Shop front facelift grants agreed by town council

Llangollen town centre shops will soon be able to take advantage of a cash windfall to help them smarten up the front of their premises.

Denbighshire County Council has announced an allocation of £40,000 for shop front renovation grants.

The amount will be divided between the county’s eight main towns, giving £5,000 to each town council, including Llangollen.

The grant aims to provide 50% of the funding towards a facelift scheme up to a maximum of £1,000.

Applications are to be submitted to the town council which will either approve or reject them.

Where there is over-subscription of the scheme, the town council will use a scoring process giving priority for a grant to those shops it feels are best placed to receive funding.

Deadline for applications, which was originally set at December 20, has been moved to March 20.

Once approved by the town council, grant payments will be made by the county council.

In a report outlining the scheme considered by members of the town council at their meeting on Tuesday, town clerk Gareth Thomas said that such schemes had been successful in the past and had improved a number of properties in town centres.

He added: “The scheme is worthy of support.”

He also said in the report he was confident that the extra workload it would mean could be handled by the council. 

Calls to re-open community hospital beds

The growing bed-blocking problem across North Wales has prompted calls to re-open community hospital beds.

 

Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board closed community hospitals in Llangollen, Flint, Prestatyn and Blaenau Ffestiniog last year, despite local campaigners warning that the centralisation plan would cause problems.

 

Plaid Cymru  North Wales AM Llyr Gruffydd said: “Only last week I called for an empty ward at Ruthin community hospital to be re-opened to cope with the pressures being put on our main three hospitals. This week the crisis has reached boiling point with non-urgent surgery being cancelled to cope with the pressure on beds. This is completely unacceptable, especially as this is not a winter crisis or as a result of a superbug infection.

 

“Senior Betsi Cadwaladr managers have, in their rush to centralise, failed to realise the importance of community hospitals as a way to ease pressure on our district general hospitals. We need those 50 beds lost last year to be re-opened to cope with the crisis and provide ongoing community care for patients.

 

“If NHS managers won’t respond to this simple solution, the Welsh Health Minister must intervene. It’s not a seasonal or temporary problem, it’s a structural crisis that has been allowed to develop under his government’s watch.”

 

The North Wales Health Alliance was formed last year to fight the closures programme and spokesperson Mabon ap Gwynfor said: “We warned Betsi Cadwaladr that closing dozens of beds without replacing them would cause problems. If anything, it’s worse than we feared. The pressures on the district general hospitals over the past year have seen ambulances backed up and unable to offload patients, beds have been blocked by patients unable to go home and the health service has become more remote from patients and communities.

 

“This could have been avoided if the health board had listened to campaigners, who understand the value of having health services at a community level. Re-opening community hospital wards makes sense and we hope it will prompt the new Betsi Cadwaladr chairman and chief executive to re-think the entire centralisation agenda.”

Skates welcomes Ruabon development

CLWYD South AM Ken Skates has welcomed plans for a new development between Ruabon and Plas Madoc which could create 1,100 jobs.

Multi-million pound proposals for a supermarket, hotel, pub/restaurant and more than 300 homes have been submitted to Wrexham County Borough Council – with land now earmarked for a new primary school to cope with the expected influx of families to the scheme on the 57-acre area of the Wynnstay Estate.

 

The development proposed by Wynnstay Farming Limited, on what is currently agricultural land, would also include offices and light industrial units.

 

Labour AM Mr Skates said: “The plans went on public display in Ruabon and Plas Madoc in September, when the developers received invaluable feedback. Over the two-day consultation period they engaged with more than 300 local residents and community representatives, and 60% of those who took part in the survey supported the outline application.

“More than 70% of people thought the development would improve employment opportunities in the area, while 69% said it would improve retail choice.

“However, some concerns were raised – particularly about the increased strain on local schools. I am delighted the revised plans have allocated an area of the site to accommodate a new primary school. This amendment has been made as a direct result of the feedback the developers received.

“The developers are continuing to talk to supermarket chains, house-building companies and a pub/hotel operator who have shown interest in being part of the project, which I believe would bring huge economic benefits to the area.

“As well the jobs created once the scheme is complete, there would be hundreds of construction roles during the building phase – I welcome these plans and strongly feel they would breathe new life into the area.”

