Business cases being prepared for three projects as ‘Civic Leaders’ town centre wish list starts to become a reality

Businesses cases are being prepared for three projects as a wish list created by “Civic Leaders” in the town starts to become a reality.

Earlier this year an eight point plan from the town’s “Civic Leaders Group” was signed off by the Executive Board of Wrexham Council. The Civic Leadership Report 2019 on Wrexham (PDF here) gave a ‘vision’ of the town centre’s strengths and also its weaknesses and puts forward eight ideas to build on those strengths and address the weaknesses.

At least three of the eight points appear to be progressing after comments made in a briefing by Chief Executive Ian Bancroft and Council Leader Mark Pritchard.

The Chief Executive spoke about a range of investments due for the area totalling around £100m, including £32m for the town centre ‘with a clear programme of projects’, adding “In terms of the town centre we are now at stage where we are working in a similar way to the Wrexham Gateway project, so it is a joint piece of work between us and Welsh Government. We are looking forward to bringing forward a series of projects over the next three months October November and December. We would hope to announce on a monthly basis about the series of projects coming forward with the Welsh Government about the town centre.”

The Gateway project saw a ‘feasibility study’ commissioned and announced as part of the initial phases for the project, so we enquired if that was the type of announcements people could look out for.

Chief Executive Ian Bancroft said, “We will do business cases for each scheme and those schemes fall under the prospectus that we provided , that outlined the common purpose and ready for an investment in the town centre.”

Three projects were lightly referred to as the ‘entrepreneurial loan fund’, ‘marketing and branding’ and a third one around ‘derelict properties’.

It appears the business cases for each are being worked on, with Mr Bancroft adding, “What we do with Welsh Government is we’ll work at business cases in relation to those, and they’re the things that Welsh Government assess in terms of readiness for funding with those first three being the priority. We are aiming that we get business cases in during October for those first three schemes, to be followed in November, December by other schemes.”

The eight issues that were addressed by several ideas in the Civic Leaders report earlier this year are below:

– Creative engagement, with it noted the wider Wrexham economy is healthy and incomes are good but Town Centre spend doesn’t follow.
– Finding financial solution to knock down and invest in town centre buildings, noting high quality specifications will refresh and energise the town centre.
– A new entrepreneurial loan fund to ‘to stimulate and sustain entrepreneurs that push the envelope’
– Improve transport routes and methods to encourage local people to travel in to town
– Safe lively spaces in town, and good gateways into town
– A more defined town centre ‘core’, with smaller units of independent traders offering quality products and experiences.
– High quality residential accommodation, and it appears a discouraging of identikit flats with encouragement of ‘innovative design that is complementary to the Town’s heritage’.
– Creation of a high quality prospectus for the town, with a ‘clear brand’.