Motorists are advised that the A483 will benefit from a second cyclical works programme funded by the North and Mid Wales Trunk Agency from Sunday, October 6 to Tuesday, November 12, between the northern county boundary near Rossett (Junction 7) and the southern boundary near Gledrid roundabout.
Works will include verge and tree maintenance, barrier re-tensioning and litter picking during nights, with lane closures between 8pm and 6am to minimise disruption.
Motorists are advised that delays will be minimal, but to allow extra time for their journeys when travelling during the hours stated.
Cllr David A Bithell, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “I am pleased to announce that further cyclical maintenance works are planned for the upkeep of the A483 throughout the length of the county borough, after representations from Wrexham Council to Welsh Government.
“A works plan is in hand, and – as with any works – delays should be kept to a minimum, with lane closures restricted to later hours.”
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A number of fundraising events will take place in leisure centres in Wrexham this week.
Fundraising events in aid of British Heart Foundation (BHF) Cymru will take place at Waterworld Leisure and Activity Centre on Friday, September 27, and at Chirk Leisure and Activity Centre on Saturday, September 28 and Sunday, September 29 (World Heart Day)
BHF’s Fundraising Manager, Cheryl Lockyer, is urging everyone in the area to join in with a number of fundraising events which will help raise money for the charity’s lifesaving research.
Cheryl said: “This promises to be a great day of events on to support World Heart Day and we’re incredibly grateful to Freedom Leisure for their support. The money raised will help BHF fund ground-breaking discoveries and identify new treatments that could help save more people from the devastating effects of heart disease.”
There are currently around 17,000 people in Wrexham County fighting a daily battle with heart and circulatory disease. These devastating conditions claim the lives of around 363 people in the county each year.
People attending the events will be able to participate in a fitness class, donate unwanted clothes, books and bric-a-brac, or simply find out more about how to live a healthier life.
David Watkin and Richard Milne, Managers for Chirk Leisure Centre and Wrexham Waterworld, said: “We’re really looking forward to a full day of fundraising activities and promoting ways to live healthier. It’s set to be a really fantastic event and we hope to see lots of people coming together to join us to help beat heartbreak forever.”
“We are hoping to raise hundreds of pounds for BHF Cymru’s life saving research, which will help make a difference to the lives of people living with heart and circulatory diseases.”
Cllr Andrew Atkinson, Lead Member for youth Services and Anti-Poverty, with responsibility for Leisure, said: “I’m very pleased that our partners at Freedom Leisure have been able to arrange these fundraising days at our leisure and activity centres at Waterworld and Chirk, and I hope the British Heart Foundation is able to raise as much money as possible across both days.”
For more information, please visit your local leisure centre.
For more information on BHF Cymru fundraising groups, to start or join a group in your community visit www.bhf.org.uk/localfundraising
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Yesterday, a meeting of our full Council looked at whether or not Wrexham should declare a climate emergency, in line with other national and regional authorities.
We’ve carried out a lot of work to fulfil our environmental obligations and limit our use of fossil fuels in the past 10 years, including:
Installing more than 2,600 solar panels on council houses;
Designing, installing and maintaining Wales’ first council-owned 2.64 MW solar farm;
Installing solar PV on two council offices and 17 schools;
The installation of a large-scale biomass boiler within one of our large office sites
Internal lighting upgrades in more than 30 schools and offices.
Electric vehicle charging points in five public car parks, and workplace charging in two office car parks – as well as the addition of five electric “pool” vehicles into the Council’s fleet
Continuing to embrace digital technologies and reducing the in-house reliance on paper documents
Setting up a project group to reduce single use plastic across all buildings and schools
Replacing 4,000 lights, with another 8,000 set to be completed in 16 months, saving energy while cutting down on carbon and reducing maintenance costs
Ensuring corporate energy supply to offices is supplied by renewable providers
Cllr David A Bithell, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “While our record shows that we will work hard as an authority to tackle the issues rising from climate change and fossil fuel use, we’re well aware of the fact that many more challenges will need to be faced in future.
“We also know that this is an issue of public concern regionally, nationally and globally. As well as ongoing international campaigns by environmental groups, the Welsh Government recently declared Climate Emergency in Wales, which highlighted ambitious plans for Wales to be carbon neutral by 2030
“With that in mind, we want to look at a way forward, and how in declaring a Climate and Ecological Emergency we can build on our commitment to develop our decarbonisation action plan, which was agreed unanimously at full Council in May this year.”
Council Leader Cllr Mark Pritchard said: “We have a well-established record in working to limit our environmental impact as an authority, and know that there are further challenges on the way.
“We have a number of established commitments in line with these goals, including reducing our emissions and focusing on the environmental sustainability of our buildings, transport, land use and procedures and conventions around how we procure our services.
“These are well-established priority areas for Welsh Government and the majority of Welsh local authorities, including those who have already declared climate emergencies.
“We are also keen that our plans and commitments be revisited, and as such we will – after full development and scrutiny – review our decarbonisation action plan in May next year.”
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The first years of any child’s life can shape their future. Getting the right start can prevent school attendance problems, substance abuse, unemployment, illness and even early death.
Home-Start
Home-Start recruits and provides accredited training for local volunteers to help families with young children who are experiencing difficulties. Volunteers and staff support families on weekly basis as they learn to cope, improve their confidence and build better lives for their children.
Volunteers are often parents themselves and are supported by the staff team to increase their employability, skills and confidence. Home-Start provides a stepping stone for further education/training and employment for the volunteers and families.
Home-Start also run structured family groups and activities to promote play and positive parenting. They offer activities for parents and children to develop skills and provide opportunities to take part in wider community activities.
Each family has a comprehensive assessment to identify needs and strengths and an individual family support plan is made.
