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Posted: Mon 1st Jan 2018

Happy New Year Wrexham!

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Monday, Jan 1st, 2018

Happy New Year to all of you reading this…!

We would like to thank all our readers for your constant support, witty observations, tip-offs – with 2017 being our biggest year in terms of readers / engagement / all the other numbers that people get excited about.

We’re sure the next 12 months will bring more debate, positivity, some negativity, passion, care, wit and all the other things that makes the people around here so great!

Happy New Year’s Day from Wrexham.com. Here’s to 2018!

The year that was…

2017 saw plenty of ups and downs for Wrexham, with a small selection below as an almost obligatory micro recap.

While there maybe some differing viewpoints on the topic, February saw the grand opening and first intake of men at HMP Berwyn. After almost two years in construction, the Category C prison on the former Firestone site on the Wrexham Industrial Estate will initially house a few hundred men before eventually reaching its full capacity of 2100.

Summer 2017 saw voters take to the poll not once, but twice, after a snap election was called by Prime Minister Theresa May. More of you than ever turned out to vote in June’s General election, which saw Labour’s Ian Lucas and Susan Elan Jones get re-elected to their seats.

Perhaps the biggest election was in May 2017, when thousands of you took part in the local government elections.  Of course moaning about the council is almost a given online, and while turnout remained lowish, a number of individual wards across the county borough saw their biggest turnouts in years.

In a bid to increase debate and awareness of the elections and how the council operate as a whole, we created our very own Question and Answer system, inviting all people who stood as a candidate to answer a series of questions on why they think they should represent you.

While not all councillors who were elected did take part, the answers to a number of the questions have already proved handy to see if any councillors have changed their stance on things once elected. We already know of some councillors who have checked the system to see where some stand on certain topics that have been debated in the Guildhall…

Those interested in stats can view a numbers based breakdown of our election coverage here.

There’s often lot’s of negativity about Wrexham town centre, however 2017 saw more taking place than ever before, plus a resurgence in the independent sector.

Who can forget the recent Christmas offering in Wrexham, which with a cracking light switch on, parade, Victorian Market and new lights, was arguably one of the best festive periods Wrexham has had in years.

Elsewhere across Wrexham was the return of Wales Comic Con, FOCUS Wales, drive-in cinemas, Underneath the Arches, summer concerts at the Racecourse, spoken word evenings, Play Day, community events and much more – Wrexham’s events calendar was more packed throughout the year than we can remember.

Of course there was some negative elements to the year, with the powers that be in the town attracting widespread criticism and sometimes grim UK wide publicity over issues with homelessness and substance misuse.

Growing pressure on officials and the coming together from members of the public to support those in need, has thankfully seen progress being made and efforts underway to tackle those issues.

However nine people being turned away due to a lack of space at a night shelter during the cold snap in early December, served as a very real illustration of current problems.

So what does the next 12 months hold for Wrexham? The new ‘Town Square’ business support and incubator hub is due to open on Queens Square after receiving financial backing by the Welsh Government. There’s is also hope for the future of Henblas Street, which was purchased in summer 2017, with the new landlords making positive noises about redevelopments.

After four years in the making, Tŷ Pawb will finally open to the public on April 2nd 2018. Whether you love it, hate it, indifferent to it or would rather see the return of the Vegetable Market and the ‘good old days’, the development is happening and has certainly been one of the more talked about topics (for several reasons) over the past 12 months – and is one of, if not the largest capital investment in the town centre for a very long time.

Of course there are many more things to mention, but we couldn’t possibly mention them all! So instead, there was a sample of what Wrexham had to offer in 2017.

With the @Wrexham twitter account taking on a life of it’s own we thought we would sample some of our tweets through the year (with an unashamed more positive slant!):

January, February and March…


https://twitter.com/wrexham/status/822842848689135616

April, May and June…


https://twitter.com/wrexham/status/878638785923354625

July, August and September…

October, November and bits of December…


https://twitter.com/wrexham/status/943831929480187905

Thanks again to you all, and we hope 2018 is your best year yet!

Top Pic: A wonderful image of the celebrations bang on a year ago, shot by Sebastien Greber taken from Brynteg at midnight looking over Wrexham.



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