Alunh
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The report is actually excellent and Peter Scott’s department have done logical and commendable work. Where the Leader got it all wrong was to make a big story out of red herring considerations (which the Council are obligated to do) which in turn were dismissed as being poor options.
The preferred options are as emphasised
@jimbow 3546 wrote:
I have worked out that from an occupancy rate of 70% which the markets are currently running at ,the operating profit to the Council is £160,000 per year, making the markets self financing.At an occupancy rate of 40% the Council would have to subsidise the market from the Council coffers.The meeting on 6th February will discuss the way forward, with a suggestion of a three year plan.Would it not be prudent of the Council to scap the three year plan and instigate the same plan over the next six months.A large stall has vacated the Peoples Market last week and I have heard that a tenant is working their notice on two stalls in another market.Time is of the essence,the markets can be turned around, carry out the suggestions and give the traders a chance.In the past they have contributed upwards of £250,000 per year into Council coffers.Now they need help quickly.Councillors their destiny is in your hands,please help them.
I had a discussion with the Head of Economic Development perhaps 2 years ago Jim and he suggested that perhaps 10% of the Rents raised by the People’s Market are all that are required by the Council to maintain the Markets (when the People’s Market is full). This might understate the actual figure but I am guessing that perhaps 20% covers the costs that are not targeted by the Service Charges. I presume that this means things like Depreciation and Repair. What this means in practice is that a full People’s Market would provide a Revenue return to the Council coffers per annum that far exceeds what the Council could generate by closing the asset (or selkling it). Accordingly the main point of emphasis for the traders has to be to stress that the Golden Goose needs to be occasionally fed if it is to laying the goodies. This is, therefore, a vastly different position than the traders asking for fresh money (to be sourced from alternative budgets). What the traders are asking for is a logical Capital reinvestment of surplus rents in the name of long term asset enhancement and in the best interests of the Community
@thewayneinspain 3535 wrote:
If the council had a website that included all the sale items in the markets & employed a man with a van, it could compete against the home shopping iceland, asda, tesco et al.
Money from the website could then go to pay the council store rents plus gaining a small commission charge plus transport costs. The website would cost no more than what it pays the leader in advertising this week.
I agree that the negativity about wrexham in the post previous to yours. wrexham will not get better if people find excuses to knock it down, meaning they are to looking for an excuse to be lazy and not help..
Absolutely spot on. This of course requires proactive management. The Council is aware that this is lacking and has been longterm. Sadly the Market has had both a structural deficiency within its Management approach and a Personnel problem. There is a culture of indifference which would not be tolerated in the Private sector. Management in any environment has to manage and this is about managing the given and developing what is needed to move the whole on.
I am guessing that this area will come under the microscope.
@angryShopper 3529 wrote:
It seems to me the days of the market stall are done. apart from fruit and veg I can’t think of a product which is cheaper on a market than in a regular store.
The spaces of the market are good, they could be used well, but seeing as we can’t even fill the shops, how can we expect traders to take stalls on.
You could turn the smaller market in town into like an art centre, giving pitches to the college and uni allowing the art students to sell works, and business students to run business, there are some creative people in the town. but who wants to buy low grade clothing or cheep goods which would otherwise be purchased in a proper shop with a hope of money / back or exchange in any town in the area etc etc.
Time to wrap them up, or reuse them,
I actually agree with some of this but not the negativity. It’s not about price in the year 2013 because the Internet and Supermarkets have this partly covered. Markets can offer a very wide range of produce and services that would never be available in the Supermarkets and which can be provided locally for those people that still want to actually shop. That is why a lot of Markets are dominated by specialists of one type or another, second hand stalls, bric-a-brac as well as food. The type of things that good quality Markets will have include a good bookshop and someone like Stan in the Butcher’s Market Wrexham sells the type of thing that neither Waterstone’s or Tescos would. I agree with the idea of having Art and Crafts in Markets and where are the Potters with the Potter’s wheels, Fabric makers, T-Shirt printers, etc. The problem in Wrexham’s Markets lie in a mixture of overpriced stalls/shops, lack of Investment (of the rents collected), and very poor management of the resource.
The Report is a breath of fresh air and can turn around the Markets. The evidence of this, by the way, is in those towns that have intelligently done similar
@Taffy 3524 wrote:
I maybe in the minority here but having walked through the markets and noticed a lack of traders I think closing one of the sites and relocating the traders to the other 2 sites would be a good idea.
The empty site could then be developed into something. (I don’t know what).The Report deals with this in some detail. The emptiest Market is also the most important in terms of business revenue whilst the most delapidated is architecturally significant. Any contraction of the Markets would impact on those areas they occupy and would damage whatever the brand that Wrexham hopes to develop in the future. The problem is that the 3 Markets generate a lot of cash for the Council. The Report is trying to get the Councillors to actually feed the Golden goose so that it can continue laying
Interesting that the Report is explicitly about the Market sector but implicitly it is about the future of the Independent sector as well. In a town that grew organically, the position before EM was one where a fine balance existed between those shops run by Multiples and those which fed off them in the Independent sector. These were composed of Independent retailers trading in privately rented shops and retailers trading in council rented shops. Both of these groups depended on the footflow provided by their more illustrious Multiple neighbours and shops on King, Lord, Chester and Charles Street (where many Indies are based) depended on the passing trade generated by footflow to the bigger names. The new scenario requires the Council to really help the Markets prosper by every power that it has because if these fail, the surviving Indies will follow suit. That folks is how a town implodes
@wrexview 3181 wrote:
Compared to other towns and especially cities Wrexham has a very compact shopping area. There is even a bus to carry people around the town.
Shrewsbury has a main hill with 2 shopping precincts off it on 1 side and a series of side streets off it the other. The entire town is very compact and the Independent shops thrive in close proximity.
Chester has a main shopping street with streets off it in either direction. There the Independent shops survive/thrive. Obviously the Sealand park is away from the town
Wrexham has a main street. Sorry. Wrexham used to have a main street. The main street now is in the middle of Eagles Meadow. Off it is…….nothing. Perhaps a quarter of a mile away from the new main street is the High Street which hasn’t been Wrexham’s main shopping street in decades.
In the year 2000 the town was compact and pivoted on Queen’s Street, Hope Street and Regent Street. Almost all of the main shops were there and almost all of the town’s main Independent shops fed off them.
Also bear in mind that the 1st week of February is Vat pay day. The last quarter of the year is often a killer for some shops because they need a vastly bigger turnover than the units they have bought. If they don’t get that the difference between what they pay the Gov on Vat and what they reclaim on inputs can take the whole business down
