Historic “unsavoury interest” in former Centre 67 site – Leader issues challenge to bring topic to Scrutiny

The Leader of Wrexham Council has said there has been an ‘ugly interest’ in the old Centre 67 / Old Vicarage building Rhosddu that has recently been demolished, and has issued a challenge to the local councillor to bring the matter into the Scrutiny process for examination.

As we have long documented the proposals to knock down, protests against, and finally the demolition of Centre 67 in Rhosddu.

Back in November Councillor Malcolm King made a range of allegations around the legality of decision making along with hints at more to come.

With the building now knocked down we asked the Council Leader Mark Pritchard if he could give a fresh guarantee that social housing would be put on the now empty site, what timeline would be involved until that happens, and what happens in the meantime – would the site be left like a proverbial ‘bombsite’.

Cllr Pritchard responded in a much broader way: “If you look at the way that Centre 67 has been pushed by certain elected members, it’s starting to worry me a little bit because there seems to be a lot of interest around this building.

“When I took over as Lead Member of assets my task was to take away any assets that we don’t need, and remove them from our assets list to make sure that the taxpayer of Wrexham is having value for money.

“That building had been sitting empty, alongside other buildings across the borough and land, and we’ve moved forward on lots of them. It is all about getting best value for money.

“When I took over, there was some problems with Centre 67 that some elected members had give commitments to members of the public and some small businesses that they would be allowed to use it or purchase it. I had to deal with that.

“Some elected members, some of whom are still on this council, shouldn’t have given a commitment to businesses within Rhosddu or further afield that they would be using that building, because that building was redundant and it was no longer required or used as an asset in this council and it was shut.

“We took it to the Executive Board and we made the decision to demolish it.”

“Ever since they have tried to stop the demolition and keep it. There is no need for it, it not listed, there is no heritage history there, Cadw didn’t list it nor English Heritage.

“We looked to demolish it and clear the site, which we have done. I want to focus on why there’s so much interest in it, and it has worried me for a long time.

“I’ve spoken to individuals who have contacted me and I have asked them to go to the legal monitoring officer with information. I hope they’ve done so.

“For me, there’s an ugly interest in this building. I think it’s because the elected members have given commitments to certain individuals, that this building would be used for alternative things and they’ve been proven wrong. They should have never done that.

“I have had four conversations with four individuals who have made that clear to me, that they were told that they would be using it.”

Cllr David A Bithell said: “There are quite a lot of information requests and Freedom of Information requests from members and the local member in reference to Centre 67 – in fact on a daily basis really, which bogs down officers to a degree just answering the same questions all the while.

“In terms of where we are, the current position is that we are commissioning to develop a plan for the site. So we’ve given a commitment for social housing. Before we can make an actual decision, we need to see how many units we can get on the site. So we’re currently in that process.

“Once we’ve got all that information, about what it’ll look like how many units that we can put on the site, our commitment is for social council housing. Council built.

“We have currently got over 4000 people on the waiting list. So we want to get as many social council houses on that site as we can.

“But to do that, we’ve got to allow people to design the site. When we’re in a position, we’ll come back to the executive board, to make a decision, subject to planning of course, to develop that site.

“We have been open with a local member several times, we get repeated questions daily, for the same question, same answers. And we’re given the same answers as we have given previously”

“I don’t think we can be any more open and transparent than what we’ve been. Councillor Marc Jones wants the site to be developed. But I to be honest, we are at a bit of a loss why there’s a lot of traffic and requests. We can’t be any more open. I hope that answers the question because we put the same answers every week.”

Cllr Mark Pritchard referenced an email previously released by Cllr Marc Jones: “He shared the email that he would support the demolition of it if there was no alternative. There’s no alternative. We want to clear the site, and we want to put social housing on there.

“Rhosddu is crying out for affordable homes and social housing in that in that area. I’ll say this very honestly, Cllr Marc Jones can’t say and do what he does and mislead people, because I believe he does.

“Because he can’t be saying to us that he supports the development, then he goes outside and says he doesn’t. It is unfair and untrue.

“I’ll take this challenge head on, I have to, but there is a unsavoury interest in this building on that site.

“I don’t know what commitments were given by other elected members, before my time here. But this administration follows due process, we do everything by the book, by the letter, and we won’t be pressurised going in another direction, I can assure you.

“I’m more than happy to meet Cllr Marc Jones at any time. If you want to call it into Scrutiny, I would challenge him to do so, so all this can be aired in a public debate for everybody to hear and see the issues around this site.

“It is not right, it is unfair and the time it’s taken officers to deal with this issue is a bit ridiculous.”

(Top pic: Archive image of Cllr Bithell / Cllr Pritchard)