Questions Raised Over Performance Of Wrexham Street Festival

A debate over the performance of Wrexham’s “Street Festival” events was raised at the Town Centre Forum after an independent survey was conducted.

The Wrexham Street Festivals, which started as a trial last year, have been running on a monthly basis since April 2016. The events take place on the last Saturday of the month and see a day full of live entertainment and stalls across the street of Wrexham.

September’s Street Festival saw 25 choirs come together and perform across the town centre.

Speaking about the latest event, Chairman of the Town Centre Forum Nigel Lewis said: “It was a great day, and we had the weather with us. The thing I felt was most positive was that it joined up the old and new parts of town.

“There is fine tuning to be done as we know it does not benefit every business or location in the town.”

One question put forward surrounded the financial benefits of the events, with Cllr Dana Davies referencing Wrexham Council’s Task and Finish Groups and their role in analysis and collecting data, with Wrexham Council being asked for £5,000 by the Forum’s Community Interest Company to ‘take the festival up a gear’.

Cllr Davies said: “Is anyone putting work together on cost benefit analysis of this work? We need to track it.”

At this point James Baker, a trader in the General Market, pointed out that an independent study of over 80 businesses had taken place regarding the success of the street festivals.

The full data has been provided after the meeting and is at the bottom of this article. The results given to us show 44 had said takings had decreased, and the majority wanted the festival ‘changed’.

It was stressed very few wanted the event cancelled, but did want to see it altered.

Cllr Bill Baldwin pointed however out that it was not appropriate to see the festival days in isolation, stating: “I have seen people on the day for the street festival, and they say ‘I like Wrexham’ and then come back. Wrexham gained a lot of new friends on Saturday.”

Owner of La Baguette on Regent Street, Matt McHale said: “Trade can be up and down, but I do see a benefit going forward from people who have been or have heard of it.”

Mr Lewis added: “The whole idea came from the Manchester Metropolitan University. It takes time to get the benefits from things. It can drive an extra 30% footfall. Do we know it is doing that ? No, we don’t. There are intangible benefits. There were a lot of people there on Saturday from Chester, we had huge praise for the new toilets (Henblas St), those toilets put Chester to shame.”

“The festivals give a lot of startup businesses an opportunity to trade in the town. Six from the street festival want to open a shop or move in to the markets.

“Ian Lucas did a survey at the end of last year, James says someone else has done some work, it is all something to look at in the Winter.”

Mr Baker added noted he had been asked to speak by democratically elected market representatives.

He said: “The way the representatives are talking to me about it is you don’t want hot and cold spots in a bath you want to swish it around to make the temperature even.

“There are certainly cold spots in town. Those cold spots are always in the same points and that needs raising. I hope the voices are listened to and the cold spots do not result in people being frozen out.

The survey data…

The data was later sent to us with a comment that read saying the information was collected over eight hours on Monday 26th September, following the previous town centre street festival.

We’re told: “This was an anonymous and unbiased survey where those collecting data did not look at the data until it was randomised later. It was as fair as an unofficial survey could be in our opinion.

“This survey was conducted as the market traders repeatedly voiced their concerns that they where not being listened to when they gave this information individually, and when the information was presented though their democratically elected market representative, it was still called hearsay, and ignored for lack of evidence.”

The results given to us were:

Question: The street festival has had the following effect, compared to normal Saturday takings.
Increased = 12
Decreased = 44
Same = 24

Question: I think my personal business would be best served if the street festival…
Stopped = 12
Continued = 16
Changed = 52

Question: My business is a…
Market stall or shop = 40
Independent shop = 28
Retail chain shop = 12

Previously self styled ‘local campaigner’, Andrew Atkinson who helps organise the events conducted a quick poll on Twitter last November to enquire the success of the event as a draw, with 64% seeing it as a ‘no’.

The glass half, or 36% full, view was seen as ‘great work’ and a basis for future improvement.

A formal survey on the success of the street festivals has yet to be undertaken.