Posted: Thu 16th Jun 2022

Wrexham’s vacant retail “just too big in terms of both rents, rates and space”

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This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jun 16th, 2022

Empty properties in Wrexham are “just too big in terms of both rents, rates and space”, a council committee has been told.

The comment was made during a meeting of the employment, business and investment scrutiny committee yesterday (15 June).

As we reported earlier this week although the majority of the aims in the documents before councillors were deemed ‘complete’ due to the end of coronavirus restrictions, they also contained information on the footfall and number of empty properties in the town centre.

Overall the number of vacant shops has dropped since the height of the pandemic, with the remainder of council units being kept empty to eventually house traders during the Butchers Market refurbishment.

The committee first spent just over one minute on its Work Programme, which was described as ‘quite a light one’ due it it being a newly constituted committee.  The public copy is thin, with several historical items yet to be scheduled or even re-thought of as some now date back two years.

No suggestions were put forward, at least in public, about what new items could be looked at by the committee in future.

The main item on the agenda was to scrutinise and probe into an approved recovery plan for Wrexham Town Centre, and receive and challenge a brief overview on the emerging Place Making Strategy and the work of the Town Centre Task & Finish Group.

New Economic Lead Councillor Nigel Williams presented the report, despite it being a review of work not carried out under his watch, noting he was ‘really proud and privileged to be taken on this portfolio’.

Cllr Williams, said: “One of the key points in the report is our ability to hold events, which again which are vital to attract people into the city centre.

“Recently we’ve had the Focus Wales event. Last week we had the Women’s Cycling Tour, this coming Saturday we have the Wales Armed Forces event in Wrexham, which will be a fantastic day with up to 300 forces personnel and bands marching through the city centre with an array of shows and exhibitions on throughout the day.”

After a presentation Cllr Mike Davies asked for data on council property voids, something we covered previously from data in the reports , as Chair person Cllr Tina Mannering told Cllr Davies.

Commenting on the number of empty units owned by the local authority, council officer Becky Lowry, said: “There are 22 that we own and manage. They tend to be around the Henblas, High Street and Chester Street area.

“Three of them are currently vacant, but we will be keeping five vacant going forward for possible decant of some of the traders from the Butcher’s Market as we get nearer to redevelopment.”

Cllr Mannering noted the vacant spaces could remain longer, adding: “I believe the traders don’t want to be disturbed at Christmas. So you’re not going to be doing anything until after Christmas.”

Cllr John McCusker queried if footfall counter figures were linked or assessed in anyway to actual revenue in shops, asking if there was any local feedback from traders ‘collectively as a group on how they perceive the situation’?

The officer explained that the the footfall counters have been in place for some years, so the year on year comparisons are directly comparable.

He said: “Footfall alone is part of the story it is not the be all and the end all. We are now in possession, so we haven’t yet had the time to fully get to get to grips with it and understand exactly what it’s saying.

“We’ve been able, with some Welsh Government funding, to be able to purchase spend data for Wrexham as a catchment area”.

“It does give us data collected through credit card and transactions, that gives us a really strong feel for what is being spent in Wrexham.

“What sectors are picking up that spend and where people in Wrexham are spending their money.

“It’s something that I’d really like to be able to bring back to the committee ourselves, the whole point of buying it was to be able to use it. We just haven’t had it in our possession long enough to to fully understand that the best way of presenting that information.”

A future Smart Towns project appears to be leaned upon to help solve that and other issues – as we covered previously. No councillors asked about that apparently key project.

Cllr McCusker also asked whether a visitor centre was now open in the town centre. It was pointed out that the Tourist Information Centre had relocated during the pandemic to Chester Street, next door to Ty Pawb.

Work is underway to bring it up to full service, however the committee was told that it “has, and it does, open for a short number of hours in the day now, but it has been operating as a virtual service.”

Cllr Andy Gallanders queried the source of data in the reports, how the £140m economic benefits and other figures were calculated, and was told the mainly tourism based data was in effect collated via a direct survey to businesses in the sector.

Questions were also asked by Cllr Gary Brown on how strategies referenced would be ‘recalibrated’ now we are going to be a city, and pointed to the ‘Placemaking’ work with the apparent aim of a ‘smaller town centre’ and how that matches with a ‘city centre’.

The officer replied noting the town/city strategy before councillors was ‘very much post-covid recovery’ and ‘not meant to set out a long term strategic direction’, but it will be the ‘Placemaking’ work that will ‘set the scene going forward for Wrexham as a city centre’.

The Officer confirmed that would be a ‘review of the town centre boundary’ as part of that work and that a placemaking workshop will take place in the next few weeks.

On vacant properties Cllr Jeremy Kent asked for an update on the long awaited ‘Chapter Court’ development on Queen’s Square, with a promising reply that developers ‘indicated that they would be on site by the end of this year’.

Wider issues that impact footfall and visitor spend were also highlighted by councillors, with Cllr Stella Matthews raising an issue about lack of transport connecting areas at the edge of town.

The lead officer promised to feed back the concerns to the chief officer for the Environment, noting the report before councillors did point out the nighttime economy was being affected due to the lack of taxi provision.

Cllr Ross Shepherd queried if there was any research taking place into how other towns ‘bucked the trend in footfall’, and was told, “In terms of certainly looking at other towns and working regionally with other towns and town centre managers. We do do that, and we do share information.”

Referring to the likes of Oswestry and Mold, the officer pointed to an element of “resilience” being due to independent traders who “have the loyalty to a place, they’re not a huge organisation that have to manage profit and loss across a number of different locations”

The committee was told that the independent sector is thriving and continuing to grow in Wrexham.

However it was pointed out that for many looking to open in the town centre, the size of the shopfront and property is too big for what they require.

Many of the vacant properties include QD Stores, Debenhams, the former Arcadia properties and the old Sports Direct store.

The officer added: “We’ve got too many large properties that are no longer fit for purpose and they’re just too big in terms of both rents and rates and space.

“We’ve done a piece of work around evaluating both the market failure of some of these larger buildings, we’ve got an evidence base, but also then the opportunities for how we could repurpose some of those very large stores into smaller units that allow those independent traders to thrive”.

After a much-run discussion on Eagles Meadow and some harking back to the good old days, the Chair Cllr Tina Mannering attempted to entice more contributions by asking all members of the committee if they had anything to add on the report.

An update was provided on the Business Improvement District, along with more information on a World Cup fanzone next week.

Cllr Mannering asked the large committee before her: “Has anybody got any recommendations that they want to put forward?” and again finally encouraged “Has anybody got any recommendations?”

With none coming forward the committee resolved to ‘note the report, thank the officers, and look forward to next month’.



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