Town Centre Improvements
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Posts
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All for this which makes Wrexham more attractive and increases in modern parlance footfall to the town. However, my concern is the supervision and accounting of the council’s financial affairs at a time when they are proposing cuts in essential services due to lack of funding. They now find that this section of the council has a surplus in it’s accounts of £270,000 plus £150,000 which was allocated in 2017.
Now one must ask how was this amount over looked in the councils audit plus then the problem was compounded by this department being allocated a further £150,00 which it would appear did not require as the finances were all ready in place to meet aims / goals
Certainly in my opinion the financial accounts of the various council departments should be re-audited because it would appear that there may be a considerable amount of money within the various council departments which has not been taken into account / over looked when the council have decided their allocation of funding and where cuts must be made.It’s crystal clear – the Double Indy Group / Tory coalition has very little interest in funding any social initiatives across the county – nothing of a community or human element holds any interest to them whatsoever – unless of course they can exploit various sub-groups and charge or fine them.
If Wrexham was a nation state I would like to liken it to a failed capitalist state but the bottom line is that it’s more like a failed Eastern Bloc state.
An Executive Board with a perverse penchant for trivial improvements or white elephants that nobody really cares for. You only need to look at the obscene levels of rate payers money wasted on pathetic things like upgraded Christmas lights, non-functioning Wi-Fi systems, Ty Clucking Pawb (rate-payer contribution) and now spending a fortune on bloody street lights and some shit bins. They are basically making a grand old scheme of polishing a turd.
This is exactly what went on behind the iron curtain – ooo look at our fancy public amenities, statues – this place is booming – dignitaries grinning for the cameras.
Meanwhile here we have the reality – because they won’t spend the money on what is needed – we have those in a drugged up stupor making a complete state of themselves – we’ll be able to see them better with the new lights & they can vomit into the new bins. Homeless people everywhere & then living in tents – only a matter of time before the next shanty town pops up.
Some of the worst performing schools in all of Wales & probably the UK – funding levels being taken to the bare bones so that basic educational supplies and sufficient teaching staff can’t be paid for. Can’t even work out how to build new schools when there’s a shortage & Groves site provides existing schooling infrastructure.
A local health board that doesn’t really have a clue, with chronic underfunding, a critical nursing shortage, A&E waiting times through the roof, ambulances stacked. GP surgeries folding in local communities as they are not sustainable. Hospital lab tests backed up in the Maelor – so much so much of the testing is sent to Glan Clwyd.
They want to cut the fire service in half – making the county half as safe. Not willing to even fund a Citizens Advice Bureau or discuss it with full council. Not enough money to fix all the potholes in the road months after the snow. Allowing a large corporation to completely dig up the roads for months after cocking up first time round. No new leisure centre in town as promised years ago. Cuts to elderly care, child social services – let’s take away the pittance we were paying volunteers for their hard work.
Grass, hedges and weeds overrunning half the county as they ignore public green areas for months. MUGAs and play areas vandalised or set on fire & never replaced. Constant threat of closures to remaining local community centres & libraries. Inadequate securing of bus services to more rural areas or reduced provision on Sundays and bank holidays.
Litter strewn along the public highways and across town, also with an abysmal state of affairs around places like Chirk McDonald’s. Plus rampant flytipping. Don’t worry though Kingdom are onto those pesky cigarette butts & blowing in the wind receipts – with added benefit of complete intimidation and harassment of local shoppers – adds to the experience – along with a game called avoid all the dog shit everywhere. Let’s also charge everyone for wanting to take a walk in a country park but also cut down on park wardens thus worsening the experience.
They do not have a bloody clue. They don’t need auditing, the majority of councillors need to win a 1 way trip to Mars. They can form committees to deal with a colony off the planet & leave us all alone.
My favourite punishment for us all is that we still have to wait until May 2022 before we get the illusion that we can get rid of them all & the inevitable ‘mouthing off at the council on Facebook crew’ fail to vote for the zillionth time – despite giving it large & the same old Big Time Charlies get in and we get another exciting Clr Pritchard led 5 years.
With any mercy Trump will cause a nuclear war before then & we shall all be spared the indignity & suffering.
Enjoy the shiny new lights.
Matt what on earth have you been on this morning – even by your standards your assessment is going off the scale (even though I agree with most of it- not sure about your Trump solution).
I can’t believe I’m going to defend the Council on some of your points just because the items don’t fall into their control- Health is a disaster but not because f Cllr Pritchard there has been gross underfunding from Welsh Government and in turn Westminster, no proper investment I training to replace an ageing GP workforce who are retiring. This is linked to people leading unhealthy lifestyles- sugar, fat, alcohol, substances — all of which are under the control of individuals who seem to have forgotten that they have responsibility for their own health and well being.
Fire Service is also separate so no blame there for the Council. The Council will through be responsible for lots of car accidents on roundabouts and junctions as they let the grass grow so high that drivers vision is obstructed.
