Matt
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Reading through Marc’s comments – the service sounded terrible! Wheels falling off, people missing GCSE exams due to breakdowns. GHA got a bad rep towards the end, at least they were a reasonably competent company, but it sounds like any cowboy can get awarded a bus operating licence these days.
The other comment of interest in the Plaid Blog was what has been discussed a few times before on here in regards to the running of a municipal public owned bus service. Whilst this would ensure a more secure future for public transport in the county, WCBC have shown in great detail that they have zero expertise or interest in running anything for themselves – they can’t even be bothered to run any local leisure centres, enforce litter and dog fouling activities or anything that involves any kind of effort. So I don’t think they’d have any hope whatsoever in running something as complicated as a full blown bus service.
The best bet would be for some kind of North Wales (or multi-county – Flintshire, Denbighshire, Wrexham) initiative with Development Bank of Wales/Welsh Government investment. That falls down entirely when they decide they are spending millions and billions down in South Wales instead. With this hypothetical but unlikely situation falling short as it stands – it means we are left with yet another gap in future public transport provision across the county. Private firms of any quality standing won’t take on the less attractive routes, leaving firms to swoop in that have busses stuck together with glue.
I’ve just read through the 300+ comments thread on Wrexham Town Matters and it very much looks like both local town traders new and old feel completely alienated and despondent about the entire project. You hear about all of the decent little businesses who were turfed out of the People’s Market in Christmas period 2016 and then were unable to afford to move back in because of the new high costs.
I was reading a BBC article back from around the time that stated the original plan was to do the refurbishments around existing traders.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-38552504
So it just goes to show they have completely shafted the original trading community who had loyal customers going there year in year out who would have continued to support Ty Pawb by frequenting their favourite traders stalls. Council ignorantly trying to upscale the type of traders who were in there only for it to massively backfire.
You now look and the traders are who were left out and ones who are sympathetic and support them from the Butchers market etc… have absolutely nothing good to say about Ty Pawb. So what does that tell you about the whole project? If even fellow local business individuals aren’t willing to back it – how can they expect customers to have any kind of decent opinion either. Again, all the council’s treatment of individuals held to blame.
Then the current traders themselves sound like their confidence and business optimism has been completely shot instead of comfortably promoting their wares and shooting out sales patter they are constantly on the back foot making apologies for being closed due to having to work other jobs around the trading just to be able to pay the bills at home every month or making a decision to be closed the odd weekend to go away with their children during the summer holidays. Now I’m not being funny but if a roaring trade was to be had – these people would not be needing to take up other employment or justify closing the store to go away if custom and money was flowing in.
I even saw one current trader being sniped at because he told people to be patient and support Ty Pawb – with him being accused of ‘doing rather well for himself in there – so alright for some’. But when he laid out all his costs and staff wages he paid out – you could see despite being busy – he wasn’t making any kind of personal living out of it – just enough to keep the business ticking over. Which makes you think if things get worse even the better faring traders will struggle or will intelligently pull out. But the whole atmosphere is horrible you always associate market places and traders to be competitive with each but on very friendly terms. Morale is at an all time low.
There’s still also a ridiculous siege mentality in place where you get insulted and viewed as not having a right to an opinion unless you visit there and spend money in there on a regular basis. Yea, that’s really going to draw in new customers.
The latest article published on Wrexham.com is absolutely astonishing. The council’s position is one of complete neglect and incompetence when it comes to the timeline of Ty Pawb leading up the launch and from beginning of April onwards.
Someone from the Arts Council (being a major stakeholder) or another external party needs to immediately go down there and find out exactly what the f*ck is going on! Both the rate payers and the local traders have comprehensively been shafted.
The venue is going to incur far greater losses and costs to the rate payers than initially projected – more money cannot be afforded to be thrown down the drain – not when the difficult decisions document cut so many public services across the county.
