Centre 67 set for summer demolition

A historic building in Rhosddu looks set to be demolished this summer.

An application of prior notification for demolition has been submitted for the Centre 67 building on Rhosddu Road, between the Spar and St James’ church.

The building was last used in around 2005 and there were hopes that it could be be turned into a community hub.

In January Wrexham.com reported that councillors had held a ‘Part 2’ secret session of the executive board to discuss a vaguely named ‘Office Accommodation Review’.

The review report was put before councillors for a private discussion, despite some hints of what it may contain being public.

However a call-in submitted by opposition councillors earlier this month brought some of the debate over the future of the building and its name into the public domain for the first time.

Future use of the site was also mention, with the possibility of social housing on the site referenced throughout the public section of the meeting.

Speaking during the customers, performance and resources scrutiny committee, Grosvenor councillor Marc Jones, said: “The reason why I felt so strongly about this was because it is an important building and part of the heritage in my ward. Because the decision had been taken in private, I was unable to discuss this with people.

“I was unable to discuss this with residents, and I wasn’t able to discuss it with people who I know have a commercial interest in purchasing this property.”

“I think it is an important issue that we can’t just allow to be held behind closed doors, my concern was that how things stood, and we hadn’t done this, we would have ended up with a bulldozers moving in and that would have been the first time that people would have been aware of it and it would have been too late.

“I don’t think that’s the way we should be operating as a council.”

Despite calls for a public discussion over the future of the building, a demolition notice for the building has now been published by Stephen Bayley on behalf of Wrexham Council.

The notice states that “demolition is required to mitigate the risk of vandalism and fire.”

If approved, demolition of the building will start in June and end in September.