Our Relative Prosperity

It seems to me that there are only three ways for a lay person without access to statistics or research to 'measure' the prosperity of a town. One is the percentage of empty shop units within the town centre. This is a reasonable proxy for a town's affluence, as there is a direct relationship between this and the ability to sustain town centre shops. The other two are poorer, colloquial indicators and I'll let readers speculate as to what these may be.

Back to the proportion of empty shop units. I've calculated this previously for Rhuthun/Ruthin and it fluctuates markedly. I've also reported on work undertaken by others, outside the area, the nearest centre being Wrecsam. To be honest, in spite of knowing how relatively prosperous Wrecsam is, I simply couldn't believe its figure of just five per cent. I decided to undertake my own research, adding local towns along the way. This would give a comparison as to Rhuthun's position in the league. Here are the results. They are interesting and probably more or less as expected.

• Yr Wyddgrug/Mold was the most prosperous, probably understandably. It's not difficult to understand why. There's a population double Rhuthun's. The urban hinterland around it includes Mynydd Isa and Bwcle/Buckley. There's a fair proportion of the population within reach of reasonably paid jobs, at BAe and within commuting distance to Lerpwl/Liverpool, Manceinion/Manchester and Caer/Chester.
• At the opposite extreme, we have three towns whose percentage of available units would suggest they are less prosperous: Corwen, Dinbych/Denbigh and Y Rhyl. Y Rhyl's difficult to measure, because of seasonal activity and I've removed from the study both empty and occupied units associated purely with holiday amusement. Dinbych has a population about double Rhuthun's but nowhere near the hinterland associated with similarly sized Yr Wyddgrug. Corwen is a smaller settlement that seems to be struggling, even when you exclude the number of units converted to residential.

Between, lies a range of towns in the 10-15 per cent bracket. This includes Rhuthun, just. When last reported, Rhuthun was 14 per cent but it's been as high recently as 19 and as low as 10.

• Rhuddlan has a small shopping centre for its population. Indeed, Rhuddlan is about 1,000 souls short of Rhuthun but has over 80 fewer shops. Rhuddlan's proximity to Y Rhyl and the Rhuddlan retail park (Sainsbury's et al) means that it has had to concentrate mainly on comparison rather than convenience shopping, a trend similar to Rhuthun following the arrival of Tesco.
• Prestatyn has always had a reputation as a wealthy town, although parts of west Prestatyn comprise inexpensive two-bed bungalows. On the other hand, upper Prestatyn is certainly prosperous. Following the closure and demolition at the hands of Tesco of Somerfield, Prestatyn also has no mainstream supermarket: does this give the town centre a general advantage?
• And then there's Wrecsam. The percentage of unoccupied town centre shop units is actually only marginally less than in Rhuthun and not the five per cent as previously reported. The new Eagles Meadow development (included in the survey), itself not fully let, has resulted in some high profile and large 'proper' town centre closures. A somewhat different result to the 'official' survey, then.

And what of Rhuthun? It's within the middle ground, though at the limit. Yes, it's seen better recent times. Yes, it's seen worse. But it won't take much to make a change, either way. And this suggests a certain fragility. Yet, as of today, our town is still holding its own, when compared with neighbours. It's still four per cent worse than the national average of 12 per cent but then again, who's to say the average is correct, when you look at the figure quoted by the same research company responsible for the wildly inaccurate five per cent Wrecsam figure.

Figures compiled in March and April 2010 and include recent closures in Rhuthun such as Ethel Austin's and Edenbloom. E&OE