Council Watcher
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The significant non-attendance from Council members (note the number of uncollected badges at the opening) may reflect that there is a real division in our Council Members. There seems to have been a distancing also by our local politicians AMs and MPs. Do they know something already – Lesley Griffiths perhaps learnt a lesson having opened Sprouts Nursery and then saw it close within two years.
Andrew – based on what you have said then the cut by the Labour Welsh Government certainly occurred and appears to be defended by your lack of acknowledgement above..
You are right that there will be a variety of other reasons why bus companies have closed – a basic reason is that fewer people want to come into town with such a deteriorating town centre. A deterioration that was occurring when your Labour Party were part of the ruling group – or did this not occur under your watch?
Interesting to see that the lead on the Ty Pawb project Cllr Hugh Jones was the person who unveiled the plack – clearly looking to have his name immortalised. The protocol for all civic projects has always been that the Mayor of a town takes on this role as they are ‘politically neutral’ when there is no celebrity.
As today was the first day it has already lost a £1000 by the time of the opening on Monday it will have lost £4000 a week today £7000 based on a £250k loss.
Why do you think WG is looking to reduce the number of Local Authorities from 22 to 10 — cost saving for reinvestment in larger Welsh Parliament. They can achieve their increase on a zero cost but what will be the local impact.
It appears that there has been a ‘flexible’ rental package been created for the food outlets and the other stalls- there are reductions and rent-free periods being offered to try and get full occupancy.
Can’t wait to hear about the first time all the traders get together and they find they have different terms.
It looks like there might have been ‘deals’ sorted for some business to be the anchor tenants – this is standard practice in many large retail outlets so not unusual. This does, however, mean that revenue income will not be secured from day one. The result will be more subsidy from ratepayers.In view of the merger agenda on the table who is likely to apply for a job that may only have 4 years left and the whole time will be spent on merger meetings. Wrexham and Flintshire should settle their differences and put themselves forward as an ‘early adopter’. The mergers are coming so for once be leaders rather than have something imposed.
The Leadership needs to talk with their staff about all of the good things that are already happening across counties and take a leaf out of the operational staff.
Merge some services NOW —
Highways – why is it that a road has tarmac laid across county boundaries yet they wear differently so replacement tarmac stops at a county boundary line..Schools – merge LEAs — School Governers and Heads are responsible for their own schools — the school improvement service GWE operates across the whole of North Wales.
Legal is already operating a subsidiary across North Wales
Fostering is North Wales
Safeguarding is North Wales
These are just a few… Cllrs Pritchard and Cllr Shotton get on with the inevitable and stop navel-gazing.
Count down to the ‘official’ opening – if you have nit had your invite yet then clearly you are not one of the elite of Wrexham even though you are actually paying for the event through your rates and taxes. Perhaps everyone who pays rates and taxes should attend to claim their glass of wine and nibbles.
As the rate payers in Wrexham are going to be paying the subsidy year on year it is a disgrace that there is a two year event- why have public event in Easter Monday and VIP on the 29th…
It’s time ratepayers woke up to the fact that there are events for the ‘elite’ that ordinary people are paying for– claim your share of the gravy train or get your voice heard by objecting.
As the Cllr Andrew Atkinson publicity machine has not been putting statements out yet about how he has arranged the training for Council Members on Equality issues we can only assume he has made a false promise about how he was going to make sure this was sorted.
Love to know what he meant by training will be provided — is that a this year or not year promise!!
