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Following a meeting with the Minister for Economic Development, the Member of Parliament, Assembly Member and other officials an invitation was issued to submit a document setting out a Strategic Framework for Rhyl and to explore how it might be supported. This document has emerged from a co-ordinated effort by key local players to respond to the invitation.
For a full copy of the report please click on the PDF at the bottom of this webpage.
Executive Summary
1.2 Rhyl has a population of almost 27,000. It is the largest town in Denbighshire and the second largest in North Wales. Its excellent natural environment, especially the beaches and its location on the main Chester – Holyhead Railway line enabled it to grow as a seaside town during the late Victorian era. After half a century of success, changing tourism preferences have seen Rhyl experience a gradual but inexorable decline over the past 30 years.
1.3 Today while Rhyl acts as the county’s principal shopping centre, has a successful further education college and is still one of the premier family oriented tourism destinations in North Wales, it also contains pockets of acute socio-economic deprivation.
1.4 Like so many places whose economic base has become unable adequately to support them in a new era, Rhyl has come increasingly dependent on public expenditure programmes for its economic health. Shortfalls in public expenditures make a tangible difference and it is clear that there has been no sign of any real terms increase in capital spend over the past 5 years – a feature easy to confirm on the ground.
1.5 There is a significant lack of investment in public infrastructure and as a result there is little in the way of a positive platform to draw in increased private sector investment. There is some evidence of a slow recovery in 2003-2004 but, overall, capital spend is insufficient even to keep up with essential maintenance needs.
1.6 In the context of revenue expenditure the widespread view is that it is barely able to keep pace with current demand and forces players to confront “robbing Peter to pay Paul” in a situation where the general level of unmet need is high.
1.7 The outcome of this is an over-dependency on external grant aid that produces a bias toward short-termism, a tendency to fragmentation of activity and a deflection of objectives away from any coherent strategy for the town and toward external targets set by project funders.
2. New Consultative Bodies and a Strategic Framework
2.1 Over the past two years there has been an active realisation among politicians, public officials, elected councillors and community organisations that something must be done to deal with the problems of Rhyl and that allowing things to drift downward is unacceptable.
2.2 Reflecting this, a number of new formal and informal co-ordinating bodies have been brought into play and a Strategic Framework has been submitted to an intensive process of debate and consultation. The new bodies include:
The Pact for Rhyl
The Rhyl Area Partnership
Rhyl Private Sector Network
2.3 A Vision for Rhyl has been agreed that sets out the following widely accepted proposition:
‘Rhyl will by 2015 seek to become an enjoyable place to live and work - a town supporting a balanced, permanent, stable and self-assured community within a prosperous and sustainable local economy’.
2.4 A Strategic Framework has also been established that converts the vision into a focused strategy. The partners selected the following themes as the basis for the strategy:
Housing
Physical environment and infrastructure
Education and social inclusion
Healthy living
Business and enterprise
3. Strategic Intervention: A Set of Action Priorities for Rhyl
3.1 The following table - produced under the auspices of the Pact for Rhyl - sets out those priority actions under each of the five strategic themes that need the most urgent attention if Rhyl is indeed to “go forward”:
3.2 The Pact for Rhyl identified the actions set out above as being of two kinds:
i) those that the Pact members themselves would seek to carry out within the context of mainstream funding, as and when resources were available,
and;
ii) those that would form the substance of a special bid to the Welsh Assembly Government under the terms of the invitation from the Minister. It was acknowledged that in choosing the short-list of projects to go forward, the limitations on central funding should be taken into account and only those “turnkey” investments that would be able to offer significant leverage on the core problems of Rhyl could be selected.
Contact details: Rhyl Going Forward Officer - 01824 708017
(pdf, 1,100.32 KB) Strategy