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On a couple of points above before I keep refreshing Sam Ricketts news…
[quote]Can’t see any expenditure figures for wages , utilities etc.[/quote]
Staffing is listed bottom left of http://moderngov.wrexham.gov.uk/documents/s13504/Appendix%201.pdf
Perm staff £258k and variable £30k – down roughly £40k from consultants business plan as posts not recruited until into the summer.
As an aside, it appears the capital funding was there for the centre but not full revenue to hire prior to opening with some key roles hired afterwards. Councillors are using the word ‘wobble’ at the start, so could be a link between not having all the staff in place, and the er, jiggle.
[quote]Food and drink £17,500 — this must be assumed to be team and coffee at meetings etc. — that’s an awful lot of drinks[/quote]
The 17,500£ for food and beverage is under the income line, rather than buying in catering for staff. Off the top of my head the initial biz plan had the council potentially running a cafe in there, but that did not happen for whatever reason.
I am told one high end coffee machine specced and acquired by WCBC ready for their coffee shop was dormant due to that change, but has now been put into use.
Walking down to the lights it did not seem that space was being used for anything so not sure they were connected.
I did that tweet – believe there were two mentioned, one in Gatewen over use of education and one in Llay regarding overage but usually that is in contracts? There was also reference to various deeds and agreements throughout the meeting.
There is a bit from the legal officer on this webcast list on covenants https://wrexham.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/384730/start_time/3433000
Cllr Morris full comments are on https://wrexham.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/384730/start_time/11677000 and at 3hrs (!) 24mins talks about covenants etc.
Looking back – in 2012 issues in terms of local administration were being considered https://www.wrexham.com/news/councils-estates-respond-national-welfare-reform-timebomb-11693.html “Concern was voiced from the council that this could create “difficulty in collecting rent” , which could then impact wider as if rent is not paid it could increase homelessness.”
In 2013 this was referred to as a timebomb https://www.wrexham.com/news/welfare-change-pilot-sees-council-rent-arrears-increase-by-600-29605.html
Note the below is from that 2013 article and not current:
Torfaen, a county borough close to Newport in South Wales, is one of six areas where the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is running what it calls “demonstration projects” ahead of wider introduction of the Welfare Reform changes. In the first group of Torfaen residents on the pilot scheme rental arrears grew from £20,000 to £140,000 in just seven months.
A large proportion of this test group that incurred the 600% rise in arrears are said to have had ‘a good track record of payment before’ with ‘a pretty low level of arrears’.
Wrexham.com attended an information session with Wrexham Council recently where we asked if they had a prediction of what percentage of arrears they were expecting, as the BBC had reported a DWP source stating “a rate ‘in the teens’ rather than 20-30% reported“. No figure was placed or indicated, however it was recognised it is likely to be a problem.
The report to Wrexham Council from September 2012 stated “It is also clear that the workload of Officers managing rent arrears will increase with the proposed introduction of housing benefit payments direct to tenants, instead of electronically to landlords, as part of a claimant’s benefit entitlement. The local relationships built will be even more crucial in ensuring income streams are maintained and tenants can seek advice from a local officer that they trust. The proposed reduction in housing benefit payments to claimants will also impact dramatically on the Service, particularly on income collection, rent arrears recovery and consequential homelessness.”
“Why didn’t he react to someone else shouting such expletives?”
He did, he said oi, and told them to keep moving.
Earlier in the video he tells people to keep it moving, with a clearly different voice than the one making the offensive comments.
The drop in worldwide demand / prices for recycling mentioned on this thread, and mentioned in several meetings I have observed, reminded me of this article from earlier today https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/18/uk-recycling-industry-under-investigation-for-and-corruption
The bit that caught my eye, and could have local impacts sooner than later if true: “Several insiders told the Guardian the export market – which the UK relies on as it struggles to meet a target to reprocess more than half its plastic waste by 2020 – could dry up within weeks.”
[quote]Liam– The Fourth Street Report projected car park receipts to be £159k. This was allowing for a charge of £4 for 2 hours, since that projection the Council have reduced the charges.
The projected income was £159k with overheads of £95k leaving a net income of £64k.
It remains to be seen if the final figure after the reduced tariffs will come in at £64k net income.[/quote]
Source for the above is https://moderngov.wrexham.gov.uk/documents/s4153/Appendix%201.pdf 3.6.8
To put some meat on the bones I placed an FOI requesting several revenue bits of info on income received April 1st 2018 to August 21st 2018 so a snapshot of rev info without context was provided in the response.
Car park was noted as £59,250 for that 4.5ish months – although I have been told the cost of running the car park is lower than expected. Going by the above it seems its pretty much on target as per the plan, but if costs are lower, should mean a brucie bonus.
I have had it confirmed that the £12.5k rent from the police for the old gallery is going over, however there does not seem to be the rent for the mobile mast.
South Arcade shops have been paying rent (£24.3k),with Exhibitions seeing rev of £2k, Shop of £10.7k , ticketed events of £1.5k and venue hire of £4.2k.
Comparing it to the original plan seems pointless at the moment as it is clear to me that has been adjusted, as you would expect with any developing new business with some being quite happy that targets are being met and things looking up.
Hopefully any new plan is made public along with any discussions, it is worth remembering the only reason we have the old plan to refer to is it was accidentally leaked to all local, regional and national media (but for some reason only one outlet published contents) and even then there was an attempt to still discuss it in Part 2.
[quote]‘We don’t feel safe in Wrexham in the daylight’ shock survey finds
What was the survey results for night-time?[/quote]
Daily Post didn’t bother with the actual data.
This has a look at the day / night, town centre, home and 2 miles from home data plus link to report.
Majority of 18 to 30 year olds and those aged over 61 feel “Very Safe” or “Safe” in town centre
Will the Leader and Daily Post do their own story on it now that is public, or have they actually stopped covering Wrexham Council now the LDR (more here) exists, that was promised as more eyes on things, not licence fee payers subsidising journo cuts in PLC’s and billion dollar megacorps.
Bear in mind the Daily Post publishers managed to send a reporter to the opening of a supermarket the other day… (!)
[quote]So much negative publicity for the town created by a survey completed by less than 1300 people ! Thousands flocked into town over the last two weekends to enjoy themselves at the Food Festival and Singing Streets, with absolutely no fear for their safety.[/quote]
Just to be accurate on flocks, a Chief Reporter at the Leader reported on the Food Festival that there were dozens of interested crows, and only hundreds of people.
57 hundred people I think, and more seagulls than crows… but perhaps the crows were terrified and kept away?
