£40m Student Flats Officially Opened Next Door To Loss Making WFC

In the gloom of a rainy afternoon of Wrexham the offical opening of the second phase of student flats took place. The second section of Wrexham Village, at the Glyndŵr University Racecourse Stadium, houses 167 students and will be known as the Erddig block.

With all rooms at the complex now occupied, Wrexham Village is home to more than 300 Glyndŵr University students. The university website gives a guide price of between £99 – £130 per week per student to live there. If as the press release says, 300 places are taken then it is generating £29,700 in revenue a week based off the £99pw figure.

Professor Michael Scott, Vice-Chancellor of Glyndŵr University, unveiled a plaque alongside Wrexham Village owners Geoff Moss and Ian Roberts to mark the opening of the flats.

Mr Moss and Mr Roberts have recently sold the loss making football club next door to the flats to Wrexham Supporters Trust. The flats themselves are built on land that was previously the club car park, and other associated land owned by the football club.

Professor Scott said: “This is a wonderful student residence and because of the first phase which opened last year it’s already got a reputation for Glyndŵr University for the quality of the rooms. And this block has the added function in that a number of windows students can watch the football!”

Mr Roberts said: “I hope that Wrexham Village will become an iconic building which everyone connected with the town can feel proud of.”

The student flats have been seen as controversial for Wrexham FC fans, as all profits were due to go into the club, but they were since told the club will ‘not see a penny more’ and has had all it will have ‘upfront’.

This contrasts to the information given, before planning approval, via a leaflet in 2009 which stated:

Excerpt from the 2009 Valentines Day leaflet issued to fans of Wrexham FC. There is currently no ongoing benefit from the flats to the club, nor anything in place for a new Kop stand.

The WST who have taken over the club revealed on Monday that despite buying the football club for £1, they inherited various debts totalling £xxx,xxx plus project a further six figure shortfall between now and the end of the season.

Glyndwr University now also own the Racecourse Ground, after stepping in to purchase it from Mr Roberts and Mr Moss after the WST stood aside.

Ex-Wrexham FC owner, and current Wrexham Village owner, Mr Ian Roberts is reportedly still due in the region of £130,000 from Wrexham FC. That figure equates to roughly the same revenue the new student development will take in just over a month according to the figures in todays press release.

Earlier in this year it was reported in the Daily Post that Wrexham Council ‘officials’ were ‘probing the Racecourse deal’ to discover if any pledges made at the time of planning consent had any impact and were being honoured. At the time of writing we cannot find any outcome of that on the Wrexham.gov.uk site.