Holyhead/Holy Idland/Anglesea/North Wales

Overview

Holyhead is a small town with a population of around 14000 located on a 12 square mile island, Holy Island, to which is connected by causways carrying the A5 trunk road and a railway from England, two major transport linkss that also serve the North Wales coastal towns. Situated at the north west tip of Wales, the Port of Holyhead serves the Stena Line, Northern Europe's biggest ferry company, and Irish Ferries. Ferries sail to Dublin and Dún Laoghaire in Ireland which are principal links for surface transport from central and northern England and Wales to Ireland.

Despite its strategic role as an international ferry port, Holyhead has suffered from poverty, unemployment, and deprivation for decades.

In 2014 the Welsh Government approved a £7.5m funding bid to help regenerate the town. The programme will aim to tackle poverty through maximising community benefits from new development opportunities. It will focus on homes, places, and people with a key part of the plan helping to support community development and training

Holyhead nests within Holy Island, which in turn nests within the island of Anglesey. Its successful bid, entitled ‘Holyhead: Realising Sustainable Community Benefit’, will help transform one of Wales' most deprived towns. But Anglesea is an Enterprise Zone with an Energy Island Programme. The award to Holyhead has the objective of help organise a co-ordinated response to major new developments expected in Anglesea over the next five years.

The concept is to develop the town’s important and distinctive character areas to expand, enhance and rejuvenate the community in a sustainable manner by:

* Attracting more visitors to both Holyhead and Anglesey through enhancement of the area as a leisure and tourism destination;
* Regeneration of the area through continued investment by the renovation and reuse of the listed buildings and structures along the Waterfront coastline;
* Improved public access, extension of the Promenade, enhanced public open space along Beach Road and the creation of a new beach East of the new Breakwater and Marina Facility;
* Working in partnership with established local businesses and other tourist attractions such as the Breakwater Country Park to provide wider benefits.

Anglsea is in turn connected by the Menai Straight’s bridges to the mainland region of North Wales, which is encompasssed by the A55 and A5 trunk roads from the bridges to the border with England, between Chester and Wrexham. This east west connectivity of places within places involves the enterprise zones of Deeside and Snowdonia as well as Anglesea, making this region of Wales an important education model for studying economic regeneration.

http://wales.gov.uk/topics/businessandeconomy/help/enterprisezones/?lang=en

Wales: Cultural Ecology Map 1
updated 07/2014 by Resilience Wales