North Wales councils launch multi-million pound Growth Bid for the region
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Apologies for my ignorance but what money is being bid for here, and what exactly would the money be spent on, if successful? The article is quite confusing.
North Wales councils launch multi-million pound Growth Bid for the region
It sounds like we are bidding for £383m of funding, which is a pretty large sum – just wondering what it would be spent on in practice.
At first I thought maybe transport infrastructure but later in the article it say ” We will continue to press for improved transport links outside of the Growth Bid” and mentions the North Wales underground Metro system.
What do we want to grow — unemployment in Wrexham and Flintshire is now almost at the lowest they have been for 20 years. Business are coming to invest in the area
Better paid jobs is a plus but you then need the workers who are prepared to do the lower paid less skilled as they are still needed.It looks like one of the only ways that this level of investment will work will be if there a mass influx of new workers to fill the many 1000’s of jobs this bid is supposed to create- do we have the housing and infrastructure – probably not – does the bid cover housing NO.
I appreciate the above would be the view for Wrexham and Flintshire but further west they have the huge Wylfa B development that will create a massive workforce with most of the workers coming from abroad as the area does not have people with the right skills and experience.
Business investment in job creation when there is already a shortage of skilled workers will only create a larger and larger Englan vs Wales workforce.
You only need to look at the building of HMP Berwyn in Wrexham — they were to draw on a local (ie 50 mile radius) for workers but had to extend to 70 miles as there were insufficient in the area.
Surely it’s an absolute given that a non-localised workforce come and work on short-term infrastructure projects. It’s the nature of the gig worldwide. That’s how the likes of the UAE and Qatar have managed to expand their infrastructures so rapidly, by advertising and attracting people who can do the construction and engineering jobs from the world over.
I don’t think it matters where people come to help develop North Wales if the net benefit is that it improves the area. The infrastructure improvements will attract even more businesses to the area and more housing. This mix will mean an increase of higher skilled and lower skilled paying jobs.
Wrexham’s strategic position means that we should be looking for improvements with open arms because anything has to be better than the current decay. After this winter the vast majority of roads that haven’t been resurfaced this year are pothole battered. The town centre still needs transforming and the drug problem is still spiralling.
With the increase in financial firms and the Welsh Development Bank setting up shop here, as well as continued expansion of the industrial estate – we can only look forward and positively that fortunes could be changing for the whole town.
This proposal will not see roads tarmacked and town centre improvements as these items don’t fall within this project
[quote quote=142978]This proposal will not see roads tarmacked and town centre improvements as these items don’t fall within this project[/quote]
Wasn’t implying that were the case – I meant that things are pretty glum at the moment and these are glaring examples. By the laws of trickle down economics (if it ever really works) if more prosperity is brought to North Wales big picture then Wrexham as a town will see some of that prosperity filter into the town indirectly.
Things have to be done so that Wrexham and the North of the country become economically important enough so that we are not continously ignored.
You look over the border to Crewe which is not much bigger than Wrexham and has also become run down, there’s talks of hundreds of millions being pumped into the town centre to regenerate it, due to its locational strategic importance. It’s fortunate enough to be in affluent Cheshire.
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