Tax Office closing
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Will this become an election issue?
Quite worrying, this is approx 1.5 million taken out of the wrexham economy.
Also reasonably well paid jobs, the people will either have to leave for liverpool/manchester or take a huge drop in salary working in low paid jobs.
Not good as either will reduce spending power in the town and local shops.
This is after job losses in the dss, university and the council, I worry that WCBC has staked too much on the public sector and a red letter day is fast approaching.
Yes i know about the prision, but there won’t be many local jobs and many of those will be low paid.
@CerysHughes 19794 wrote:
Will this become an election issue?
Quite worrying, this is approx 1.5 million taken out of the wrexham economy.
Also reasonably well paid jobs, the people will either have to leave for liverpool/manchester or take a huge drop in salary working in low paid jobs.
Not good as either will reduce spending power in the town and local shops.
This is after job losses in the dss, university and the council, I worry that WCBC has staked too much on the public sector and a red letter day is fast approaching.
Yes i know about the prision, but there won’t be many local jobs and many of those will be low paid.
As you say, it is a worrying matter and it may well become a local issue in forthcoming elections. No one wants to see well paid jobs exit the town.
Moving on to the general trend, however, I hope to see over the short span of the rest of my life Wales and Wrexham move away from a position where there is a dependence on the Public sector in Wrexham either for jobs or benefits. This pattern, which as you know is a sad feature of Wales generally, leaves towns like Wrexham Enterprise deficient and Labour voting (I do agree totally with Sheefag on this).
I would hope that Wrexham becomes part of the rebalancing that is going on UK wide and that over time it will become the hub of something better. I used to explain to my several staff that if there were no Business Rates in Wales, I would have set up several shops employing people. This is the way generally for folk who run businesses. As you know, the Rates (ultimately) and other taxes are recycled to pay for various public sector services (Tax Office included) and it makes sense to rationalise such services where possible.
Whilst the prison will provide a considerable amount of work for our community, people should not ignore the fact that the place will cost a huge amount of money to run. Ultimately, this will have to come from Taxes, which could be used in a much better way (or not even levied).
Mixed opinions on all of this Cerys
As the use and usability of technology rises, public sector roles in many areas will diminish. If you can complete forms make payments and access information online the need for staffed offices is less. As Alun stated we have to move away from a dependence on the public sector for employment. 75% of those who work in Wales work for the public sector, we are all working and paying taxes to fund our own positions. This leaves nothing for health, education and infrastructure. We are still at the cusp of the technological revolution with more traditional roles being taken by online services. As with those who survived the Industrial Revolution if we are to prosper we have to move with the innovation. I feel that the political class in Wales is due the lion share of the blame for the stagnation of innovation, they have stuck with the old fashioned ways of over stuffing the public sector as it is an easy (and lazy) way to win votes. There needs to be more done to encourage private business and enterprise in Wales, to change a culture of reliance on one area for economic security. But I fear that in the run up to the election the old ways will remain, keeping their political positions is far more important to them than what Wales actually needs.
The town centre itself is more than ever reliant on the public sector. e.g. Coleg Cambria, student accomodation.
The problem is there is no planning for the private sector especially local SMEs. Some unscrupelous landlords (and I include the council in this) seem to think that the reduction in business rates means that they can charge more rent rather than less before the beginning of the great recession. The office space now available in the town centre is quite shocking especially when you think how much has also been turned in to student accomodation.
Also of concern is the growth in the third sector which relies heavily on volunteers.
The way Wrexham is going is alarming…..the town is a total mess. Its like a third world country!
Long gone are the days when we had a chief executive who went looking for good well paid manufacturing jobs like Sid Tongue.
Do we have a council leader these days?, if we do they should hang their head in shame as they are guilty of being in charge of the biggest cheapjack town centre in Great Britain!@CarolThomas 19804 wrote:
What’s wrong with having volunteers doing things in their community – it is free choice
Anyone who volunteers for a good cause is an excellent human being and deserves only credit.
A worry during this period of austerity is that some of these volunteers may be exploited by the council as being a vehicle to third sector privatisation of council facilities/services.
e.g.
The libraries becoming a trust under the premise of being a charitable trust means the council can save 70k costs of busienss ratesHowever in the future, they may say, we’can’t afford to run the libraries for as many hours as we did last year, make a few staff redundant and threaten all libraries will be shut on wednesday afternoons. Then later suggest perhaps we could run wednesday afternoons with volunteers.
This may sound far fetched, but look at some of the local community centres and one of the leisure centres, it’s already happened within the last 12 months.
A job gone in a public sector centre means another 20k lost from being recycled into Wrexham’s economy. All fine of course, if there is a plan to replace that job and more jobs in the private sector.
Equally as worrying, is the thought of taking necessities out of Wales and into England. Is this a sign of things to come in terms of keeping Wales under the English thumb or simply a coincidence?
@CerysHughes 19794 wrote:
Will this become an election issue?
Quite worrying, this is approx 1.5 million taken out of the wrexham economy.
Also reasonably well paid jobs, the people will either have to leave for liverpool/manchester or take a huge drop in salary working in low paid jobs.
Not good as either will reduce spending power in the town and local shops.
This is after job losses in the dss, university and the council, I worry that WCBC has staked too much on the public sector and a red letter day is fast approaching.
Yes i know about the prision, but there won’t be many local jobs and many of those will be low paid.
@justjojo2011 19814 wrote:
Is this a sign of things to come in terms of keeping Wales under the English thumb or simply a coincidence?
This is an example of the paranoid, insular ‘VICTIMHOOD’ thinking that holds Wrexham back, it implies that there is some coordinated group of English people who spend their days looking for new ways ruin the Welsh.
In what possible way is the heavily subsidised Wales ‘under the English thumb’ and for what possible purpose? I’m genuinely curious.
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