Eagles Meadow now Open
Thursday October 30th 2008 saw Wrexham’s town centre expand as its brand new shopping and leisure destination opened its doors. The Mayor of Wrexham officially declared the new area open at 10am and a carnival atmosphere was created with dancers, music and celebrations.
Eagles Meadow encompasses over 306,000 square feet of retail space and major high street names including M&S, Next and River Island have signed up. While these stores are not new to the town, they are taking the opportunity to move to much bigger premises and will therefore be able to offer the people of Wrexham a much greater choice of product, for example, M&S’s new store will bring with it their Per Una and Autograph ranges. Other big brands will make their first appearance in the town including Debenhams, H&M, Starbucks, Bank and Jane Norman. In total, the additional retail floor space increases the town centre by about 25%.
In addition to increasing Wrexham’s retail offering, the development will add a new dimension to the town centre, creating an area in which families can spend their evenings at the ten pin bowling alley, the multi-screen cinema which opens in Spring 2009 or in restaurants such as Pizza Express, Nando’s and Frankie & Benny’s.
Investment also continues outside of Eagles Meadow with Laura Ashley and independent ladies fashion retailer, Nia, opening recently while other new stores are set to open their doors on Island Green.
In preparation for the opening of Wrexham’s new retail and leisure outlets, Wrexham council’s Economic Development department have been working alongside Job Centre Plus to make sure that local people are given the best chance to benefit from the new business and career opportunities that are being brought to the town. During July there was a jobs fair with several town-centre employers, such as ASDA, Debenhams, Boots, Next and the Odeon, providing displays and giving advice on the application process in the retail environment. Organisers estimate that around 500 posts were filled as a result of the event and further opportunities for local people were available at another job fair held at Glyndŵr University Wrexham on 20th October as part of Wrexham Business Week.
Investment in the town extends beyond the retail and leisure facilities as the council has made a successful bid to the Welsh Assembly Government to improve the road infrastructure, aiding traffic flow, improving appearance and reducing congestion in a number of areas around the town centre. These include:
- White street lighting, which is more environmentally friendly, will be introduced on St. George’s Crescent along with new paving, seating and landscaping
- New, one hour, short-stay, on-street parking will be created on St. George’s Crescent to help those visiting the doctors’ surgery, pharmacy and other small businesses
- There will be traffic signal improvements at both the Green Dragon junction, and the junction of Salop Road and St. Giles Road
- New pedestrian crossings
- New road onto the St. Giles to reduce traffic build up.
Such heavy investment in employment and infrastructure, given the current uncertain economic climate, shows the confidence that retailers have in Wrexham’s ability to sustain growth during the current ‘credit crunch’, and is particularly encouraging in the light of the fact that projects in many other towns have been mothballed or put on hold.
Town Link
Some residents have expressed concern about getting between town and the new Eagles Meadow development, and to address this issue Wrexham Townlink bus service has added the new development to their route meaning that there will be a regular bus service running from King Street. For more information on Wrexham Townlink’s route and timetable, please visit the transport section of this website.
