New Town Centre Forum Chairman Alex Jones promises to ‘liven things up’

The Town Centre Forum elected a new Chairman yesterday, with a promise of a new way of working to entice town traders to give the meetings another chance.

Nigel Lewis, who had chaired the meetings since 2015, stood down just before the last Town Centre Forum, in August prompting a call for a new Chairperson to step up. Names were invited, and if there was more than one a vote was due to take place.

With only Alex Jones, proprietor of The Bank Bar in the town centre, put forward he was unanimously approved to his new position at the open of the meeting yesterday.

Despite resigning in August, former Chairman Nigel Lewis was apparently due to chair yesterday’s meeting before handing over control as the final agenda item, however pulled the plan the evening before.

Mr Lewis had proposed his own agenda for the meeting and requested presentation making facilities, however all were not needed as he did not attend. Last month we are told a Town Centre Steering Group meeting was all but suspended after what has been described as a ‘grim’ exchange between Mr Lewis and a Council Officer.

Councillor Andrew Atkinson introduced the Town Centre Forum meeting, pointing out he was ‘not going to run the meeting’, but welcomed the appointment of Alex Jones saying: “It is good to have a town centre trader chairing the forum.”

Chairman Alex Jones’ first action was to state: “I am very much ‘lets get it over and done with’, let’s listen to what people have to say, but please keep it short and sweet.”

Speaking of the wide ranging agenda he added : “I will be limiting some of the items, so we do not go over the hour mark.”

True to his word the meeting was wrapped up in 52 minutes, rather than the usual one and a half hour average of the previous meetings this year.

With the new Chairman came further changes, with it again noted despite around 35 attendees there were only a handful of actual town traders – including Alex himself and Sam Regan from the Lemon Tree / Chairman of the Steering Group. This has been notable in meetings over the past few months, with  councillors, council officers and representatives from various organisations outweighing the number of town centre businesses and market traders.

Alex said: “The aim is to work as a forum for traders to come and get information and share ideas and get a voice. Perhaps 8:30am is no the best time for those working, and those who we want to engage with.

We will be sticking out a Survey Monkey to look at changing times and possibly the venue as some do not like coming to the Guildhall.

“The aim is to liven it up and change how we do things and see if we can actually engage more traders who operate in the town centre.”

As the Forum had anecdotally lost its appeal to traders and given a wide berth by others, new changes have also been announced for the Steering Group – a sub group which works alongside the Town Centre Forum.

The forum was told:  “We would like to invite people to sit on the Steering Group, ideally traders, as there is only of a couple of who have a business in town, the rest are Officers and Council Officers.’

We are told there are roughly fifty people who have attended at some point over the past few years, each with a direct business interest in the town centre, who for whatever reason no longer attend.

Wrexham.com has been sent various issues regarding the Wrexham Matters Facebook Page, and therefore raised the concerns over the Forum’s social media accounts.

The Wrexham Matters publications are detailed on the soon to be public Wrexham Town Centre Partnership Action Plan as part of the ‘communications and marketing’ tasks. Along with publication of a hard and electronic newsletter, actions are listed delegated as an ‘action’ the former Chairman to trial and setup a ‘Wrexham Matters Facebook Group’ to ‘engage with local people’.

We queried why the Facebook page text explaining the connection to the Forum and the Wrexham Business Community Interest Company had been removed, and suggested that the administration of the valuable 6,000 member strong pages should be in the gift of the Forum and Steering Group chairs. The meeting was told the requests will be made and it will be put before the Steering Group to formalise.

The effective relaunch is the second such reboot of the Town Centre Forum inside 12 months, with the format being changed earlier this year to ‘encourage a wider membership’. Those changes were brought is as the Forum witnessed clashes with Wrexham Councillors in pantomime style exchanges, a full ‘Plan B’ on the Arts Hub produced in short notice plus previous concerns over leaflet wording.

The next Forum meeting is due to be on the first Tuesday of December at 4:30pm – with the new Chairman inviting town centre business and traders to give the meeting another chance.

For those business owners wishing to be placed on the circulation list for the Forum you are advised to email  [email protected]

Top pic: Alex Jones, centre.