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Welsh Government announces £17m regeneration boost

By Mark Mansfield
Jayne Bryant in Wrexham city centre

The Welsh Government has made an additional £17m available to help local authorities deliver regeneration projects across Wales.

The funding boost increases the Transforming Towns budget for 2025-26 from £40 million to £57 million to support more projects.

The government says the investment will "create jobs, boost economic activity and breathe new life into high streets and town centers nationwide".

Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government, Jayne Bryant, announced the funding while visiting regeneration sites in Wrexham.

Wrexham City center is currently benefitting from more than £10 million in Transforming Towns funding, with works either finished or nearing completion.

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Butchers' Market

This includes the newly refurbished indoor Butchers' Market, which received £2.5 million in grant funding from the Welsh Government.

High Street improvements have also created pedestrian-friendly spaces with green infrastructure and international-style areas for bars and restaurants.

The Cabinet Secretary said: "Projects like the revitalized Butchers' Market demonstrate how our funding creates jobs, supports local businesses and makes town centers vibrant places where people want to live, work and visit.

"Through the Welsh Government's Transforming Towns programme, we have invested more than £156 million over the past three years and this additional £17 million will accelerate that progress, breathing new life into town centers across Wales and delivering the economic growth that our communities deserve."

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Re-energise

Councilor Nigel Williams, Wrexham Council's Lead Member for Economy, Business and Tourism, said: "The city center remains at the heart of our local economy and identity, and that's why the Transforming Towns program has been so important to us.

"The Butchers' Market, General Market and the improvements to High Street and the surrounding area are great examples of how we're working with Welsh Government to reimagine and re-energize key elements of the city."

Councilor Mark Pritchard, Leader of Wrexham Council, added: "I'd like to thank the Cabinet Secretary Jayne Bryant for her incredible support, and for working with us to really transform some of our key high street infrastructure and buildings.

"Wrexham is a fantastic city and the funding we've received through the Transforming Towns initiative has made a huge difference."

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13 comments

Frank

Peanuts compared to what England spends on its projects. They spend billions. We are just poor relatives.

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Tim Birchall

Not enough of us

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andy w

Why is funding needed? amazons tax break should be removed and children as young as 12 should not be allowed to order from Shein direct with no parental involvement. The high street crisis has resulted in part from Govt policies favouring non-UK organisations. The Senedd can fix with legislation / triple the business rates for organisations that do not pay full taxes / ban home deliveries after 1800 and on weekends.

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hdavies15

I agree that the loopholes that permit likes of Amazon to evade costs should be plugged or some other mechanisms be created to levy a stream of revenue from their volume of transactions in UK. Other countries should do the same. This typifies the deference that national governments show these global corporates who have been given far too much scope for ducking their obligations as they grew rich on the back of modern comms technologies.

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Peter J

Problem is, there's not many loopholes we can close in the UK. If the government could close them, they would in a heart beat. Most of the tax avoidance is due to international tax laws. New laws for Shein/Temu are coming soon - but devising new laws is hard to avoid new loop holes being exploited and compounding the problem. The digital services tax introduced by the tories was in my view a step in the right direction. The would be costs are passed onto the consumer but at least it makes Amazon products more expensive and less competitive relative to the high street

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In reply to Peter J

Bert

Did it need a new tax to make the tax landscape even more complicated. Why not simply have a different VAT rate for online purchases and services. Perhaps 25% for online and reduce the high street to 15%.

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In reply to Peter J

andy w

It all goes wrong for the tax avoiders in the end. Branson lives in one of the worlds biggest tax havens, British Virgin Islands https://www.offshore-protection.com/offshore-jurisdiction/top-tax-haven-countries-in-the-world He bankrupted Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia, Virgin Express Belgium, Virgin Express France and Virgin Samoa - he never managed Virgin America. Consumers / corporate clients / government contracts always go with ethical organisations. I'd be surprised if amazon is dominant in ten years in UK.

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John. 6

Maybe stop spending money planting trees in Uganda.

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Philip Bramley

It is not necessarily regeneration in the form of shiny new buildings that’s required , it’s customers . Everything possible to make life easier for the customer to arrive , that may be access , parking , general movement around the towns and cities . Excellent public transport would be a bonus but the population of Wales spread as it is means Public transport in many areas is financially unviable in terms of necessary frequency .

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Y Cymro

This pitiful expenditure won't even scratch the surface. And as others have rightly highlighted, England's Labour Government recently announced £6.5 billion for projects in the English "North", where Welsh Labour £17 million to regenerate the whole of Wales? It's the equivalent of trying fill in Ffos-y-Fran opencast mine with a teaspoon.

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Bert

It's an additional sum so the budget for one year is £57m. Or 35p per citizen per week.

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Rob

Once again Wales gets crumbs and were expected to be grateful.

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Mark

England for you, like borris Johnson once said and was leaked, Wales is but a finacial door mat fir England's coffers

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