Wrexham Council
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When travellers set up camp on the green area around Wat’s Dyke School the Council took steps to have them moved on within 48 hours . Why was illegal camping on the Groves allowed and even encouraged by Wrexham Council? Surely the same rules should apply to everyone. As a result of that decision by the Council we now find Wrexham at the centre of more negative publicity in the national press.
Mark Pritchard masterplan 101, he really wants the Groves demolished by hook or by crook. What better way to erode the public & political support for keeping the building still standing than to build a ‘shanty town of homeless druggies’ around it. Turn it into a place of shame and outrage.
Conveniently it will take a long time to move these people on and in that time who knows what further dilapidation and vandalism will have occurred at the site conveniently adding cost of public taxpayer’s money and lengthy time to restore the building and return it to active public use.
Far better to knock it down and start again eh Mark?
Regardless of your stance on the Groves site you have to worry about a Council Leader and his bunch of cronies who are more interested in settling scores than acting for the good of the town.
They were still smarting after their humiliating defeat in Plas Madoc & now the Groves is the eternal ongoing flogging horse.
The main problem surely lies in the earlier decision to protect this slum as a listed building, at one of the busiest and most visible approaches to the town. Had the place been demolished months ago, then work may now be well on the way to building new schools. How many of the pressure group opposing the demolition actually pay Council tax in Wrexham and therefore share the ongoing costs of maintaining and policing this site ?
“How many of the pressure group opposing the demolition actually pay Council tax in Wrexham and therefore share the ongoing costs of maintaining and policing this site ?”
A ludicrous thing to imply that the vast majority of people who want to maintain the Groves site as it stands don’t pay council tax. You’ll find that there’s a broad demographic of council tax payers and non-council tax payers who have concern for any given issue, including the Groves site.
Would it have been fair for you to tarnish the many non-council tax paying people living in Plas Madoc who didn’t want their leisure centre knocked down? However, equally a large number of council tax payers also opposed to the idea.
Marginalising people because they don’t pay in is an attack on i) the young, ii) those who are part of the welfare state and iii) the less well off elderly. This is the type of thing the right-wing media thrives on and not an activity anyone in Wrexham should be latching onto.
We could equally make the statement: “I wonder how many of these people joyously demanding that the Groves building gets demolished are paying council tax for the building and upkeep of some new schools on the site?” – and when I read that back it sounds ridiculous.
I think this could open a possible legal case against the council for discrimination on racial grounds. Now the council have set the standard of tollerating this camp then how could they apply for an eviction notice if the travelling community decided to set up a camp of their own?
Wrexham Council have shot themselves in the foot on this issues – as mentioned on separate thread about Travellers- Irish Travellers would likely have protected nationality on their side.
Some readers may remember the very long running saga that Wrexham Council got into with the Berry family who were travellers that set up home on the lane by Clywedog School – that cost the Council £100’sK trying to get them moved from their own land and lasted years.
Will they soon to start adding legal costs onto the security cost the Council are already paying.
Like most problems it is always better to seek a solution as soon as they arise. Homelessness has been on the rise in Wrexham for at least the last couple of years and has been mostly ignored by the Council. It is only very recently that all the agencies actually met together , after much local pressure, to look at a coordinated approach. When a couple of small tents were erected on the Groves earlier in the summer they were quickly moved on. Why the change of policy by the Council now ?
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