Posted: Sun 24th Sep 2017

Fire crews check ‘bonfire’ as Camp Groves evaporates back into Wrexham

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Sunday, Sep 24th, 2017

Fire crews have attended the former site of ‘Camp Groves’ after it has been vacated over the last 72 hours.

Rumours surfaced on Friday that the site was being vacated with those on there ‘choosing to move on’, evidenced with the collection of tents to the west of the old school buildings slowly vanishing.

On Saturday afternoon fire crews were on the Groves site inspecting the remains of what has been described as a ‘bonfire’, as pictured above, of various items that had been left.

Earlier this month in two reports to Councillors it was stated the Groves site had 10-11 people living on there with a ‘Gold Level Group’ working at helping sort out the issue. In a non-public report we saw a 90 day period was referred to, believed to be expiring towards the end of October, which would see a medium term plan developed as it was thought the Groves was ‘not suitable for a longer term base’. It was stated that due to changes in the weather it was believed that ‘individuals are likely to move onto alternative winter locations’, however what those locations were and if they had been prepared for them was not stated.

It is not known if the move over Friday into Saturday was a planned move in conjunction with local services or Wrexham Council. Speaking with some Councillors they say they have had no communications to suggest that was the case. We are told there has been no indication circulated to Councillors stating any intervention had taken place, nor a directed move into services or a specific secondary location.

On Friday evening those visiting Wrexham.com or following our twitter would have the following tweets appears – from Wrexham Town Centre PC Dave Bates, and then later from the Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones and Wrexham Executive Board Lead Member Councillor Terry Evans.

Following this tweet we replied with the following as there appeared to be a more visible ‘cohort’ of people in Wrexham town centre, anecdotally due to the wind down of Camp Groves.

After the above was publicly posted, Councillor Terry Evans tweeted:

This had a response from the PCC who was tagged into the above tweet:

The PCC widen out the response to include the Council’s Deputy Leader Hugh Jones:

Councillor Terry Evans tweeted:

This provoked a response from the PCC:

Things then took a turn for more personal comments:

We then tweeted…



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