Katia
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The downside of blue sky thinking for raising revenue is we will be the ones paying.
More important to balance what goes out and what comes in already without expecting us to put our hands in our pockets.
For example, look at how much the pension provisions cost.
According to the Tax Payers Alliance £1 out of every £5 paid in Council Tax goes towards council pensions, in other words £200 out of every £1000 Council Tax bill pays their pension before services are even considered.
Before cutting services councils need to look at their staff costs, salaries, pensions, parking perks long before charging us to visit parks etc with our kids.
Time to reform local authority pensions – we can’t afford to pay them for you.
New Research: £1 in every £5 of Council Tax goes on council pensions | Home | The TaxPayers' AllianceTrouble is every time staff reductions are proposed its always the coal face workers that are in peril, the dinner ladies, lollipop ladies, adult social care workers etc and not the administrative bureacrats – is WCBC as lean as can be ?
Absolutely true that ” the general public do not owe any trader or business person a living and that they sink or swim by their own endeavours “.
Some that work in organisations with authority to make decisions having an influence on these people of commerce not only do not have to make the effort of swimming to avoid sinking but are in part reliant on the revenues from these traders to keep them dry in a nice comfortable boat.
I believe some of the disgruntled comments on Wrexham.com are caused by business owners not fully feeling their plight is taken as seriously as it might regarding calls for help on issues such as town parking charges, bus station congestion etc.
To use a slogan from one of our largest shops – its a case of Every Little Helps, rather than as could be thought about the current situation Very Little Helps.
Are we not all in it together, for example every time a shop closes does not WCBC lose revenue, or if replaced by a charity shop, have reduced revenue.
There must be a plan to encourage local entrepreneurs to fill these empty shops which in turn will provide money to the council and lets keep everybody in a job.
We all have friends and neighbours working at the council, we don’t want to see them on the streets, every time we lose a trader it risks jobs elsewhere too. I don’t feel some fully appreciate the urgency of improving the appeal of Wrexham town centre.
Full respect to Ian Lucas for braving his Wrexham.com Q & A, but his reply to a question about our town centre that he often brings people to Wrexham and they say it isn’t as bad as they were expecting ( ! ), or that nobody likes empty shops but he remembers the redevelopment problems of the 1980s are a little worrying – some of us weren’t even born in the 1980s. May as well say it was worse in the 1950s, except it probably wasn’t. At least back then parking wasn’t an issue.
No real sense of urgency there.
Certainly true that Wrexham Council need to talk Wrexham up as a destination and nobody likes doom mongers but not much point if the parking charges put visitors off.
At least they are having meetings…“The overall theme of the meeting was a desire to see an increase in linked up work, planning and budgeting between departments who work in and on the town centre. Another theme was to have a person heading and controlling such coordination.
Cllr Taylor asked the current Town Centre Manager Isobel Garner what her ‘scope’ was, with a view to seeing if she was able to take on the role of a ‘conduit’ to liase with all areas of the town centre and being ‘the person’ to manage.
The Town Centre Manager gave an overview of her position and responsibilities, saying that the query could be ‘investigated and explored further however the interaction was cut as Cllr Rogers said: “I dont think its fair to ask an Officer about their responsibilities like this”.
Cllr Taylor apologised saying he was not trying to put anyone on the spot. “Is Cllr Taylor simply trying to make a point that we currently have a Town Centre Manager but nobody is exactly sure what for ?
Shouldn’t they be strongly arguing issues on behalf of the town traders such as parking etc. We don’t seem to hear much about it if so.
So maybe this is not their role, in which case why is it not a fair question to ask exactly what is ?So quite right we don’t owe a living to local entrepreneurs, neither do we owe a living to council employees. Though if we all could work together with a common purpose ie making Wrexham Town Centre more appealing to visitors – maybe everybody has a better chance of staying in work !
@99DylanJones 12986 wrote:
Perhaps the King Street solution is for the rest of the tenants (sorry for computer shop) …
Jones The Computer has just moved from King Street to industrial estate .
Pc Repair, Computer Support – Jones The Computer – Wrexham industrial Estate, Wrexham Ll13 9ae
Is the town quieter because of the parking charges, probably at least in part, doesn’t help anyway.
We all know various people with seemingly odd shopping habits.
Some elderly folk with bus passes that live in surrounding villages travel into King Street using their bus passes, then catch a bus to Chester or Mold or even further to do their shopping, argument being things are less spread out once getting off the bus, plus its a day out. They prefer this to walking to Eagles Meadow for M&S etc, maybe the ShoppaHoppa was more useful than realised.
More often than not they treat themselves to a few pints and something to eat or at least teas/coffees. All good for shops and pubs and cafes in Chester, and the bus strip is paid by WAG for people to spend in England.
