Petition Launched To Save Wrexham Music Service

A petition against proposed cuts to the Wrexham Music Service has been launched.  

The online petition has been started in response to Wrexham Council’s decision to make cuts of £116,000 from the music service over the next two years. The service itself, which is funded by the authority sends music teachers to schools across Wrexham to teach lessons.

The decision to reduce the amount spent on this service comes as part of the Council ‘Reshaping the services’ in a bid to save £14million pounds in the next 12 months.

Reducing the amount spent on the Wrexham Music Service was one of many proposals that was passed by the Council Executive Board last week. You can read our report of the Council Executive Board here. While the petition was started prior to the meeting last week, in the past few days it has generated a significant response.

A breakdown of the proposed cuts on school music services would see a £48,000 reduction in the budget for 2014/15 and a further reduction of £68,000 the following year. However in the petition it is stated that: “This reduction would directly result in loss of work for peripatetic music teachers and lack of exposure to music for many young people across the Wrexham County.”

The petition itself was started by Laura Murphy, who writes that her life would have been very different if it hadn’t been for Wrexham Music Service. She also states: “Now a professional musician (double bassist), my music making started at grass-roots, when a peripatetic violin teacher came and played at my junior school and asked “who wants to learn the violin?”. I jumped at the chance, and have never looked back. Music making during my school years was certainly vital to my development. It gave me a sense of belonging, escapism from stress, self-confidence, fantastic school holidays on county orchestra courses, and life long friendships to name a few.”

The petition ends with the statement: “Music Services are in danger across the UK, and we cannot let Wrexham be another casualty to the decreasing advocacy of the arts. To take this opportunity away from young people in our county would be to rob them of life experiences that will shape them for the better.”

In the past few days the petition has generated a lot of attention on social media and has had numerous messages of supports from people who currently use, or have used the service in the past.

At the time this article was written, the petition already had 629 signatures, and was just 371 off its target. To sign the petition, then please click here.

There is an ongoing debate on our forums about the proposed ‘reshaping of services’ on our forums. You can take part in the discussion here…