I’m very much with Matt on this. I have become very suspicious about how the council conducts its business. Some things are small, such as how did Chirk win best kept village, and who on earth thought the monochrome paving & cheap plastic-looking planters on King Street were a good idea.
Other things like the substance abuse issues in the town centre and Rhosddu areas – these never seem to improve. We get told they’re complex issues that take time to resolve, but then the council continues to approve more HMOs. Home owners in Rhosddu must despair; maybe their only option is to sell their homes to those who will convert them to HMOs.
Mainly what’s caused me most concern is Tŷ Pawb. I went there for a second time the other day – a weekday around 3:30 pm. It was deserted. Some stalls were open but most were not. Those that were open had no customers at all. I wish now that I’d gone beforehand to the Butchers and People’s markets, by way of comparison, to see whether they had customers. I can’t get over the interior design of Tŷ Pawb. The breeze blocks. It’s as if no effort has been made to decorate the interior of Tŷ Pawb. Even if that is a deliberate choice and the very “look” they were going for, it must still have been cheaper than if they had plastered the interior and given it a lick of paint. I seem to recall that a mural was being done in Tŷ Pawb- it didn’t occur to me to actually look for this, but I certainly didn’t notice it either. Does it exist? The fact that its website wasn’t even up and running when it opened – they had plenty of notice to prepare the website.
Perhaps it is me who is out of touch with what looks “hip” and “cool”, but I seriously wonder why it cost so much. The word that comes to my mind is “backhanders”.
Then there was councillors’ sleight of hand when it came to paying for their own parking. They seem to look after themselves. I feel as if our council is run by a load of used-car salesmen and/or crooks. There seems to be no accountability.
[quote quote=150275]The Council will through be responsible for lots of car accidents on roundabouts and junctions as they let the grass grow so high that drivers vision is obstructed.[/quote]
Watcher, I didn’t realise just how bad things were getting until I went onto the Ruabon roundabout heading southbound this evening & the grassy jungle in the middle of the road split completely obscured any advanced vision of the Ruabon exit onto the roundabout. Luckily it was quiet & people driving carefully. But during rush hour & when people are taking it on like they’re planning the land speed record, there’s going to be a nasty accident.
All because the council are too lazy or cheapskate to make basic health and safety seasonal maintenance to any rural grassy areas along busy stretches of road. Meanwhile in town – new bins, new lights – spending & frittering money away like the Real Housewives of Cheshire – the rest of the county can go full Jumanji.
Also several other people started tweeting about the dangers of these overgrown road hazards. About time the council pull their fingers out before someone dies.
It’s actually a traffic management safety design.
There are roundabouts in the SouthEast where wooden fencing has been constructed to deliberately reduce the view on the roundabout approach and thus force traffic to slow down and take a look instead of blasting across roundabouts.
It’s also beneficial as a wildlife refuge/habitat.Edited to add pic of A287/M3 junction:-
The difference between that junction there pictured at the A287/M3 and the A539 approach onto the Ruabon roundabout is that the fence there is planned with traffic calming considerations in mind. The fence actually ends with a clear 15 foot+ clear view of the roundabout itself and the approach of traffic coming round the roundabout towards people pulling out of that junction is in front of them to the right – so not a blind entrance to begin with and all traffic oncoming from that direction also have a clear view of who is going to pull out from the fenced road and can plan accordingly if anyone unexpectedly pulls out to speed round it.
At the A539 approach onto the Ruabon roundabout – the massive grass mound obscuring driver’s vision is actually in positioned within the equivalent 15 foot approach onto the roundabout itself so very little chance to get any kind of advanced safety looks at the junction. So where these South East driving safety planners have decided at which point drivers should get a look at the roundabout in Wrexham, this is the region where drivers vision gets completely obscured. You then have people pulling out of the exit from Ruabon coming from a blind entrance not directly in front of the vision of drivers pulling out from the A539 approach. Those pulling out of the Ruabon exit also have restricted vision of those coming off the A539 approach. So you end up with a double blind junction situation where opportunist drivers who very much have little care or concern for slowing down when their vision is obscured racing out onto the roundabout from both of these exits greatly increasing the collision chance.
So I agree that the example you have shown is a good and interesting idea and something similar done right would probably help in areas of Wrexham, but in this case it does not excuse Wrexham Council from not cutting the grass.
I look forward to them citing your traffic safety example in a future council meeting where they class all overgrown grass verges across the county as an intended feature and not a dereliction of their duties.Ultimately there is absolutely no excuse though for drivers not approaching and pulling out cautiously at junctions with restricted views. The number of times people just pull out of side roads without looking properly (possible because they view it as too much effort) as vehicles are directly oncoming on the existing road and are forced to brake sharply is ridiculous. Or they push their car noses out as if to go and then see you practically on top of them and then they break. This happens a lot on Gutter Hill coming up from Johnstown to Rhos.
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