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WREXHAM SECURES £10.5M FUNDING
Welsh Government’s Vibrant and Viable Places Programme (VVP). This funding supports Wrexham’s nine VVP projects which focus on the town centre and Communities First Cluster area for Caia Park and Hightown, with the ninth project concentrating on improving skills and
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n 2013, Wrexham Council was successful in securing £10.5 million funding from
childcare. Sprouts also acts as a training academy for local people who are attending the skills and employability courses. Trainees and apprentices are gaining various qualifications to help them develop and enter full time employment. Feasibility
employability of local people. The first year of funding has already
made a big impact in Wrexham. Two styles of loans were introduced for owners of empty properties and those in the private rental sector. These loans have helped to create rental properties that provide a better standard of living within the town and have increased Wrexham’s housing supply, with empty properties being demolished or refurbished into new homes.
Wrexham is now over
half way into the programme’s second year with all projects picking up pace.
A new affordable childcare facility,
Sprouts, was created and offers early morning, late evening and weekend
studies are being used to help shape a new town centre ‘masterplan’ – designed to help shape Wrexham over the next decade. This includes looking at public space and mobility patterns in the town. The masterplan project was successful in gaining additional funding from Welsh Government’s Vibrant and Viable Places fund as a ‘pipeline’ project, which resulted in 24 key town centre CCTV cameras being upgraded. This upgrade also allows the cameras to serve as WIFI hot spots across the town. Wrexham is now over half way into the
programme’s second year with all projects picking up pace. Design proposals have been created to redevelop the existing ‘People’s Market’ building to create a new Arts and Cultural hub in Wrexham town centre and refurbish the market area. This development aims to increase the offer of arts available within the town, provide additional opportunities for people to enjoy the arts and extend visitor numbers into an area of Wrexham town centre which over recent years has suffered a decline in footfall. In relation to the town centre
masterplan project, a local brown field site that has been dormant for a number of years, is now within Council acquisition and is being marketed as a site for a development opportunity. Throughout the course of the
programme, many of the contractors linked COMMERCIAL PROPERTY MONTHLY 2016 17
to each of the nine projects have brought various benefits to the community. This could be things like teaching local school children about health and safety while living near construction sites or teaching children the benefits of health eating. There have also been a number of ‘community clean-up days’, where the contractors help local residents to clean up areas or take away large household items. The Vibrant and Viable Places
Investment Programme has already had a positive effect on Wrexham, and is set to continue throughout the programme. If you’d like more information about Wrexham’s programme or any of its nine projects, please head to
http://www.wrexham.gov.uk/english/busin ess/vibrant_viable_places/
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