Town Centre Forum, Steering Group, Wrexham Business Group, WBG CIC, Nightsafe
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Posts
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I’m sorry but until the business of Wrexham get their act together and unite as one entity for the greater good of the town a BID will never happen. The many factions and personalities involved in Town Centre politics is a disaster waiting to happen. There are at least 5 different groups all supposedly to support the Tien Centre – different people popping up at each and probably less than 10% of business represented from them all.
Surely if a BID has any chance of being established a united single representative body needs to be formed- Wrexham id far too small for factions of this nature to co-exist and time and effort will be wasted trying to wade through all the personality issues and baggage that some business owners carry.
There have been so many plans put forward from external consultants that a whole shelf would be needed in the library- the failure of the BID in 2013 was the requisite % of business could not agree – trade was getting bad then but 6 years on and to expect smaller retailers in particular to dig into their cash registers to pay a % into the pot is dreamland.
It is very rare that you see any of the multi nationals at any of these meetings which indicates what level of commitment they have for the town- it is good to see new shops opening but the current rate stills seems to be 2: over the past six months – for everyone opening two have closed. Last week there were 8 shops in the town centre with either closing down, final sale or similar signage and only three appearing to be refurbished- three recent ones are the sweet shop in Trinity Street and Henblas Street and the bath shop on the corner of Abbot Street. Two of the Polish shop owners are on the verge of closing and going back to Poland. If we had not had an influx of barbers, ladies hairdressers and beauty salons in the past 2 years at least another 12 shops would be empty.
Perhaps some of the investment the Council are putting into subsidise Ty Pawb should be used for braider town development and promotion-(interestingly do a Google search on Wrexham with the exception of Wrexham.com and Council sites none of the other supposed promotional sites appears on the first two pages- over the past couple of years a number have been launched yet none have visibility as a source of town information).
Perhaps part of the answer is to give palliative care to parts of the town- let it die off and convert to housing or other use and concentrate on a much smaller space – why not even get the Council to purchase more shops (they have in other towns) so that a more collective approach can be made rather than have 100+ absent landlords with no interest in the town.
Come on retailers and businesses lets see if you can all come together and tackle these issues as a united force-
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