A COACH park is an ambition of Wrexham Council’s tourism team as a plan for the next three years is drawn up.

The council’s Employment, Business and Investment scrutiny committee received a presentation on the authority’s Destination Management Plan (DMP) for 2023-2026.

Presented by Joe Bickerton, the council’s destination manager, the plan is designed to support Wrexham’s tourism and hospitality sector to continue its post-pandemic recovery.

It fits tourism into the council’s current placemaking work to ensure that the sector is supported and represented in key regeneration projects over the next three to four years.

The plan also identifies key opportunities that the city’s tourism sector can enhance and raise awareness of to improve the offer to visitors.

According to the report there are a number of exciting developments which the new plan will support the delivery of.

These include:

A commitment to bid again to be UK City of Culture in 2029 with an exciting programme of hosted ‘build’ events including major cycling events and the potential National Eisteddfod;

Levelling Up Funded development at the WHS which will see £10m invested in new visitor connectivity improvements, including welcome and arrival and car parking facilities;

The Football Museum for Wales, scheduled to open in 2025;

Investment and momentum at Wrexham Football Club under its new ownership of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney with significant commercial plans including events and a new hotel.

Development of the Brymbo Fossil Forest and Heritage Area with £10m funding already secured;

A new Sustainable Tourism Strategy for the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (focusing on sustainable tourism development) and the emerging Placemaking Plan.

A question raised during the meeting by Ruabon Cllr Dana Davies (Lab), was about a long-term aspiration the council has had for the past decade - the creation of a coach park, so the city is a more welcoming destination for coach trips.

But members were told suitable locations in the city for such a facility are in short supply.

READ MORE; Wrexham headteachers' share post-16 school transport frustration

Rebeccah Lowry, the council’s regeneration service manager said: “It’s been a known gap for many, many years.

“There have been temporary location drop-off points, use of land and parking in other areas but we have yet to identify a permanent solution.”

Mr Bickerton added: “We’ve looked at it since 2013, nearly a decade now and the key for us not just having land for a coach park – it’s got to have the right facilities for a coach driver to bring their passengers.

“It’s got to be a place where there are toilets, places to eat within nearby walking distance.

The more the city centre has developed it is about competing. If you look at our competitors we need to be capable of acting and thinking like a city and it’s still on the agenda.

“We still have coach visits, but we’re not promoting it as much as we heavily were three or four years ago. We had a temporary drop-off on High Street but it wasn’t an ideal solution.

“We’ll keep it on the agenda and through this Destination Management plan it would be brilliant to get to the end of it and have that as one of the successes as the business is there, we just need to find the right site for it.”

Prior to the pandemic, tourism was worth £135m to Wrexham’s economy and is the county's third largest employment sector.

During the meeting members heard that there were signs the industry is on the way to generating that sort of figure again post-Covid, helped by the worldwide interest in Wrexham AFC and key attractions such as the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Trevor Basin.