Town’s digital parking signs flicker back to life after being switched off for two years

A set of large informational signs that were installed several years ago, but have spent a lot of their life turned off are being revived.

The digital signage was installed at several points around the town centre in 2013, with the poles arriving well in advance of the actual signs.

We asked Wrexham Council what changed last week to bring some of them back to life.

Cllr David A Bithell Lead Member Environment and transport said “The car park signs were funded via capital funding a few years ago, not the council funding.

“The signs have been out order due to technical issues.

“Each car park monitors its occupancy levels and, for example if a car park is full, the signs, indicate full this which will assist visitors and residents coming in the town centre.”

Despite a move towards OpenData in 2017, the council’s car parking data is not yet public live online.

Not all signs are back live yet, we took the top picture of a live sign, and this a few minutes beforehand of another that appears dormant:

In late 2017 we asked Wrexham Council why the signs had been switched off in the latter part of that year, and Cllr Terry Evans, Lead Member for Economic Performance and Regeneration, then told us: “The council has had some problems in communicating with the electronic car park signs, and as such, they have been switched off while we investigate the issue with manufacturers.”

Wrexham Council also took issue with us referring to them costing £525,000 figure is incorrect, stating they full set actually cost a much more reasonable £76,000. The funding was via Taith – a joint transport board of the six county authorities in North Wales, that now no longer exists in that form since 2014.

We referenced the figure from a Taith report in 2011 planning the works (we cant link it as Taith does not exist so the website does not exist) however our local copy of the section of the document is below for reference.