Welsh Government could ‘play part’ in future of Groves – with onus on Wrexham Council to provide ‘initiative’

The First Minister has indicated a willingness from Welsh Government to help resolve the future of a long vacant building in Wrexham.

As we previously reported the Groves school building was subject to a listing hokey-cokey, with it being listed / challenged / relisted after court action and a final independent decision by then Cabinet Secretary Mark Drakeford.

With the campaign to save the building locally featuring the then First Minister Carwyn Jones, as well as Lesley Griffiths MS, we asked the current First Minister Mark Drakeford about the issue.

We noted that the empty building is impacting on the local education budget, and a recent plan for it to possibly become a medical training facility has fallen apart. We asked with Welsh Labour from top to bottom aligning itself with a campaign to save the building if they had any responsibility to find a solution for the building, if that is solely in the responsibility of Wrexham Council.

Mr Drakeford explained: “The lead responsibility is definitely with the council. I took the listing decision because I had had no involvement in it at all previously with anything todo with the school.

“I didn’t know anything at all about it until I spent one weekend reading a very deep file of papers about it.

“I came to my conclusion completely independently of anybody else, and in the end, I thought the arguments in favour of listing outweighed the arguments against it.

“The lead responsibility then for responding to that lies with the local authority. That is not to say at all, that when they have proper proposals, then we will want to talk to them about it and see if there’s a part we can play in it.

“But, the initiative has to come from the local authority, that is where the legal, as well as the local responsibility lies.”

Regarding the future of the Groves site, earlier this month the council said, “The Council will now need to decide how best to manage the former Groves School building in accordance with our internal processes.”