Video transcript: Wrexham

Willis: My name is Willis.

Murran: My name is Murran.

James: My name is James.

Natalie: My name is Natalie.

Together: We are the Edwards family.

Natalie: The family and I are sat in an art studio in Tŷ Pawb in Wrexham. It's a studio with green and white walls and big big arty Belfast sinks.

James: So we live in Coed Poeth, which is part of Wrexham city. It's slightly elevated on a mountain, so where we live we can actually see the whole city.

Natalie: I think Wrexham is a good place to bring up a family. I moved here when I was 12, so I grew up here. James has lived here all of his life. The children are really happy, we've got a great network of friends.

We've obviously only just got city status, but it has always been a very friendly, big community. We are all very connected in Wrexham. It's three degrees of separation, isn't it?

Willis: We go to the city most of the time. Most of the time, I want to go to it 'cos then I get to go to the Pokemon shop.

Murran: I like coming to all the nice scenery places, like Erddig and library field. There could be like a few gigs that go on there and it's a really nice place to go have a little picnic with some friends or family.  Once in a while there's a parade.

James: St David's Day Parade.

Natalie: I'm sure you like a little bit of shopping as well, don't you?

Murran: I do like shopping.

Natalie: For me to want to spend more time in the city of Wrexham. I'd like to see more opportunities for the children to have fun. You know you go for an activity in the day. It could be your crazy golf or your axe throwing or, I don't know, learn a dance routine somewhere and we do not have those activities but loads of those activities could be replicated for children. And that's how a family is going to really invest themselves in living, learning, just having a life and thriving in Wrexham.

James: We've got the motorways, we've got the trains we've got the buses. We've got enough to feed the centre but what we need is something in the centre that people want to come and feed on. So one of the major things that pulls in tourism from around the world is the Llangollen Eisteddfod. The International Eisteddfod where people like Pavarotti have sung in the past.

Same thing with Focus Wales, you know it comes to life, if there were more events like that, uou know, it's gonna pull more people in.

Natalie: That is the question. Are we going to start developing the tourism and because we want tourists to come and stay and have a good time develop these really cool enterprises. Where, you know, you want to come on guided walk to Wrexham of which there are so many beautiful guided walks guided bilingual walks, delivered by the youth of today. We could do that.

Whatever happens going forward for the future of Wrexham as a city, has to have community involvement and community commitment. We have some wonderful people in the city of Wrexham who have gone over and above to try and overcome some of the barriers, to get more people back into the city and appreciate what we've got.

There are lots of people with really really good ideas but it's just getting them to act, and I think if we can do that, and we've got a willing council who will listen and will remove financial barriers or, will improve the transportation, who will think we need to get more spaces in town occupied let's reduce the rents. That is the way that we can go forward, but if not, we're just going to repeat the cycle.

Murran: I'm not sure if I'll be living here in 25 years because I would like to live in the city for a while, but at the same time I also would like to travel the world and just see different places.

Willis: I don't think it'll be a yes but I don't think it'll be a no. I don't know.

Natalie: Well you're going to live in a mansion aren't you?

Murran: Yeah.

James: You said a mansion, yeah.

Natalie: Yeah, you said a few times. I don't know if there's any mansion in Wrexham yet?  Maybe you'll come back when they built you a mansion.

[Family laughs]