New & Newish Faces

Further to yesterday's post on the state of housing, we now know what will occupy 27 Well Street, the former Newyddion Rhuthun News. It’s to be Jane Gow Associates and it’s where the Halifax agent will move, later this summer.

The Halifax Building Society agent’s been at its current location at Molyneux estate agent and with K Hugh Dodd & Partners before that for at least 25 years. And before the Halifax, it was the Woolwich Equitable.

The pity of it is that when the Halifax relocates, the part of the office currently used at Molyneux will cease to offer financial services. Rhuthun could do with a bit of competition for, in spite of three of the big four banks, there’s little in the way of building societies.

And you know you feel old when you look back on the young faces once working in the Halifax and see that now they've all grown up. One girl has a baby and another male colleague works as a teacher at Ysgol Penbarras. Both still have long hair!

MEANWHILE, Vale Carpets aims to open in about a fortnight's time. It occupies the former off-licence that was Oddbins before that the Wine Cellar and Cellar Five and was, of course, the TSB for many years. It's understood still to retain its bank vault. After all, who would bother to move it? You'd need a crane.
The proprietor is believed to be from Y Fflint. He'll offer a range of carpets and other floor coverings. It's a good location for a shop and we understand he will open up more of the floorspace than was previously available. There've been comments on this blog before about shops that serve the people of Rhuthun rather than potential tourists (though in truth we need both). This unit falls within the former category.

It's a brave person who at this moment opens a shop connected with housing. The market's potentially there with Glasdir's 178 units, of course, though Vale Carpets will face competition from more established Carpedi Rhuthun Carpets a little further up Well Street, and once of Market Street and now exiled on Lôn Parcwr, Corwen Carpets.

I'm sure we can forgive Vale Carpets' ultra-impressive Flash-animated website for stating 'Welcome to Vale Carpets of Ruthin situated in the Vale of Llangollen'. Perhaps the web designer took a guess. If the Your Vale newspaper made a similar slip surely we can overlook this.