At the December meeting the members were pleased to hear that a number of businesses had decided to join the Chamber since the last meeting.
Membership has now nearly doubled
since the summer and businesses recognise the benefits of membership -
networking with other businesses; business support and advice; free training
opportunities; preferential advertising; co-ordinated town activities; advance
notice of events; page on www.llangollen.org website; representing your views
to help make Llangollen a successful town.
County Cllr Stuart Davies was
invited to attend the meeting to bring members up to date on a number of County
Council issues. He explained that reductions in the amount of money the County
receives from the Welsh Government together with other factors would result in
savings of between 6% and 8% having to be made over the next few years.
The County Council would be considering
efficiency savings in many areas to offset reductions in services but the size
of the reductions would inevitably mean a significant impact on some
non-statutory services.
However, in acknowledging that
Llangollen has insufficient parking spaces in the town, especially in the
summer months and when major events are being held, the County is investigating
options to double the existing number of spaces over the next two years.
This will include plans to reduce
some of the recycling facilities and removing the existing garages in Market Street
car park; making more use of the car park at Ysgol Dinas Bran; extending car
park provision at the Pavilion; utilising the car parks at the proposed new
Health Centre; and investigating the site at Wenffrwd as a Park & Ride
facility. It is likely that a consultation exercise will be carried out prior
to any of these projects.
Following complaints about 'A'
boards blocking pavements across the County, not just in Llangollen, there is
to be a protocol established so that everyone will know what will and what will
not be permitted. As a result of some unhelpful and speedy reaction in removing
advertising signs for the Food Festival without warning a meeting was held with
the County's Street Scene Coordinator for the Dee Valley. This proved very
useful and agreement has now been reached about locations where such signs can
be located in future.
The signs will also be used in
future for the International Eisteddfod, Fringe Festival, Food Festival and
Christmas Festival.
Cllr Davies also informed the
meeting that the County Council has prepared a Town Plan for
Llangollen/Llantysilio and is available for inspection on the County Council's
website. Any future major projects for the town will be included in the Town
Plan.
A formal letter objecting to the
proposal to close the HSBC bank in Llangollen has been sent to the Group Chief
Executive of HSBC as many members will be very much inconvenienced and subject
to security concerns as a result of the closure. The Chair has held a meeting
with Barclays Bank who say they are happy to assist any business in
transferring accounts to their branch. Business accounts would be fee free for
6 months and Community accounts would be operated on a free basis as long as
they were in credit.
The website is in the final
stages of being re-written and the Events Diary is available to anyone wanting
to advertise their events in Llangollen.
Some issues which hopefully will
attract more visitors to the town - two members recently attended the
Denbighshire Tourism Forum and said that good progress is being made to produce
a Denbighshire Destination Plan which is anticipated to receive formal approval
by the County Council in March.
Also an article is to be placed
in Country Walking magazine next year after representatives spent two days here
walking in the area. Contact is to be made with the Radio 4 programme on
Rambling and the Times Travel Supplement in order to persuade them to do a
programme/article based on Llangollen.
It is anticipated that the long
awaited arrival of trains in Corwen will take place in March next year with a
passenger service operational by Easter.
* The next meeting of the Chamber
will be on Monday 6th January 2014 at 7.00pm in the Hand Hotel. At that meeting
the priorities for the Chamber for 2014 will be discussed.
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