Town Centre Clean Up Plan Kicks Off

Ambitious plans to bring the heart and soul back into Wrexham Town Centre were kick-started yesterday, with hopes to attract shoppers back to the town.

Members of the newly energised Wrexham Town Centre Forum yesterday announced plans to ‘regenerate the town’, with two people standing for the Wrexham seat in the forthcoming General Election using cleaning materials and holding brooms to help out.

Plans will see forum members will work with the landlords of shops to tidy them up and to try and bring vacant properties back into use via a range of initiatives.

The Forum brings together representatives from the Council, businesses, the voluntary sector, the education sector and the police. The aim of Forum members is to improve Wrexham town centre, initially through the regeneration of Regent Street, Hope Street and the corners of High Street.

Working in conjunction with Keep Wales Tidy the aim is to create a ‘clean, vibrant street environment where more quality and varied businesses will wish to set up’.

Nigel Lewis, Chair of the Wrexham Town Centre Forum said: “We have recognised that as well as attracting visitors, Wrexham needs to focus on its core offering which is a convenient community based town, whose primary audience is the people who live in and around Wrexham. I am pleased that this initiative is being jointly developed by the private sector, voluntary sector and Wrexham County Borough Council.

“It’s a chicken and egg situation – people want more shops, shops want more people before they invest. That is why we need to implement initiatives designed to encourage people to come into the town more often and stay longer, and we hope that in turn will lead to more businesses investing which will help improve Wrexham.”

Early stages of the town centre clean-up started over the weekend, with Conservative Parliamentary Candidate Andrew Atkinson tidying up several signs in the area.

Mr Atkinson said: “There are loads of volunteers working on plans big and small to improve our town and one of the things we are planning is a Community Clean up Day on May 10th.

“In advance of this I’ve been out cleaning the signs to make town look a bit brighter. Some of these signs can’t be missed when you’re driving or are the first thing you see when you’re paying to park up, these little steps all help with creating the right first impressions for Wrexham.”

Mr Atkinson added: “No matter what we do to improve the town we have to get the basics right and a town clean up is a great place to start, I’ll be carrying on with the signs for sometime so if you see any really bad ones just let me know and I’ll see if I can add them to the list.”

Councillor Phill Wynn was also pictured (central broom holder in above picture) taking part in the clean up activities. Mr Wynn has recently declared himself as a parliamentary candidate via this post on the Wrexham.com Forums.

David A Bithell, Wrexham Council’s Lead Member for the Environment (pictured far left, not believed to be standing for office!) stated: “This is an excellent initiative which the Council is supporting. Working together will lead to improved pride in the town to make Wrexham a greener and cleaner place to live and work. We are fortunate to have so many people with a passion for our town with many years of experience in the private and public sector.”

The Forum is organising a community street clean and tidy up day on Sunday 10 May, the weekend before the Nightingale House Food and Drink Festival which will attract thousands of local people and visitors to the town centre. The following weekend, the Town Centre Forum is planning a community event in the town centre.

Co-op Food; Co-op Funeralcare; Boots; Marks and Spencer and Santander, the local Wrexham Healthy High Streets’ team have committed their support to the community street clean and tidy up day and they will be supplying volunteers to help and refreshments.