The application will be considered by the council’s planning committee in the coming months.

Deadline day today for Chain Bridge tenders

* Work is due to start work on the Chain Bridge renovation project.

Today (Friday) is deadline day for tenders to be submitted for facelift work on the world-famous Chain Bridge.

At the town council meeting on Tuesday night, town clerk Gareth Thomas told members that one or two potential contractors for the work had pulled out at an early stage of the tendering process.

He explained: “I think this was either because there was not enough money in the project, or they thought the risk was too high.”

Because of this the tendering process was extended until this week, he added.

He went on: “We still believe three tenders are due to come on Friday. When they are received a detailed assessment of the tenders will be prepared and a report will be brought to the next council meeting. After a decision is made we can then get on with the engineering side of the project.”

Mr Thomas said the heritage side of the project was going well, with the two officers appointed to handle the operation inviting local artists and the town’s museum to get involved.

There would also be joint working with schools and training sessions for volunteers to work on the project were being arranged.

The project now had its own Facebook page and Twitter account with the aim being to reach out to as many people as possible.

The mayor, Cllr Bob Lube, said that if all went according to plan, and work started on schedule, an opening day for the refurbished bridge might be held in July. 

Last summer it was announced that the long-awaited £465,000 restoration of the bridge, which has been closed for safety reasons for the past 30 years or so, could go ahead after the final slice of necessary cash came in the form of a £350,000 boost from the Heritage Lottery.

Politicians demand answers over Glyn Ceiriog Post Office

CLWYD South AM Ken Skates and MP Susan Elan Jones have called for answers over the future of a rural post office which villagers fear could be closed. 

Residents in Glyn Ceiriog have raised concerns that their local branch is at risk as part of the Post Office’s biggest-ever reshuffle.

Several constituents have contacted the Labour politicians, who have vowed to seek immediate clarification over the future of the ‘vital’ facility.

Mr Skates said: “The Post Office branch at Glyn Ceiriog has received a lot of financial support from the Welsh Labour Government in recent years and is an important and integral part of the close-knit community – I can see no reason whatsoever why it should be at risk of closure.

“The branch serves a large rural community of about 1,500 households in the Ceiriog Valley and there is nowhere else for many miles around which offers the full range of Post Office services. Closing the business would be a huge blow to the community and the people who rely on the post office, many of whom are elderly and go there to pay their bills.

“Glyn Ceiriog Post Office also runs a community IT Hub with minimal charges, which is in use daily, and a local cafe and tourist information centre which is open six days a week.

“I will seek immediate answers and clarification from the Post Office. Family-run businesses at the heart of their community are sadly becoming rarer and rarer in this day and age, but they play a valued role and we need to do all we can to preserve them.”

Susan Elan Jones MP added: “Glyn Ceiriog Post Office is vital local facility which must be kept open. I am working very closely with local residents on putting forward a strong case to try and make Post Office Limited see sense.”

Multi-million development plan for Ruabon area

The Daily Post is reporting today that multi-million pound plans for a supermarket, hotel and hundreds of homes in a scheme that could create 1,100 jobs on a site near Ruabon have been submitted to Wrexham council.

For more details see: http://www.dailypost.co.uk/business/business-news/multi-million-pound-supermarket-hotel-300-6552831

Town council backs canal towpath action call

* Part of the canal towpath.

The town council has backed calls for urgent attention to be given to the canal towpath.

At their meeting on Tuesday evening members were addressed by Mel Lawrence, chair of Llangollen Civic Society, who said the path was in a “deplorable state”.

Mr Lawrence said that last year the new Canal & River Trust, which has taken over responsibility for maintaining the towpath from British Waterways, repaired about 50 yards of it from the wharf towards the aqueduct.

He said he believed they had done this on a trial basis to see how the work went with a view to completing further sections.

However, he added: “It went very well but nothing else happened. The path is now dangerous with lumps sticking up through it.”

He suggested that further sections should be repaired as a matter of urgency and told councillors: “The canal is within the World Heritage Site, which seems to have been forgotten.

“The civic society has written to the Canal & River Trust asking when they are going to do about it. We would also like to see the town council expressing it concern and getting on board.”

At the suggestion of the mayor, Cllr Bob Lube, members voted to back the civic society in its approach to the Canal & River Trust.