Alunh

Forum Replies Created

  • Author
    Posts
  • in reply to: Rhosnesni Special Measures #222088

    Alunh
    Participant

    I take JaneJ’s point about the report to hand.

    Unfortunately, whilst we can point a finger at the management of the school (and similar), many of us would rather cut out the middleman and head straight to the Senedd in allocating responsibility. After all, it’s no coincidence that Welsh Secondary Education has raced to the bottom of the international league and that the local template is the same one applied throughout Wales.

    In the 1990s, David Blunkett (then Educational Minister for Blair) criticised bog-standard One-Sized-Fits-All Comprehensives as unsuited to our times. It’s hardly surprising that a Welsh Secondary classroom of 30+ students of differing abilities (Mixed Ability), organised by a teacher told not to teach from the front (Child-centred Education), get through an average day making little or no progress in their learning. So sad

    in reply to: Market redevelopment #222085

    Alunh
    Participant

    Just a few thoughts about the Market redevelopment:-

    Ensure that the Markets overall fit in with your sense of a Brand identity for Wrexham. If you lack a sense of what that is, call in a Branding expert.

    What demographic will the Markets overall and each component be pitched at. This needs a realistic appraisal of potential customer groups available (Students/Youngsters, the Silver Pound, Tourists, etc)

    Try to differentiate the offer in each of the Market centres, indoor and outdoor, so that some sort of sub-branding of each unit can be developed. This might mean ensuring that complementary businesses are grouped together and units developed in the Butchers Market to suit.

    Ensure that you have an experienced Markets management team in place to deliver on this project.

    Don’t spend a penny of public money on this sort of thing before you have clearly established the broad outlines of the above. You could easily develop an infra-structure that is totally inappropriate for the commercial aims of the Market that you are developing

    in reply to: Children and young People aspirations #220336

    Alunh
    Participant

    The Butler Education Act of 1944 was designed to revolutionise the education of children over the age of 11. It talked about pairing the specific abilities and aptitudes of children with the type of Secondary Education they received. In the 1970s, it was abandoned, in the face of accusations of elitism and stigmatisation, and replaced by Comprehensive Secondary schools. I taught in Grove Park.

    Not content with Comprehensives, the Secondaries in Wales rapidly moved towards GCSE, replacing O levels and Mixed Ability classes replacing setting. The icing on the cake was Child centred education and a common core curriculum.

    Move forward 50 years and where has “progress” taken us. Wales is now at the bottom of the pile across the western world. Within Wales, Wrexham regularly competes in a race to the Educational bottom. In England, David Blunkett was not the first Labour politician to realise that something had gone wrong with the abandonment of Butler. Academies were one response, diversification and choice another. More recently, Michael Gove has attempted to restore standards to exam courses.

    Where are we in Wrexham. Walk into a classroom at Secondary level. In those subject areas where Mixed Ability prevails, 30+ children ranging in ability from potential Oxbridge students to those with a reading age perhaps 7 years below them share a class-room with a teacher “encouraged” not to use the didactic (teaching from the front). Child-centred means that the student (in theory) generates an answer to work presented to the class, but supposedly tailored to the individual therein, the child working from gradated material, the teacher providing individual support according to specific needs.

    What could possibly go wrong in a class of 35. The lack of didactic means that the logical focus of the class isn’t the teacher and the work rhythm that many of you enjoyed years ago has been replaced by something markedly different. Whilst inspiring teachers circumvent the trials and tribulations and gifted students still excel, many working class children crash and burn with little addition to their educational advancement between years 7 and 11.

    So when you next read a report on our schools, read it and weep. For those schools and children defying the odds, well done


    Alunh
    Participant

    Got to endorse Benjamin’s observations concerning those few areas of Council life I’m familiar with. I had a considerable amount of dealings with the very capable Peter Scott in Economic Development in terms of developing the Markets. When push came to shove, several years ago, all of the good work was shelved and the Ty Pawb template was parachuted into the equation. This seemed driven by the elected Councillors who have little expertise in any of their briefs. That wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t stifle the work of those who do.

