Promoting Wrexham town centre as a place to shop, eat and socialise, whilst giving our community the power to make decisions is one of my key priorities as the Member of Parliament for Wrexham. Our town is historic and beautiful, but I know that many residents feel dissatisfied with the range of shops and unacceptable behaviour in the town centre. This is why, I have been working with businesses and residents, along with the Council and the Police to listen to residents and make the improvements they want to see. Over the summer I spoke with town centre businesses about their desire to see changes to the town centre to promote outdoor dining – the decision for which is now with the Council – and recently I invited stakeholders to a roundtable meeting to discuss crime and antisocial behaviour in the town centre. Although the Senedd Member for Wrexham has declined to attend, I hope that by bringing stakeholders together we can formulate a strategy for making sure your concerns are considered.

Recently, I met with one of the Directors of the Wrexham Business Group, a membership group that aims to increase pride in our town, increase footfall and reduce the vacant units, to find out about what they want, what they are doing and what support they would like from me. I was pleased to be able to discuss the work that I have been doing to support the town centre, and to hear how businesses in Wrexham are faring as we exit the pandemic and restrictions.

One important point that came out of the meeting were concerns about the operations of the Post Office in the town centre, currently operating out of the WH Smith premises. I have been told that long queues and shortened opening hours have become the norm, which is causing an inconvenience for many users. As such, I wrote to both the Post Office and WH Smith on behalf of the Business Group to outline their concerns and I will continue to monitor the situation, so please get in touch with me if you have had issues using the town centre Post Office.

In more positive news, following on from the Autumn Budget, the UK Government last week announced that Wrexham would be receiving over £200,000 in funding from the ‘Community Renewal Fund’. One of the projects receiving funding will be a town centre vibrancy scheme, designed to help revitalise the town centre by bring together property owners and agents and new businesses looking to utilise new buildings in the town centre to increase vibrancy and reduce vacant premises. Given my interest in boosting our town centre, I am particularly excited by this funding which will give our community – businesses, community groups, charities and property owners – the power to invest in our town and make sure we all love our town centre.

Finally, I was pleased to meet with Openreach recently to discuss on-going concerns about digital connectivity across Wrexham. Openreach were, I am pleased to say, willing to listen and take onboard specific resident’s cases where problems have not been resolved satisfactorily – such as the residents of Green Park in Offa. As such, if you have concerns about your broadband speeds, please get in touch and I will happily raise these with Openreach directly.

As always if you are resident in Wrexham and need my assistance with any local or national issue, please make contact with me by emailing sarah.atherton.mp@parliament.uk.