Large new digital advert approved for side of Eagles Meadow after refusal last year

The town centre is set for another large digital advertising hoarding, as Wrexham Council’s Planning Department have approved a sign they dismissed a year ago.

The move is the latest in a long line of approved digital adverts as Wrexham moves to 2022 modernisation, as we wrote earlier in the year, applications elsewhere have been approved for such signage as the days of ladders, sloppy buckets of paste and strips of plasticised paper are phased out with the easy to update technology that is now commonplace.

The application at Eagles Meadow sought to replace the existing wooden paper based hoarding pictured above with a digital display, 3m tall by 6 metres wide, 2.2 metres above ground level.

Digital signs are seen as a greener way of advertising due to cutting out single use paper and vinyl for every ad, along with the removal of milage for those updating the sheets.

Previously Wrexham Council refused permission for a digital display in November 2020 on the same site, due to it having a “…detrimental impact upon the visual amenities of the area and the adjoining formal landscaping of the Eagles Meadow development and therefore conflicts with policy/policies GDP1a and PS2 of the Wrexham Unitary Development Plan.”

Caia Park Community Council objected to the new application on visual impact and detrimental to road safety grounds as they did last time, however  Wrexham Council have now granted planning permission for the sign.

The council note in the new documents, “Since the decision was made to refuse a digital display at this site we have received appeal decisions for similar digital display screens, and consent has been granted for a display on the north elevation.”

“In this location, where there are already two large hoardings and blank high walls of the shopping centre and also a lack of residential properties in immediate proximity the display is not considered to be out of character with the area.”

The permission comes with a handful of conditions including a standard maximum illumination and associated controls, and a feature ‘the display should contain at all times a feature that will turn off the screen (i.e. show a black screen) in the event that the display experiences a malfunction or error’.

Wrexham Council’s Highways department had no objections and recognised that the screen was on the “A5152 Eagles Meadow Link Road which is a busy, unclassified road subject to a 30mph speed limit”, and noted “the proposed sign is one that potentially changes images approximately every 10 seconds”, but did request that the sign did not emit a ‘disabling glare or dazzle to traffic’.