Matt
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How much does it cost to stick a bunch of planks of wood on an old building?
The old polish a turd methodology – highly favoured in Wrexham.
Derek, I suppose you’d have to ask Freedom Leisure why they don’t put on concerts at Queensway. My guess is that it’s a combination of adequate parking, increased security requirements of a concert, the correct licensing for serving alcohol etc… & permits for late night noise in a highly residential area.
I agree Alun, the 5,000 Derby arena was the smallest and lowest cost example arena built in recent times that I could find for comparison purposes as the Echo was way off spec. I’m pretty certain they wouldn’t even think it worthwhile to create one of a lesser capacity. I’m all for development of Wrexham but we have to be realistic about what commercial developers will actually build here.
At the end of the day if people really want to go and see their favourite band bad enough they’ll take the 1 hour trip up to Manchester or Liverpool. It’s not that difficult to get into a car, on an train or into a coach.
Echo Arena was built as part of Liverpool’s City of Culture year and they had a lot of dockland area space to redevelop – It cost £164m to build.
Willing to put up the challenge here then for nearest and most recent equivalent build.
Derby Arena was built in 2015 and cost £27m to construct. It has a 5,500 capacity for concerts and events and also has sporting facilities for other specialist events.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_Arena
So if we can find a sufficient sized Brownfield Site and ££££££ to invest from somewhere then we’re good to go.
If Darland has been given what is perceived to be a poor report then that must also mean that Wrexham’s GOLDEN Secondary school The Maelor in Penley is in a similar state of affairs as it only received 1 rating higher than Darland. 3 Adequate/In Need of Improvement and 2 Good.
https://www.estyn.gov.wales/sites/default/files/documents/The%20Maelor%20School.pdf
Again, I guess we need to have perspective that in this diabolical funding state of affairs that at least these schools are not in Special Measures.
It will be a major point of interest as to whether or not these schools will be kept out of the doldrums and will see some kind of improvement over the next 5 years.
[quote quote=166474]
Of course I know the William Aston Hall, it’s a weird all-seater venue, perfect for the Uni to hold meetings, Q & A sessions and put on comedy acts, which is what it is used for presently, along with various old fart gigs where people need to sit down, like Slade and ‘ABBA Mania’. I’m talking about a real venue, where you might get actual current bands.[/quote]The seating downstairs in the William Aston can be removed to create the 1,200 standing capacity venue. As Derek said it’s 850 people with seating.
Neck Deep are playing there on 18th May and have completely sold out the venue – general admission standing gig. Granted its organised by Focus Wales but that just goes to show the organisers at William Aston need to pull their finger out to try and attract more actual current bands. There are a few other standing gigs there this year – Black Star Riders, Skindred, Bluetones.
I still think it would be a hard no on a new concert venue being built on green belt land and complaints from locals about prospective noise pollution and increased traffic etc… They are having a hard enough time getting housing developments approved and petrol stations without it being a fight to the death between local residents, the planning committee, the developers and the WAG.
Existential questions are good as long as you try not to overthink them.
My guess is we discuss topics on here (fairly open ended) as a committee of Wrexhamites who have an above average interest in things that happen around the town away from the Riff Raff of Facebook & Rampant Tribalism of Twitter. Who these people are? I ain’t got a bloody clue – but I’m guessing the anonymity the forum offers is quite a strong draw.
Qualifier on my position Bubble. Parent of 2 girls – still way off Secondary School. However, there is the option for them to be bussed out of County to Dinas Bran if needed (which is currently scoring Adequate/Good). Pretty much to avoid any special measures or recently out of special measures schools.
Good primary school at the moment. Haven’t had to police internet yet, too small to have bullies – it’s just petty squabbling at the moment, hardly ever see the teachers (you take that to assume everything is well). Vaccinations – just seemed like a no brainer to follow what the health visitor said. Why would you want to risk your child catching measles, meningitis etc… – My opinion anyway.
Biggest challenge of children is the children themselves. You give them a set of guidelines and a rule set depending on what age they are and what danger/mischief/levels of cheek they might dabble in.
You will find they quickly learn the rules then use them to their advantage. Things like trying to point out parental double standards, publicly shaming behaviour of other adults – including grandparents, aunties and uncles, family friends and complete strangers (why is that man saying naughty words?). Also using them to try & rule their siblings with an iron fist or get them into trouble, finding loopholes, using them as bargaining chips/emotional blackmail.
You basically have to stay 1 step ahead at all times.
There will be others with far more experience than me with more to add.
I’m not being funny in this current education environment they should take Adequate and need of improvement as a win and be thankful it’s not yet another Secondary School in Wrexham put into special measures.
At least they can take on board the feedback and try and go some lengths to improving standards.
Fact of the matter is schools are chronically underfunded both by WAG and the Council – although the Council admittedly are struggling with budget cuts so if they increased funding on schools they’d be taking money from welfare elsewhere.
It is also the case that a significant number of deprived children will be going into Darland just like many of the other local secondaries. So there’s insufficient support available at school due to staff shortages and obviously insufficient support at home.
Let’s hope things do pick up over the next 12 months for Darland. I’m sure most parents are very aware of this very difficult time our local schooling system is going through.
I am very interested to know why you have delivered the information in such a negative manner and completely failed to mention the fact that the care, support and guidance element of the school was rated as good.
[quote quote=166420]A good start to improve the town centre would be getting rid of Parking Eye. They certainly put me off shopping in town since I got a £100 parking charge notice. Would I really risk my reputation for none payment of a £1 parking ticket? They are a disgrace. There is a large thread about it on Facebook. 10 of those in a day is £1,000 – £7,000 per week. Surely that should be enough to fix the lifts & employ a cleaner.[/quote]
There does need to be an end to the type of car parks that has a business model where they profit more from issuing fines than they do from encouraging a car park full of paying customers. As you say the fines deter people from parking up in the town centre much the way that Kingdom used to put people off coming in on the off chance their shopping would be ruined by intimidating litter fine tactics.
The fact that people can be fined/bullied from parking up in certain free to use car parks and then moving to a different location or shop within town is pathetic. You can’t park up in Dunelm area then walk across to Island Green. You can’t park up in Aldi and cut across to Boots and Pets at Home. You can’t wait to pick up someone at Wrexham Central for the fear you’ll overstay 10 minutes & get an automatic ANPR fine. It all adds up to a hostile environment.
[quote quote=166419]Few points – William Aston Hall is a 850 seat venue – although at Glyndwr the whole management of the hall use has been passed to an external entertainment company – they are responsible for putting on entertainment programme and have the facility available for community events as fill in. Many of the top comedians that go to venues like William Aston do so to test out their show material before going to the large arenas.
As far as the racecourse goes with a very large investment the issue over pitch receiver could be deal with the same as Principality stadium in Cardiff were they could hold car/motorbike racing one week and rugby the next — with investment and thought a multi-use flexible space can be created.[/quote]
My guess is the Aston’s higher quoted capacity is what it becomes when seating is removed which would be appropriate for live music. It sounds like the entertainment company are missing a trick by not attracting more up and coming bands to the venue. It’s of comparable size to Manchester Academy 2 which has historically featured a lot of national and international talent over the years. Granted Manchester has a significantly greater music scene but William Aston still has a strong student base which is where a high Level of the Manchester student union venues ticket sales come from.
As for the multiple-use flexible space that would be interesting. My guess is under the leasehold the club has on the ground they’d put on the events and raise revenue for the football club?
