Town Centre Action Plan Developed to Improve Footfall & Occupancy Levels

A draft ‘Action Plan’ has been created in a bid to tackle issues with the general appearance, footfall and occupancy levels in Wrexham Town Centre.

The action plan, which has been formulated by members of the Wrexham Town Centre Steering Group and Town Centre Manager, Isobel Garner, was announced at this month’s Town Centre Forum Meeting.

A hard copy of the action plan was not available to view, however the meeting was told that it consists of improving the appearance of town – including signage and lighting, and also creating a database of every empty property in the town centre and engaging with their landlords.

Speaking at this month’s Town Centre Forum Meeting, Chairman Nigel Lewis said: “”This arose as a result of the work that Manchester University had done. They found there are 25 priorities and how we would tackle those. We had a meeting where the university attended, meeting in the council chambers. We broke up into small groups and started actioning things, such as street clean ups, street festivals and we influenced parking charges.

“We are recognising that the council have officers and members dealing with issues in the town centre, and we have many volunteers. We don’t want to duplicate things and together we want to tackle things that need it and make sure that they are prioritised.

“Over the past month I have sat down with Isobel and others over the past month, there has been lots of dialogue.

“There are a lot of items on here, the concept brings together all the things the various groups are trying to achieve, such as the Healthy High Street campaign who have an agenda to increase footfall, reduce vacant properties and increase employment.”

Other ideas put forward in the plan include potentially opening a Wrexham Heritage shop, working with entrepreneurs, putting vinyl images on empty shops, using vacant properties as pop-up shops and shop shares – along with an improved communications plan to market the town centre.

Reference was also made to a number of initiatives being carried out within Wrexham over the next few months, including the launch of the county wide ‘Sheep Trail’ and the introduction of cheaper car parking in Eagles Meadow and in the Waterworld car park from April.

A final copy of the ‘Wrexham Town Centre Partnership Action Plan’ is anticipated in the next few months.