

Felindre is a rural village in south Wales. The village can be found in the far north of Swansea, in the electoral ward of Mawr.The nearby Lower Lliw Reservoirs are a popular venue for walking and fishing. The water mill in the village was working until the late 1960s, there was also an abbatoir...

, Craigcefnparc

Craig Cefn Parc

Craig Cefn Parc is a village near the town of Clydach, south Wales. It falls within the Mawr ward of Swansea. The name means "park ridge rock". Cwm Clydach RSPB nature reserve is located at the south of the village, near the New Inn, at the boundary between Craig Cefn Parc and Clydach...

, Garnswllt

Garnswllt

Garnswllt is a rural village in Swansea, Wales falling within the Mawr ward. It lies in the far north of Swansea near the border with Carmarthenshire....

, Rhydypandy and rural uplands of Mawr. The area of the ward is one of the most sparsely populated in Swansea but it has the highest proportion of Welsh language

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

speakers. Mawr is the second largest ward in Swansea by land area. Most of the ward comprises rural farmland and open moorland.

2008 local council elections

In the 2008 local council elections, the voter turnout for Mawr was 48.64%. The results were:

Candidate	Party	Votes	Status
Ioan Richard	The People's Representative	450	The People's Representative hold
Linda Mary Frame	Plaid Cymru	156
Howard Owen Griffiths	Labour	65
Andrew Patrick Sivertsen	Conservatives	56

Lliw Reservoirs country park

There are two man made reservoirs near the village of Felindre, in the Lliw valley called the Lower Lliw Reservoir and the Upper Lliw reservoir. The reservoirs are managed by Welsh Water. The countryside around the reservoir is open to the public for recreational purposes.

The Lower Lliw Reservoir (or Felindre Reservoir) was originally opened in 1863 to provide water for Swansea and the surrounding area costing £160,000 to create. The Upper Lliw Reservoir opened in 1892 and cost £116,000 to build.http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/GLA/Swansea/Timeline.html Subsequently the Lower Lliw Reservoir was reconstructed between 1976-78 with inclusion of new rockfill dam, new overflow spillway and new pumping station.