Ty Pawb – Very disappointed :-(
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Disappointed on a visit to Ty Pawb today. Quite a few stalls either not let, or not open, one of the stalls only opens on a Saturday, and is working its notice.
Tenants with two stalls cutting back to one stall, tenants looking to share space with their next door tenant to save on costs.
All together not looking a very happy place to trade.
Wrexham Council have very often made the excuse that they do not have any say over the landlords of empty town centre shops.Well, Wrexham Council and Cllr Hugh Jones as landlords, what is Plan B before the inevitable happens?
Unfortunately, I predicted this over a week ago after talking with some stallholders- the closures/amended hours Jimbow has indicted are probably the tip of the Iceberg- others are saying they are likely to go as soon as the summer children’s activities have ended at the end of school holidays.
It will be interesting to find out if any of the trader’s -stalls and food have actually been offered rent-free for the time being to try and bolster up some trade. (Of course, this means a larger bill for the ratepayers of Wrexham to pay an increased subsidy!!!!).
Are any of the traders prepared to tell if they have been offered rent-free or discounted rental period as their trade has not hit the level that had been predicted in the business plan for Ty Pawb?
What you have to ask is at what point does the rate payer see price justification for £1.56m of council money?
At what point are the Welsh Arts Council going to think they’ve made an excellent £2.3m investment to further push the causes of Welsh cultural and language endeavours?
These are difficult ones as no amount of time period is going to validate the location in its current state of affairs and management. What happens if all the traders pack up and leave, what people are booking and using the performance space? Where is the inspirational art exhibitions – that’s drawing in locals and people from farther afield?
It’s either going to end up so derelict it will be forced to close down at great embarrassment to the current Execs who championed it or they will try and prop it up by throwing more public money at it which will cause even greater annoyance.
Is there even a well salaried dedicated events promotions manager – to pull in the performance talent? And an Artistic director to deal with the physical art expo side of things? I’d assume there’s a decent commercial manager to help secure businesses into the units and to promote the businesses? Who is running the place. Need at least those 3 specialty areas covered – done in a highly professional manner.
There is a report due to Council in September – I’m sure they will try an gloss over the issues – “teething problems”, “market forces”, “delays in recruitment” – you can almost write the report with the level of excuses as the Executive have been so good in the past at spinning stories about other failures — the Sprouts fiasco was one example – report due in September.
Nowhere in the UK, exists an indoor arena for Yogic Flying. There’s a massive opportunity going to waste here.
For the impatient amongst you, the magic begins at 1m:54s
Well, where is this Ty Pawb arts centre thing? Today i went into a building that had a big TY PAWB on the end wall, it was off a car park area. I walked into an area that looked like a cafe set up temporarily something you would see at a village hall or something, looked pretty basic anyhow. Walking further in i saw wooden structures inside which were people and goods so i took it these were the market stalls. so, this is the market place which looks, imo a mess so where is the arts hub or whatever it’s called? There was a wall that kept changing it’s picture just like an advert thing so don’t know what that was about. Further along there was an area surrounded by a curtain of some sort with some tables and chairs and a small number of children cutting stuff up and well, doing things. Overhead was a gantry with moving lights that well, i don’t really know what that was about either. So still no arts thing as i could see or what i would expect to see, anyhow.
The whole thing looked completely unfinished and temporary and when i consider how much money has been spent on it a disgrace. Anyhow i will go in again for a better look and see if i can seek out the “Arts Hub” or whatever it’s called or perhaps someone here can enlighten me. By the way this an honest and unbiased “first impression” of the place.What a massive can of worms this will be. Traders currently running up almost 5 months of rent arrears and will be expected to pay it up before April 2019. I can imagine with some of the poor trading figures, some of the traders will be forced to close for good once these demands from the council come in. Some of them won’t be able to afford to pay any rent arrears and the council will end up with bad debt that needs to be written off and the people will end up going bust.
This is an absolutely dreadful situation.
FOI shows total stallholder rent collected by Wrexham Council at multi million pound Tŷ Pawb arts/market centre since it opened 4 months and 20 days ago…? £0 (zero) https://t.co/f5Qrqgyz5A pic.twitter.com/qI3wdsdaQr
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) August 22, 2018
The situation about no rent being paid has been around now for a number of weeks with the inevitability that any rent demand will be the thing that breaks the bank for a number of the traders so they will be off.
A number of the traders have never signed any lease agreement for the stalls so who can the Council chase if there are no contracts in place?
It will be interesting to see how much more digging that the BBC will undertake now they have the thread of a story that could unravel a number of mismanagement issues both locally and possibly within the Arts Council assessment process.
The situation about no rent being paid has been around now for a number of weeks with the inevitability that any rent demand will be the thing that breaks the bank for a number of the traders so they will be off.
A number of the traders have never signed any lease agreement for the stalls so who can the Council chase if there are no contracts in place?
It will be interesting to see how much more digging that the BBC will undertake now they have the thread of a story that could unravel a number of mismanagement issues both locally and possibly within the Arts Council assessment process.
Nothing like desperately trying to make somewhere look busy by taking out the Exec Board Squad. I heard other people actually left because they didn’t want to eat anywhere near this mob. Only busy because they were in there otherwise largely empty. I wonder who picked up the tab for the meal? Was it the rate payer as usual?
Very busy in Ty Pawb today Curry on the go pic.twitter.com/mwKyrZ2NqV
— David A Bithell (@davebithell) August 29, 2018
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