Lunch club serves up treat for local residents

Sheltered housing tenants from Brymbo and Bryn Cefn were recently treated to lunch at a specially organised event.

Held at Brymbo’s Enterprise Centre, the event was organised by Local Member for Brymbo, Cllr Paul Rogers and Local Member for Bryn Cefn, Cllr Beverly Parry-Jones.

Funding was partly provided by Novus Property Solutions, a contractor that has been carrying out housing improvement work to council owned homes across Wrexham. Kevin Clague of the Eat With Kev cafe at Brymbo Enterprise Centre also donated towards the event and supported with cooking the meals.

Novus funded the event as part of a Community Benefit scheme – which sees contractors carrying out housing improvement work required to ‘give something extra’ to support local communities and the local economy.

Following on from the success of the event, both Cllr Rogers and Cllr Parry-Jones said there were plans to host similar lunch clubs in the future.

“It’s been a very successful event and everyone who has come has really enjoyed it,” said Cllr Rogers.

“Social events like this are very important to our sheltered housing schemes so I’m delighted that we’ve been able to support this by holding this lunch club. We are planning to do it again very soon.”

Cllr Beverly Parry-Jones, said: “I’d like to thank Kevin and Novus for helping to make this event happen.

“It’s been lovely to talk to all the tenants here today and I would be very supportive of holding more of these lunch clubs again in the future.”

The funding of the community benefit events and schemes comes as a result of the housing improvement works currently being undertaken across the county borough.

A total of £56.4m has been invested in the programme in 2017/18 – which aims to bring all council houses in Wrexham up to the Welsh Government’s Welsh Housing Quality Standard. The Welsh Government has contributed £7.5m to this investment though the Major Repairs Allowance grant, which they award to local authorities to help them achieve the standard.

As well as funding community events, other community benefits schemes have included boosting local employment, taking on modern apprentices and refurbishing community facilities such as village halls.

Lead Member for Housing, Cllr David Griffiths, said: “It’s vital that our local economy is able to benefit from the huge investment being made in the housing improvements programme.

“It’s been great to see so many local communities benefitting from these schemes, particularly voluntary groups who rely on donations to keep their services running.

“We’ve been able to all sorts of positive contributions to communities across the county borough and this is something we should be very proud of.”

More information about Community Benefits and the Welsh Housing Quality Standard can be found on the Wrexham Council website.