Wrexham Music Cooperative and Tŷ Pawb to finally work together after ‘disgrace’ of non-collaboration

Wrexham Music Cooperative and Tŷ Pawb look likely to finally sit down and arrange plans to work together, however it took comments made in a public meeting last week to knock heads together.

During the meeting last week of the council’s employment, business and investment scrutiny committee it was explained the issues of getting hold of the newly formed Wrexham Music Cooperative to work together in connection with the arts and markets venue.

The Cooperative was formed off the back of a planned £300k a year cut, which was later toned down with a £50-60k ‘flexible’ contribution remaining, with the launch noting various partnerships – including Tŷ Pawb.

Derek Jones, the Chair of the Advisory Board, said at the scrutiny committee last week: “We would love the Wrexham Music Cooperative to work with us but that is proving exceedingly difficult for some reason.

“We have reached out to them, we have gone to them ‘come work with us, bring the school children from the borough’. We have fantastic musical school children in the borough who played a fantastic role in the Wrexham Music Festival before Easter, it was fabulous.”

“Can we get the Wrexham Music Cooperative team to sit with us and talk about being involved? Zero.

“Anything the council can do to encourage the Music Cooperative to support us, and us to support them, would be graciously received.”

Cllr Marc Jones said: “That bugs the hell out of me. We fought to keep Wrexham’s music service in house.

“If it was in house it would be delivering in Tŷ Pawb and collaborating with Tŷ Pawb.

“That is a disgrace that Wrexham Music Cooperative, that we are paying for as a council, are not collaborating with another aspect of the council.

“Hello? Can we get some action here please because that is an outrage. It begs questions on how we ensure our money is spent as effectively as possible, as that is clearly not happening.”

We later contacted Lead Member for Education, Cllr Phil Wynn, on how a report last year noted that the council had “…established a partnership with the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra and the university, as well as Ty Pawb” and how that partnership has fallen apart so drastically.

We also asked what steps will be taken to get the two bodies back in touch and working together.

Cllr Wynn, said: “The work of the WMC is very valuable to our young people and I am certain that positive and mutually beneficial links with Tŷ Pawb can be strengthened into the future.”

Heather Powell, head of service of the Wrexham Music Cooperative, told us: “We are the schools music service in Wrexham – Our service is accessed by thousands of Wrexham pupils – we provide high quality vocal and instrumental tuition across all Wrexham schools.

“We are a not for profit company that was set up following local authority cuts to services such as music.

“We have already developed positive links with Glyndwr University and we would be delighted to be able to explore the use of Ty Pawb for the benefit of our pupils in the future.

“We are now nearing the end of our first year of delivery in Wrexham that has been challenging, introducing any new service will never be easy – but our service is now progressing and we will have many exciting offers for our schools and pupils for September and the new academic year.

“Whilst we are not a Wrexham Council service we have maintained positive relations with the education team to ensure the very best of musical education and opportunities for Wrexham pupils.”

We are told by someone involved that raising the issue in the meeting last week ‘had the desired effect’ and various meetings are now planned and things are hopefully looking likely to be more joined up in the future.