Wrexham Council provide funding to help support some of the services run by Home-Start. These include informal parent support groups, 1:1 intensive parenting support and parenting programs.
These services aim to help reduce the number of children affected by ACEs in their childhood.
What are ACEs?
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are stressful events occurring in childhood which can include:
domestic violence
parental abandonment through separation or divorce
a parent with a mental health condition
being the victim of abuse (sexual, physical, and/or emotional)
being the victim of neglect (physical and emotional)
a member of the household being in prison
growing up in a household where there are adults experiencing alcohol or drug problems
Evidence shows children who experience stressful and poor quality childhoods are more likely to develop health-harming and anti-social behaviours, more likely to perform poorly in school, more likely to be involved in crime and ultimately less likely to be a productive member of society.
More information about Home-Start can be found here.
Further information about ACEs and their effects on children can be found here.
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Rhosymedre Primary School is the first school of the new term to visit the Play-Work exhibition at Tŷ Pawb.
The gallery in Tŷ Pawb has been transformed into a fabulous indoor adventure playground and it’s proving extremely popular with over 3,000 visitors since it opened just over a week ago!
There’s loads for the kids to do including playing with 16 tonnes of sand! Kids are happy making tents, climbing, jumping, going up and down the fireman pole and generally having a great time just playing.
Calling all schools and nurseries
We’re inviting local schools and nurseries for tours and workshops of our current exhibition, ‘Play-Work’
The exhibition celebrates the art of play and the radical work of Wrexham’s world renowned adventure playgrounds.
Play-Work will be on display at Tŷ Pawb until October 27.
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As well as winning the ‘Cultural Buildings under £5 million’ category, Tŷ Pawb beat off stiff competition from 137 other finalists to win the biggest prize of the evening – The Architects’ Journal Retrofit of the Year.
The annual Architect’s Journal Retrofit Awards programme is one of the most highly regarded in UK architecture and celebrates the design, engineering and construction excellence that prolongs and improves the life of our built world.
Sarah Featherstone, from Featherstone Young, joined members of the Tŷ Pawb team to receive congratulations for the awards from the Full Council on Wednesday.
“Wrexham now has a multi-award winning cultural facility”
Mayor of Wrexham, Cllr Rob Walsh, said: “It’s no surprise that the architectural skill that Featherstone Young put into this project has been recognised on a national level, and Wrexham can be very proud of what Tŷ Pawb has achieved – particularly in a Welsh cultural context.
“Tŷ Pawb is ‘everybody’s house’, and it’s not just the design that delivers this inclusivity, it’s also the way the building operates and the positive approach taken by our employees, traders, volunteers and partners.”
Lead Member for People – Communities, Partnerships Public Protection and Community Safety, Cllr Hugh Jones, said: “It’s extremely rewarding to see the exceptional hard work that was put in to the design of Tŷ Pawb being recognised on the national stage.
“To transform an old market hall and car park into the modern, vibrant centre it is today is a fantastic achievement.
“Thanks to the incredible vision and creativity of the design team, Wrexham now boasts a multi-award winning cultural facility, built at a fraction of the cost of developing a centre like this from scratch.”
“Huge congratulations to the team, this award is richly deserved.”
A “revitalised” public building with a “strong national profile”
Sarah Featherstone (Featherstone Young Architects) said: “‘This is an important award recognising the value of reusing buildings.
“Tŷ Pawb has revitalised an underused public building and introduced a new experimental model that combines art with a range of activities. We like to think this has made art more useful and more accessible to people in Wrexham as well as developing a place with a strong national profile.
“It’s great to have won the award and for Tŷ Pawb to have this support and recognition.”
What the judges said
A “really innovative example of retrofit” was how the Architect’s Journal judges described Tŷ Pawb.
Architects’ Journal architecture editor Rob Wilson described the winning project as: “An inspired transformation of a substantial public building, using a surprising modesty of means, not just in terms of its budget but in the lightness of touch of the architectural intervention.”
Judges praised in particular the strong collaborative relationship with the client. ‘It’s amazing what has been achieved in this building from such an unpromising start,’ said one. ‘It’s an example of a project that almost seems to revel in being done on a tight budget,’ said another. ‘It makes a real political statement and ticks all the criteria-boxes for a great retrofit.’
Watch the video
Architect’s Journal have created this great little video to showcase the winning building. Take a look…
If this is you, why not join Clwb Sgwrsio at Chirk Library. This group meets every Thursday at 2pm for an informal chat in Welsh so you can get together with similar people to improve your conversational skills over a cuppa.
For more information contact Chirk Library on 01691 772344.
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Sports groups can bid for cash as next round of Community Chest bidding starts.
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.
More than £18,500 was awarded to local clubs at the last panel meeting in September
And the Sport Wales development grant is also open to groups looking at bigger projects, such as expansion or extension.
Applications for the current round of funding is open until Wednesday, October 9, with the panel meeting to discuss applications on Wednesday, October 23.
For more information, contact Louise Brady, Sports Development Assistant Manager at Wrexham Council, on 01978 297359 or by e-mail at louise.brady@wrexham.gov.uk.
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Whether you are just starting out in work or heading towards retirement, it is important to understand your pension and plan to make your retirement one you want!
To help you figure out how much money you’ll have when you retire, and what you can do to make sure you’re happy with what you’ll have, the Department for Work and Pensions has a website that’ll tell you just that.
The site also checks your state pension and retirement age, calculates your annual pension income from other pension pots and suggest changes that will make sure you are able to achieve the final pot you need.
You can also read stories of people from all walks of life who are finding clever ways to plan for their future.
You can find out about your retirement pot by visiting the Your Pension website.
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