    Peter Scott now works for Widnes Council

    in reply to: My personal view of why Wrexham ought to remain a Town #211289

    Alunh
    Participant

    I don’t think this is a matter relating to the input of the traders (though I take JaneJ’s point in general terms). This is about WCBC adopting an intellectually coherent approach to the development of the Town (not City) in a difficult period. They’ve had input in the past from the Manchester Met, and there are lots of towns to observe and learn from.

    Traders of all shapes and sizes will have any number of opinions about any number of subjects, but the idea of Rebranding a Town (with all of its implications) really is a job for in-house bodies armed with impact assessments and models of likely development. I sense a wing and a prayer approach at the moment based around the instincts of individual Councillors. This is no way to make major decisions.

    in reply to: My personal view of why Wrexham ought to remain a Town #211258

    Alunh
    Participant

    Great question Phil

    As with the whole Branding exercise, you can only set the scene and then let time, hard work, vision and great organisation lead you to the promised land.

    The first thing is to try and envision a realistic Town centre in your head, a brilliant Market and a strong Independent sector. The current template is a mess and badly organised. To be honest, you need to start again and work towards a broad stroke objective.

    Firstly, you have a 4 “Market” infra-structure (Ty Pawb included) if you add-in the outside Market. Try to look at other Towns and see if a template lends itself to Wrexham. Calculate the available demographic. Re-configure the entire set up so that each component of the framework offers a different niche or niches to the pre-selected demographic(s). A strong example would be to utilise Ty Pawb to offer an Arts and Crafts MARKET to the Wrexham/Tourist public pivoting on an in-house pottery, printing facilities, indigenous clothing manufacture, jewellery, et al. This would take the Arts emphasis from performance to production and selling. The second area (say the Butchers Market) would re-gravitate towards food (though I would be wary of the Access issues which would have to be dealt with). I would relocate the Monday Market to the High Street which would be strategically reconfigured to offer such a Branding provision, whilst providing an extra mechanism in linking the Town up with Eagles Meadow (which will implode without similar). Whilst the High street would be the fulcrum of outdoors Market activity other streets like Chester Street could be added to the mix.

    The scenario outlined above wouldn’t give you the Bury dynamic….but it would be a start…..and would be feasible. The problem that I’ve always seen with the mention of copious amounts of money to be thrown at reconfiguring the Markets was that it was all random scatter. Several other things. Markets need strategic management. Stalls and traders have differing costs associated with them and have to have different modes of encouragement to attract them. The one size fits all Estates approach in Wrexham is so myopic that its off the radar. For example. For me to fit up my type of shop requires a considerable up-front Investment. To commit, my type of Trader needs careful nurturing (etc)

    Go to Ellesmere or Durham if you want to see good Markets. Stalls need to be high to create the unique Market atmosphere, walk-ways need to be narrow, symmetry is the enemy of the aesthetic.

    Re-brand the town, reconfigure the Markets, attend to alternative scene setting exercises, light the blue touch paper……boom


    Alunh
    Participant

    Just to respond to the points made by Phil Wynn on City status.

    At the end of your observations, you pose a question. “I’d be interested to learn your thoughts on what are the barriers to independent traders wanting to setup business in Wrexham and what type of shops we are missing in Wrexham. I would like a mens outfitters who sell brown trouser braces”.

    There are no barriers to Independent traders setting up businesses in Wrexham at all. Indeed, that very Retailer who specialises in brown trouser braces may well have given the town a thought in considering his/her business start-up. This debate isn’t about barriers.

