Committee asks for joint lobbying effort to reduce town centre business rates to reflect they are no longer ‘premium locations’

Wrexham Council has been urged to been urged to join together with other local authorities to lobby governments for a ‘fairer’ business rate system and contact “absentee landlords” who own town centre properties.

It comes after members of the council’s employment, business and investment scrutiny met earlier this week to debate the future of the town centre and the empty properties as the council starts to move towards a post covid recovery.

As with all towns and cities, the coronavirus pandemic has affected the occupancy rate in the town as several high street retailers and eateries shut up shop for good.

Many of these have been on Eagles Meadow, with H&M, Frankie & Benny’s (along with Plas Coch), Burger King, Pizza Express and more recently Debenhams, all closing.

The large Sports Direct unit is also vacant after the company moved into the former BHS store – along with Game – last summer.

In the town centre itself QD Stores closed at the start of the year.

The occupancy rate within the town centre and how to respond to a potentially permanent change in shopping habits was discussed by members of the council’s employment, businesses and investment scrutiny committee on Tuesday afternoon.

In the report considered and discussed by councillors the coronavirus pandemic is described as having “rapidly” accelerating the number of empty premises, with a “sharp increase” between October 2020 and 2021.

An audit of the empty properties in the town centre, which includes Eagles Meadow and Island Green, carried in February this year recorded a total of 529 units, of which 121 were empty – this equates to 22.8%.

Three town centre streets were listed as being of concern, with Lead Member for Economy councillor Terry Evans referencing Hope Street, Regent Street and Lord Street.

Other parts of town are seeing an increase in occupancy and work taking place, with Cllr Evans noting the planned start of Chapter Court on Queens Square and every unit on Henblas Street now being let.

During the meeting it was acknowledged that all towns and cities across the UK are facing the same problems with the decline of traditional shopping habits and the loss of many big high street retailers.

However at times the debate sounded similar to those for years before the pandemic, with the likes of bins, advertising A-board, the introduction of a town centre council and how to boost footfall in the town and the markets all mentioned.

The impact of online shopping was referenced by Bronington councillor Rodney Skelland, who as we reported yesterday, went one step further to suggest that the town moved away from its historical market image.

One familiar suggestion put forward by some committee members was that there should more communication with absentee landlords who own many of the vacant properties within the town centre.

Despite the usual comments on social media for Wrexham Council to stop charging business rates and rent in town centre properties, the local authority has no control over what private landlords choose to charge or the rateable value of premises.

Councillor Nigel Williams, Gwenfro ward, said more needed to be done to offer help to SMEs (small to medium enterprises) to occupy premises and asked how a group of businesses could work together to occupy a larger unit.

He said: “What sort of work are we actively doing with these faceless landlords of theses units to look to try and repurpose them?

“Ideally if we get these buildings repurposed like Ty Pawb has been and get multiple small units into them, there’s a lot more of a chance of getting these buildings going again.

“The problem is when you get one big store coming in and they leave it is empty for ages again. But SMEs want to start off with a smaller unit first of all, test the waters to test their product, then hopefully then lead on to standalone shop themselves in the town centre.

“The shops are so expensive the town. In my previous life as a business manager in a retail bank in Wrexham I know that, for instance, on Lord Street I’d have small businesses come to see me with a business idea of opening a coffee shop or to food outlets. You would be looking between the rents and rates like £30,000 to £50,000 a year. That is a lot of cups of coffee to sell before you start making a turn a profit. We need to look at trying to help small businesses.”

In terms of speaking to landlords about their empty properties, markets and events manager Amanda Davies gave some context to how such relationships exist: “Some communicate with us quite regularly and others don’t. It is very difficult.”

“Regular communication is better when we’ve actually got something to offer them. If we’re going in and saying ‘can you clean up your outside of your building’ they tend not to communicate, but when we’re in a situation where potentially – as we are now – with grants or loans potentially that they can actually use for the building – that is more of a catch.”

“We have process now of identifying exactly what shops are vacant because we have no control over what rent the private landlords will charge, if they want to get traders in or if they don’t want to get traders in.

“Over the next few months we can analyse what’s available and then we can try and contact them individually.”

Speaking on the idea of using a bigger empty space to possibly house several smaller entities, she added, “If you’ve got a large unit, a lot of these these landlords, particularly absent landlords, want it fully let.

“I think we do need to put a plan in place potentially to deal with that, because that’s not something necessarily we’ve dealt with in in great depth about getting a number together to occupy a space.

Another proposal put forward was that the council join together with others to lobby with a fairer business rates system, which would make occupying a town centre property more appealing and affordable.

Cllr Marc Jones said: “We can’t do anything about rates locally, but we can lobby and I think we need to lobby along with other councils to change the emphasis of business rates.

“At the moment business rates charge a premium for town centre businesses, well it’s not been the case that it’s a premium location for a good 10 years.

“The premium locations are out of town, where you can park for free in a supermarket or shopping mall.

“I think we should follow the lead in Scotland, where we have a two tier business rate system whereby out of town shopping malls and supermarkets have a slightly higher rateable value per pound than traditional town centers.

“I think that would be beneficial for Wrexham town centre. Anything that helps reduce rates is beneficial.”

The committee agreed a recommendation to that effect, to ask Wrexham Council to ‘lobby with other North Wales authorities to ask Welsh Government to look at a review of business rates, to reduce the premium for town centre businesses, whilst recognising the need for increases for out of town developments’ with reference to the Scottish system.