We’re on the lookout for tradespeople to help us with some key tenders.
Come along to our ‘Meet the Buyer’ event on October 18! This informative event, being held at the Wrexham Enterprise Hub, will provide information on a tender opportunity for specialist trades in the Wrexham area.
We would love to work with you if you are a trader in any of the following areas:
Bathroom / Wet Room Installers
Garden Landscaper / Ground Worker
Plumber / Heating Installation Engineer
Kitchen Fitters
Painters & Decorators
Fencing – supply and installation
There will be representatives from Housing, Procurement and Business Wales available to provide advice and guidance and answer any questions you have about working with the council.
If you’re planning that special Christmas meal with work colleagues, friends or family the Wrexham Council Food and Farming Team would like to remind you to ‘look before you book’.
Christmas is a time to enjoy good company and good food without worrying about food poisoning. But the truth is, you can’t tell a restaurant’s hygiene standards by how clean and tidy the staff look or by how busy it is.
It’s the things you can’t see – like germs spread by bad hygiene practices – that you need to consider.
There’s one easy way to set your mind at rest – check the food hygiene rating.
The food hygiene rating tells you about hygiene standards in restaurants and other food businesses. It’s really easy to check.
Just go online and check the Food Standards Agency website or if you’re out and about check for the green and black sticker.
The ratings are determined by our Public Protection officers, and run from 0-5, with a 5 rating meaning a very good level of food hygiene.
Food businesses in Wales are required by law to display their rating sticker following an inspection.
98 per cent of food businesses are rated 3 or better, so there are plenty of places with good standards and you can easily avoid taking your family to those not meeting the grade. Having the green and black sticker on display in the window and checking online for the rating will help you make a better informed choice.
Cllr Hugh Jones, Lead Member Communities and Partnerships, Public Protection and Community Safety, said: “It’s easy for people in Wrexham to check hygiene ratings online and choose a restaurant for their Christmas parties that takes food hygiene seriously. This is an important time for local businesses. A good food hygiene rating is something to be proud of, and it matters to consumers”.
There are some great events lined up for October in Wrexham’s Library. Take a look a these fantastic events…
Fancy learning something on your lunch break?
Steve Grenter, Heritage Services Manager, at Wrexham Museum will deliver this month’s Learning at Lunchtime at Wrexham Library when he will be talking about the history and archaeology of Holt Castle, situated on the banks of the River Dee on the Wales-England border.
The castle was built between 1283 and 1311 by John de Warenne and his grandson, successive earls of Surrey, following the defeat of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, prince of Wales.
Find out more about this local historical site on Wednesday October 3, 1-2pm.
Our health is affected by many factors in our lives such as the environment, the existence or absence of a support network, where we live, our finances or lack of them, as well as our lifestyle.
Whatever your circumstances are, we may be able to help you achieve a status of positive health and well-being.
To find out more visit our Health and Wellbeing Roadshows at Wrexham Library on Tuesday October 9 (all day), Rhos Library on Friday October 12, 10-12pm and Brynteg Library on Friday October 12, 12-6pm.
Best selling author visit
Wrexham Library will be celebrating National Libraries Week this year with a visit by Sunday Times bestselling author Clare Mackintosh.
Clare spent twelve years in the police force, including time on CID, and as a public order commander. She left the police in 2011 to work as a freelance journalist and social media consultant, and now writes full time.
Her debut novel, I Let You Go, was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller for 12 weeks, and was the fastest selling title by a new crime writer in 2015. It was selected for both the Richard and Judy Book Club and ITV’s Loose Women’s ‘Loose Books’, and has sold more than a million copies worldwide.
Clare will be talking about her latest book Let Me Lie at Wrexham Library on October 11, 2018 at 7pm. Tickets cost £5 and are available from the library or online
There will be something for everyone with information stands and activities throughout the day. Can you afford to miss them?
Community sporting initiatives across Wrexham are urged to take advantage of a fund which could help them in their roles before the closing date for applications.
Sport Wales, which encourages and supports sports participation throughout Wales, is offering up to £1500 for groups via its Community Chest.
Further funding is available for clubs promoting sports for women and girls, disability sports and social inclusion.
Applications for the current round of funding is open until Wednesday, October 10, 2018 with the panel meeting to discuss applications on Wednesday, October 24, 2018.
Cllr Andrew Atkinson, Lead Member for Youth Services and Anti-Poverty, with responsibility for Leisure, said: “There are a lot of good sports and athletics groups out there which do excellent work in their community.
“The Community Chest is there to help those clubs get the extra resources they need. Those involved should make sure they don’t miss out.”
It all kicked off on Friday evening with a beautifully intimate concert of songs and stories featuring five of the finest country music acts around.
Over 70 people filled our performance space to hear a wonderful night of music from Blue Genes, Stuart Landon, Amy Westney, Lars Pluto and Mountainface.
Choirs galore!
Wrexham did itself proud on Saturday with thousands of people heading out into the town to enjoy the Wrexham Singing Streets festival.
We hosted 7 choirs here altogether. Our food court was filled to the brim all morning and afternoon with audience and participants enjoying the music and making the most of the amazing food and drink from Plât Bach, Just Desserts and Milkshakes and Curry On the Go!
Our lovely baby grand piano was put to good use as singers of all ages filled the building with music, from Fleetwood Mac to Calon Lân.
“Sold out!!”
While the choirs were doing their thing in the food court, our performance space was hosting a weird and wonderful adaption of Alice in Wonderland, courtesy of the local youth theatre group, District-14 (The Learning Collective), who have an average age of just 12.