    What most of us are discussing on this topic is the optimal way forward for Wrexham, the best approach to allow Wrexham to face the future and cash in on the various factors in play on an ongoing basis. There’s nothing in what you have put forward that helps explain why you think that the rebranding of Wrexham as a City will provide that optimal approach, though I see the red herring of Newport has been used to try and support the case. Newport is not Wrexham and Wrexham is not Newport. Both are unique and have identities, historic and modern, that explain much of the linked article. Indeed, by the logic of the biased report on Newport, one would conclude that Wrexham attracted the Eagles Meadow development, the Island Green development, the Plas Coch development, the inward Investment by Hollywood into Wrexham F>C and the new Industrial Estate developments……because it is a town. Sadly, this isn’t how logic works.

    On the branding exercise, the real problem that you have is that the City concept flies in the face of the normal Branding rationale. I’ll just remind you of the Roger Brooks recommendations for those Branding for success and the theme of Wrexham as a City goes against, for example, 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 below (amongst others

    1. Brands are perceptions
    2. Brands are built on the perceived nature of the offer/product
    3. Brands are earned: sometimes good, sometimes bad
    4. Brands are developed through PR and word of mouth
    5. Brands must be experiential
    6. Branding is the art of differentiation
    7. You must jettison the generic
    8. Say no to focus groups
    9. Find your niche, your specialty
    10. It takes a village

    What concerns many of us who support the Town Brand approach is that it is a realistic assessment of what the Town is and is supported as an idea by the “Village”. It provides a realistic self-identification for the area and allows the Town to build on its strengths to an agreed end. Where the Council can play a role has nothing to do with removing Barriers (though there remain many) but in helping set the scene for the Town to revive itself over time behind a rational and feasible approach. For the Council this means setting the scene and attending to those areas that it does have control over (not those it does not).

    What this actually means in practice is completely reconfiguring the Markets so that they are fit for purpose. This is what Bury and Altrincham did. There are reasons why Mold and Prestatyn have successful day Markets. Templates, location, PR, et al

    You say that you are “all for a mixed offer to attract increased footfall in our town-centre and a greater number of independent shops is equally necessary as national chains”. Towns that are surviving and prospering are going far further than this. They are setting their stall out for the Independent sector ensuring that planning, for example, moves away where possible from large unit development. Towns with small unit development are primed to cash in on the Independent renaissance. Are we?

    You say that “vibrant markets are part of that mix but in the end it is up to traders to offer a retail experience that folk want and value. Over the years shoppers have expected more than is the current offer….if that wasn’t the case then we wouldn’t be having this exchange”. This is a crazy way of approaching this subject. Are you suggesting that Wrexham’s Markets are so poor because the traders haven’t stepped up the plate. Wow!!

    The Markets that I witnessed in 2006 first hand and note today remain the same shambles that they were then and are now. Successful Market towns have analysed why their current offer is crap. Have we? If so, have we come up with sensible answers? I think not.

    Successful templates are available. Most successful Towns have developed Food Halls, Craft and Arts Markets (with produce made by local producers for the market place), and similar. We still have a blob


    Alunh
    Participant

    I’d just like to thank Councillor Wynn for his response and, more importantly, the tone of his response. I must take issue with the argument put forward in Point 4 as well as support some of the other observations made by other contributors.

    Councillor Wynn’s argument runs along two lines. Firstly, he states that despite the trends in play “there are still national retail chains who will seek to invest in localities that match their selection formula; To this end I believe Wrexham will be better placed to attract national chains to Wrexham if we brand ourselves as a city rather than as a market town”. I agree with part of this. There are chains who will invest in town (and thank goodness). Unfortunately, towns and cities that are in the second tier across the UK have been so badly impacted by a range of factors, Internet included, that as National/Multiple investment materialises in one place within a town, it disappears elsewhere. National/Multiple traders have no loyalty to an area and the approach adopted is understandably results driven and/or strategic. In many cases companies like HMV and M & S will create polar branches to service a wider area and whilst a town like Wrexham lost its HMV (to the advantage of Chester), another town like Rhyl lost its M & S (to the advantage of Prestatyn). This is standard retrenchment, retreat and consolidate, and whilst Wrexham might continue to receive the attention of some Nationals, things don’t look too bright on that front>

