Wrexham Is ‘A Friendly & Good Place To Be’

The mother of Beth Bennett, who set up the ‘Change Wrexham For Our Future’ Facebook page addressed the Council Executive Board today about recent high profile crimes in Wrexham and the overall perception of the town centre.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Valmi Wyn Jones asked the board if “The public perception is that crime in Wrexham is on the increase and this increases the fear of being a victim of crime in Wrexham. Can I ask what the Council, along with partner agencies are doing to address problems of crime and anti social behaviour and to reassure the public in Wrexham in respect of public safety?”

Cllr Hugh Jones responded to the question saying “You are absolutely right to focus on the perception of crime. There have been three high profile incidents in Wrexham.

“It is a perception that is fuelled by some councillors criticising police. It also appears that the purveyors of doom are often the first port of call to members of the press. The perception is different to the reality”

“The three incidents are unconnected they were and are are continuing to be dealt with by NWP in an effective and professional manner”

Cllr Jones highlighted that the town are continuing to work alongside the Welsh government and have funded more PCSOs”

“Wrexham is a safe place, crimes of violence fall year on year.”

“The fact we have an effective community partnership is one of the reasons crime continues to fall.”

“We are working with multiple agencies to achieve a purple flag award and hope to achieve it which indicates Wrexham is a safe place at night”

Cllr Jones congratulated Beth for setting up with page, before admitting that he was one of the 2000 people to ‘like’ the group. The group was set up last week as a reaction to the negative comments and press that Wrexham had received in recent weeks.

“The press live here as well, and are part of wrexham, the good news stories need to be reported. We do not need to focus on a few bad news stories”.

A follow up question was asked by Wyn Jones who said: “I would like to ask what can we reasonably do to make sure people outside the area do not see these ‘red top headlines’ that do the town down.

“Wrexham is a good place to be, and very friendly. I have come across alot of people from Chester shopping here as they like the shopping here and the friendly welcome they get.

“Can we get hold of the editors who write daft headlines ‘oh there was a riot in wrexham, it was a brawl not a riot’ . This is what we need to jump on, we need to say ‘no you cannot write that’. People are so prone to jump to wrong conclusions, but we dont need to give people the glory of the publicity.”

Wyn Jones added “Give them a tiny paragraph not a big banner headline”.

The headlines of the two local newspapers are below, both referring to brawls not riots, however we did comment how some coverage on the day was at odds with what we saw as eyewitnesses to the events.

Wrexham.com’s story can be found here, with the headline “Chester Street ‘Gun’ Incident” which we think was accurate and calm.

In terms of ‘reach’ of such headlines which can indicate how many people read a story, our Chester St article was read over 17,000 times and our article on the Cambrian death over 45,000 times plus social media based coverage. Similarly using the ‘ABC’ figures, the Daily Post sells around 10,500 copies a day of its ‘East’ edition that covers Wrexham, and the Leader sells around 8,500 copies a day, we do not however have data to show traffic to their websites.

It is clear that news headlines & stories are read in various forms in and around town, and do shape as well as reflect perceptions of what is occurring nearby.