The traders have livelihoods and families to think about but the council couldn’t care less if trading conditions were piss poor from the outset on an unfinished venue and contracts haven’t even been set-up – plus completely misled about Opening Hours. Quite frankly none of them should pay any rent until they see collective legal representation and only pay rent once major issues have been dealt with and moving forward. I know the collected rent arrears are supposed to go back into the public purse, but quite frankly there has been gross mismanagement on the council’s part they are 100% to blame.
Also incredible that Wrexham.com got threatened with legal action for repeating comments already in the public domain. Another shameful day for Wrexham I’m afraid.
What a massive can of worms this will be. Traders currently running up almost 5 months of rent arrears and will be expected to pay it up before April 2019. I can imagine with some of the poor trading figures, some of the traders will be forced to close for good once these demands from the council come in. Some of them won’t be able to afford to pay any rent arrears and the council will end up with bad debt that needs to be written off and the people will end up going bust.
This is an absolutely dreadful situation.
FOI shows total stallholder rent collected by Wrexham Council at multi million pound Tŷ Pawb arts/market centre since it opened 4 months and 20 days ago…? £0 (zero) https://t.co/f5Qrqgyz5A pic.twitter.com/qI3wdsdaQr
— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) August 22, 2018
Planning committee should push it through – makes more sense to approve unused building converted into residential in town than on some sinking land in Llay.
This is good and I see Ian Lucas has even tweeted to the article signalling his approval.
The knuckleheads on Facebook who say NEW SHOPS OR ELSE – don’t realise that situating residents directly in the town centre will actually improve the chances of new retail and service outlets in the area as a knock on – when you can pick up doorstep footfall.
Plus when you have more full time residents in town it boosts the whole sense of community, those living there will have a strong voice and interest in making the centre of town a pleasant and amenable place to live (especially at night time) and likewise the police would be quicker to respond to any reports of unsavoury activities. So less likely for drunks, druggies, crooks to congregate when people who won’t want them on their doorstep. Of course that means they’ll move elsewhere, but if anything there has been the overwhelming feedback that people are put off by the town centre because of the negative characters who are frequently sighted. Get ’em to set-up some kind of neighbourhood watch scheme and they’ll be doing everyone a favour.
In terms of the lack of car park, my best guess is that not everyone in Wrexham drives and they have to make do with commuting or walking to work currently from wherever they live now. So living within town they’d be within walking distance of the bus station and train stations. Plus easy walking distance to the hospital for healthcare workers etc… Anyone working in retail can get out of bed and be in work in 5-10 minutes.
What you have to ask is at what point does the rate payer see price justification for £1.56m of council money?
At what point are the Welsh Arts Council going to think they’ve made an excellent £2.3m investment to further push the causes of Welsh cultural and language endeavours?
These are difficult ones as no amount of time period is going to validate the location in its current state of affairs and management. What happens if all the traders pack up and leave, what people are booking and using the performance space? Where is the inspirational art exhibitions – that’s drawing in locals and people from farther afield?
It’s either going to end up so derelict it will be forced to close down at great embarrassment to the current Execs who championed it or they will try and prop it up by throwing more public money at it which will cause even greater annoyance.
Is there even a well salaried dedicated events promotions manager – to pull in the performance talent? And an Artistic director to deal with the physical art expo side of things? I’d assume there’s a decent commercial manager to help secure businesses into the units and to promote the businesses? Who is running the place. Need at least those 3 specialty areas covered – done in a highly professional manner.
There was something in this article about care workers in Wrexham being on zero hours contracts from July – but possibly these are third party agency workers.
Wrexham domiciliary care survey results disputed as questions raised over DBS and reference checks
That’s called an interpretation of what you are posting – this is the place people come to criticise the council plus people very rarely have anything good to say about zero hours contracts.
Plus your question can only be answered by other council workers who can access the internal council intranet, so perhaps you have posted it on the wrong place and is a question to pose to HR instead?
