More than £45,000 spent on digital touch screens for Wrexham city centre

More than £45,000 is being spent on introducing new “digital hubs” in Wrexham city centre.

The 65-inch touch-screens are set to be installed on the High Street and Lord Street as part of improvements to the main shopping area.

The screens will offer visitors access to the VZTA Wrexham App, maps and event information to help promote what’s going on in the city centre.

The digital hubs were mentioned in a report presented to members of Wrexham Council’s Employment, Business and Investment Scrutiny Committee during a meeting in May.

Wrexham.com decided to FOI the cost, with a response from the local authority showing the amount paid for the digital touch screens with installation is £45,678.

Funding has been provided from the Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns Grant.

The council originally wanted to install more of the hubs, but some planning applications were rejected by its planning committee.

We also queried the cost of the introduction of “smart benches” also mentioned in the report.

An unspecified number of solar-powered benches are planned within the works on the High Street to allow people to charge their mobile phones.

The proposed cost of the benches is £5,144 each, but with the designs still to be confirmed. They will be funded via the UK Government’s Safer Streets 5 project

It was suggested by officers during May’s meeting that women who run out of battery on their phones on nights out in Wrexham could be directed to use street benches to charge them.

However, concerns were raised by Labour group leader Dana Davies about the safety implications after possible cutbacks to CCTV coverage in the city centre were highlighted.

The proposals form part of the Wrexham SMART City pilot scheme, which the council notes in a report from May’s meeting “has been developing for 18 months now and has gained momentum from businesses, Wrexham University, Ambition North Wales and Welsh Government”.

It states: “Wrexham is now seen as a leader in Wales in implementing technology to assist in delivering its services but also in responding to pressures that are currently being faced in the public sector.

“The aim is to develop the pilots that have been run to date to a point that they are transformational in how the council goes about its business and supports residents and businesses across the city centre and the wider county borough.”

Despite the comments, we have long noted the council’s mixed success in terms of introducing new technology in the city centre.

We recently revealed how the authority spent £175,000 on faulty digital parking signs which have now been scrapped.

As such, we will be keeping an eye to see how the implementation of the new digital hubs and smart benches progresses.