    Councillor Wynn’s second line is that “whilst Wrexham has retained a market town brand over the years the loss of the cattle-market, the relocation of the Beast Market to Waterworld and finally to Queen Square, the deeply saddening demolition of our Vegetable market has very much diluted our market town credentials. Whilst you and I may have fond memories of shopping in these markets, the world has moved on and I would confidently say our markets are not a natural retail destination for the majority aged forty or younger”. Unfortunately, this line whilst true is totally misleading. I quite agree with the words carefully selected. 2021 is not 1980 and a Cattle Market brand is not fit for purpose in 2021. Unfortunately, this is not what either the local advocates of a Town Brand or the very body who were brought into Wrexham to advise on Retail turnaround are suggesting. The Manchester Metropolitan College, the experts on the High Street have been quite clear in their Markets Matter documentation, and various other Reports that Markets and the Independent sector are a vital element of moving forward for a town like Wrexham. Why? Firstly, because of underlying Multiple trends. More importantly, because in the age of the Internet it will be local, personal, service orientated, diverse, small-scale and interesting that will see a town’s revive. It will be around local Craft, local Art, local Markets et al that towns will be revived. Take Mold. Vibrant. Oswestry. Vibrant.

    No one is suggesting retaining Markets that are outdated and irrelevant. What people are calling for is for WCBC to get a grip on the Market concept and copy the likes of Bury and Altrincham in facing the future not the past. This isn’t rocket-science. It just takes some vision and a lot of hard work. It also works best in the Town Brand theme

    in reply to: Challenge of town centre regeneration #209408

    Alunh
    Participant

    Just to be clear. Whilst many people are finding that they have income difficulties, disposable income for a large % of the population is not an issue. Indeed, the 12 months before the Covid onset, which ultimately coincided with my closure on Bank Street, CDs and LPs were booming sales wise. 2019-20 was my best financial year and every area of my stock holding was rising.

    The revival of the High Street needs some creative thinking, Rates and Access adjustment, unit reconfiguration and the like. All the negatives that are rightly mentioned are merely problems that can be overcome. People like their towns but the High Street mix has to suit the times

    in reply to: Challenge of town centre regeneration #209191

    Alunh
    Participant

    I noticed that you posted this some time ago. I quite agree that Wrexham outgrew the retail space that was probably optimal for a town of its size but I’m afraid that the idea of a cull is so difficult that no politician will go near it.

    My own attitude is one that is conflicted because I sense that the current capacity could still work with a lot of creative thinking, a big drop in Rates and a total rebranding of the town…..set against the feeling that this will never happen. I note that many towns are now hitting nearly full capacity where shops are concerned but these all tend to be places where the Independent sector never did die or where the strength of alternative attractions to retail has genuine pulling power.

    The problem at the moment is that no one actually knows if Wrexham can revive because no one has actually produced a plan to revive it. A plan isn’t about slogans. A plan is about Rate reduction, Market reconfiguration, Car Parking & Access reappraisal…..and the like

Content is user generated and is not moderated before posting. All content is viewed and used by you at your own risk and Wrexham.com does not warrant the accuracy or reliability of any of the information displayed. The views expressed on these Forums and social media are those of the individual contributors.
Complaint? Please use the report post tools or contact Wrexham.com .

More...

Turnover up 75% as Wrexham AFC say ‘losses shouldnt be repeated’ as payroll nears £7m

News

Lasit Spearheads a Clean Revolution: Laser Technology Redefines Industrial Cleaning

News

Shape Your Future: Unique Student Opportunities at Wrexham University

News

From Campus to Community: The Role of Wrexham’s Colleges in Local Economic Development

News

Beyond Academics: A Closer Look at Extracurricular Opportunities in Wrexham’s Colleges

News

Off-road motorcyclists ‘using their bikes dangerously’ warned they ‘will be seized’

News