Rhuthun: 2020

It’s probably unlikely we will have communication chips surgically implanted into our brains. Predictions in the 1960s of our having personal hover transport are still way off. But, what might Rhuthun/Ruthin look like in 10 years’ time? Today, it may be icy out there, but will there be a different type of chill in 2020? Here are 30 predictions:

• The Armed State Militia will years ago have blocked and then closed this blog. The blog will be seen as too reactionary or unreconstructed or controversial or revolutionary or insurrectionist, depending upon the views of the Commissioner of the time.
• Good news: Rhuthun will continue as a ‘desirable’ town in which to live.
• The town’s 2020 housing plan will be almost complete. New estates will house our own growing numbers, plus the economic, environmental & social migrants wishing to escape the ever increasingly poorer conditions in larger towns and cities.
• We won’t have headed warnings about our own environment. We know we shouldn’t travel so much but our need to will increase, as services, facilities and employment are ever more centralised. We will still know our lifestyles can’t continue but fail as individuals to do anything about it.
• Clustered around Tesco Dinbych, the major shopping area at Townsend will be ever more important to Rhuthun residents. And the new Ikea in Wrecsam will be a major attractor.
• Primary education will be more centralised. Rural primaries with fewer than 70 will close. Ysgolion Penbarras, Borthyn & Rhos Street will be relocated into the current Ysgol Brynhyfryd buildings .
• A smaller secondary will be built adjacent to Glasdir. Significant secondary education will be delivered at home via the web, including examinations & assessments via secure, encrypted links.
• Unemployment will become a major issue, increasing the void between the haves and have-nots. Even lower-paid, part-time jobs will disappear. For example, Tesco will convert all its checkouts to self-service.
• The concept of “community” as we know it will finally evaporate. Few will identify with “Rhuthun” in the way they do now. This is partly because residents will continue to diverge in their views & interests; and partly owing to in-migration. Perhaps the town council will become anachronistic.
• Instead, we will depend on different sorts of community. We will be prepared to travel to be with those of similar interests and virtual online communities will become an ever more important part of our lives.
• In spite of public appeals, Waitrose abandons plans to open a branch in Rhuthun.
• To cater for the rising population, Tesco will have expanded to include more shopping space, a pharmacy, a café, a unisex salon and a doctors’ surgery. The number of cafés and hairdressers in town will shrink, Boots the Chemist will struggle on but, upon retirement of the proprietress, the other will close.
• As a service to the community, Tesco will take over the Llanfwrog Co-op.
• Tesco Rhuthun will join Tesco Dinbych in opening 24 hours a day, including Sundays and Christmas Day. Basically, Tesco will never shut.
• The few remaining convenience town centre shops will close. For example, in an age where news media come direct to mobile devices or laptops, there will be no need for newspaper—or therefore newsagents.
• Like vinyl and CD music, books will be just a memory. People will clear their bookshelves in favour of electronic media. The library and archive will close when it has digitised its entire collections. Since we will buy digital ‘books’ to read on our Kindle Mark VIIs, there will be no demand for the bookshop.
• The problem with digital music, digital books and even digital films comes when we inadvertently wipe our discs or fail to upgrade to Windows 14.2 or Google OS V8. Lewis Electrics therefore sets up as an accredited Google computer diagnostics centre to complement the laptops, smart devices, Kindle Wireless Reader Mk VIIs and the other computer gadgetry and gizmos it now sells.
• To combat the increasing numbers of boy & particularly girl racers, to guard against marauding 4x4 drivers during increasingly severe winters, and especially to see the installation of several giant public information screens on St Peter’s Square, Well Street, Clwyd Street (and at Tesco), the town is pedestrianised.
• The giant screens will broadcast 18 hours a day, showing Tesco TV Channel 1 (TTV1) or Teledu Tesco Sianel 1 Cymru (TTS1C). Even out of earshot, our smart devices will stream media from thousands of sources, as the town becomes one huge wi-fi hotspot. The new laser and satellite web comms only falter during increasingly snowy winters.
• After 710 years of worship, St Peter’s Church closes and the remnants of an ageing congregation join one of the remaining chapels or are encouraged to ‘attend’ online services.
• Online banking sees the closure of the town’s banks. To cope with the residual demand for human contact, a small ‘human interaction centre’ hub opens within Tesco.
• There being no snail mail, the remaining post office will close as superfluous and customers requiring human contact to pay bills, etc will be encouraged to the aforesaid ‘human interaction centre’ hub.
• Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn (DHL) opens a branch in Rhuthun, to support the third online shopping revolution, and to fill the void left by the post office.
• Regional local government across all of North Wales in either Bae Colwyn Bay or Llandudno sees the closure of county hall. This will be a considerable blow to the local economy.
• Plans are well advanced for the award-winning Craft Centre Mark 3. Space will be available for increasingly ‘virtual’ and web-based interactive art & craft displays, from other internationally renowned venues. The centre will be relocated slightly away from Station Yard roundabout (the so-called Briec roundabout) to make way for a Tesco filling station.
• Through traffic is sign-posted around the Northern Relief Road and the new road from Glasdir to the back of Llanfwrog Urban, on to the Llanfwrog community centre. Therefore, Bridge Services becomes marooned.
• Many cars will be diesel hybrids. All can be ordered online or ordered & serviced at the new Tesco Multi-make Car Centre, Lôn Parcwr. Quadruple Clubcard points on cars in 2020.
• The Market Street and St Peter’s Square payphones will join remaining ones in villages in being axed.
• Rhuthun will be surrounded by wind farms, on Hiraethog, on the Clwydian Range and Cyrn y Brain.
• Other factors such as online shopping will shrink the town centre. As much is now pedestrianised anyway, it becomes an even more attractive place to live, as shops convert to housing.