The group performed one show on Saturday evening and another on Sunday afternoon – both shows were sold out, with well over 200 people attending in total.
A new market store unveiled
Two of our market traders joined forces this weekend to create a beautiful new shop. Seaton Manor (soap and body products) are now side by side with Rings and Things.
We really love what Karen and Amanda have done with the place! Come and take a look!
Party time…
To end this memorable Saturday we threw a party! Our Freshers Party included live music, bar, food, and some quite spectacular dancing at some points!
Obviously the Wrexham Sheep were going to get involved with this…
…and another party
Sunday started with a table top sale (we’ll be announcing more of these soon), then, before the building had time to settle, we welcomed yet another huge event – the launch of Black History Month!
Things got off to a thunderous start with a drumming parade around the town centre, finishing up at Tŷ Pawb.
We were then given some brilliant entertainment for the rest of the afternoon with music, dancing and live performances.
“Amser dysgu”
As well as the big events, we hold free Welsh lessons at Tŷ Pawb every Sunday. This week the Mayor of Wrexham, Cllr Andy Williams, joined in to test his language skills with the class!
Click here if you’d like to give the free Welsh lessons a try yourself.
The art has arrived!
While all this entertainment was going on we were busy taking delivery of hundreds of works of art in our gallery from all over the country (and some from further afield), ready for the Wrexham Open exhibition.
We’ll be co-hosting the exhibition with Undegun. The opening event takes place at 4.30pm on Friday October 12. This is going to be very special! Don’t miss it!
[button color=”” size=”large” type=”square_outlined” target=”new” link=” https://www.wrexham.gov.uk/english/education/school_uniform_grant.htm “] APPLY FOR A PUPIL DEVELOPMENT GRANT [/button]
No matter how much money you are able to save, or how often, if you are on a low income you can take advantage of the new Government-backed saving plan that will give you 50p for every £1 saved.
So, over four years a maximum saving of £2,400 would give you an overall, tax-free, bonus of £1,200. That means that you would get £1,200 if you saved 50p a month for four years.
Help to Save is easy to use, flexible and secure, will help those on low incomes build up a ‘rainy day’ fund, and encourage savings behaviours and habits. How much is saved and when is up to you, the account holder, and you don’t need to pay in every month to get a bonus.
Help to Save is available to working people on Tax Credits and Universal Credit.
You can save between £1 and £50 every calendar month and accounts last for four years from the date the account is opened. After two years, savers get a 50% tax-free bonus on savings. If saving continues there is another 50% tax-free bonus after four years.
On maximum savings of £2,400 over four years, the overall bonus would be £1,200.
Staff from four Tesco stores went to Tŷ Mawr for their Workforce Community Day recently to join forces with the Tŷ Mawr Rangers.
The team helped the rangers to turn the overgrown and tired looking area around the Dovecote in to a blank canvas so it can be developed into a bug friendly habitat as part of the new car park works being carried out at the park.
The area around the car park is to be landscaped with wildflower bee and butterfly banks and the Dovecote area will be home to a new bug hotel.
Tŷ Mawr Country Park was successful in securing a grant from the Green Infrastructure Capital Grant Scheme to improve the summer only field parking into an all year around parking facility.
The car park will have environmentally friendly paving that allows water to drain freely and allows grass and wildflowers to grow through.
The day was a great success; the Tesco team worked extremely hard to get the area cleared and put up new fencing to separate the car park from the picnic seating area.
After lunch the Tesco team split forces and half carried on works at the Dovecote whilst the other half spruced up the wood carvings and animal housing with a fresh lick of paint at the parks small animal experience area.
The Rangers would like to send a big ‘Thank you’ to the Tesco staff volunteers for their valuable hard work.
[button color=”” size=”large” type=”square_outlined” target=”new” link=” https://www.wrexham.gov.uk/english/education/school_uniform_grant.htm “] APPLY FOR A PUPIL DEVELOPMENT GRANT [/button]
For the first time in our history, Wrexham County Borough Council has bought back a former council house – and we’ve got 26 others within scope.
The Housing Wales Act (2014) gave us the chance to improve our housing stock through our on-going Welsh Housing Quality Standards (WHQS) work, to build new social housing-which is underway– and to buy back properties.
In addition, since January of 2005, all council homes sold under Right to Buy are covered by Right of First Refusal Regulations, meaning owners have to give either us at Wrexham Council, or another Registered Social Landlord, the right of first refusal to purchase their property, before they go on the open market.
It can get a bit complicated and as with everything, there are rules, but boiled down it means we’re able to buy back former council properties, where conditions are met.
Buying back
So, for the first time in our history our Housing Department has started buying back ex-council houses, so we can increase our stock and make sure there’s more social housing available.
Cllr David Griffiths, Lead Member for Housing, said: “We’ll always work hard to extend and improve our council housing stock, so we can be sure that we can provide a ready supply of affordable housing in the Wrexham area.
“Buying back properties is just one way we can achieve that, but I’d advise anyone who owns a former council property, bought from us in the last 10 years to get in touch with us.”
We’re currently in the process of buying back former council properties in Pentre Maelor, Southsea and Plas Madoc.
However, our Housing Department is always on the lookout for other ex-Right to Buy properties, which we might be able to buy back.
“Get in touch”
If you own an ex-council property and you’d like to offer it for sale, contact our Business Support Team on 01978 298993, or e-mail hesupport@wrexham.gov.uk
Picture: Cllr David Griffiths, Lead Member for Housing, at one of the homes in Pentre Maelor with Cllr Michael Morris, local member for Holt Ward.