Maybe trips to destinations outside Wales shouldn’t be part of their bus pass, or maybe it all helps the bus companies keep fares down.Then there are ( usually ) younger people but oldies too that are lucky enough to have cars but seem to feel paying to park when shopping or visiting the cinema is outrageous. They will rather spend the money on fuel and visit the cinema at Cheshire Oaks with free parking, and to make the most of the trip perhaps do some shopping at M&S, ASDA and the outlet village plus have something to eat.
There will always be those that like a daytrip somewhere different but the planners that incorporated chargeable parking at Eagles Meadow reduced the attraction of a visit, even before considering several negative incidents of penalty tickets publicised which also deters people.
I haven’t a clue how these things are put together so far as incentives to locate, but surely Debenhams, M&S, the Odeon etc must have realised a chargeable car park puts them at a disadvantage, and the eating establishments even more so. A free car park should have been insisted upon.Even within the small group of people that I am aware of, there is no doubt Eagles Meadow and Wrexham town centre – is that the right order of importance these days – are both losing out because of the parking costs compared to other destinations.
On a sunny day for instance you can take the kids to Llandudno and park in the street for 90 minutes without charge, that pays for ice creams if nothing else. There are always plenty of shoppers milling about. You can’t compare Wrexham to Llandudno I suppose but everytime I walk around Wrexham town centre there are less and less shops, and less reasons to justify paying a high parking charge. Might as well just go to TESCO and ASDA instead.
WMBC should seriously think about attracting the shoppers that like to like to have a walk around, have a coffee with a cake and not just sit in the house ordering everything from Amazon !
Quite so BenjaminM.
That was my point.
We cannot argue with the cost of redundancies, the council is obliged to follow its obligations.
If the headline grabbing figure is £2m so be it.
If people are disappointed that redundancies were accepted from workers in say, Adult Social Care, rather than senior staff in administrative roles or the Mayor, or the Town Centre Manager or wherever else people are pointing fingers this week or next then they have to say so.
There isn’t anything malicious in asking are the council tax payers receiving the very best value for money, regarding the council staff costs vs facilities provided eg Waterworld / Plas Madoc Leisure Centre.
Is this not one of the points of having a forum on Wrexham.com or do we just write to The Leader.I guess those that are seeking a leaner, smaller, more efficient WMBC, perhaps following the example of Flintshire council, will just have to accept statutory redundancy obligations paid out as part of the process.
The questions asked quite rightly are whom is being made redundant, are they then re-employed by the same council, and did they receive any payment over and above their statutory entitlement.
Seems Wrexham.com are on the case.Watching Wales News today its unbelievable that in the space of minutes we hear about Plas Madoc then that WAG has already spent £2m on proposing a car race track which will need them to stump up £30m.
Another facility we don’t need in Wales, how does that help our kids, they can’t afford to drive around like that, apart from the odd one or two with either pretty well off parents or sponsorships from companies.
So that’s two things that could help Plas Madoc and Waterworld, Welsh Assembly stop lending money for private housebuyers with Help2Buy and forget about building a race track.
That’s £33.7m right there ( less already spent ).
WAG needs to help local councils keep leisure facilities.Reading the news about Glyndwr it won’t surprise me to read one day they will be putting the racecourse ground up for sale.
Its probably the first thing somebody will think of doing when money gets even tighter.Some say they feel strongly enough about closing facilities it will change the way they vote at the elections.
To help us do this we need to make sure we find out who is for and who is against. There are articles on Wrexham.com and elsewhere to name councillors, but what would be interesting is to shine a light on who is influencing in other roles, perhaps with anonymity.I wonder if when the time comes will most remember Plas Madoc situation or will they forget about everything and just vote along party lines. Which in Wrexham I guess means they will just vote Labour, whatever happens to our leisure facilities.
It would be good if we could have a single issue vote to let those depending on being voted for realise the strength of feeling about this.
I have a feeling the same faces will be voted in again regardless.Thanks for clearing this up for me, its possibly helped others not realising there are two separate Isobel Garners, or it could be just me.
Now I know where to look I will scan the Town Centre Manager’s twitter account for comment regarding Plas Madoc or Waterworld.
I found a tweet on Destination Wrexham from Feb 27 replying to a question what brings people to Wrexham referring to ” shoppers, leisure users, library, gallery, museum – and yes Waterworld!, groups regularly come just to see St Giles too.”
I would be interested to know what impact closing Waterworld our Town Centre Manager feels will have on town shopping, cafes etc.
Even if its just within 140 characters on twitter.
Forgive me if I am wrong but we haven’t heard either way.
Regarding The Sports Consultancy I suppose there is no way of knowing whether any present or former members of WMBC are connected or if so whom.
Apologies for being quizzical I’m just interested in saving swimming facilities in and around Wrexham and am puzzled how decisions are reached.
