Please click on either image to sign petition.
The Holly Bush Inn, Cefn Mawr, Pontcysyllte World Heritage Site, Wrexham, LL14 3AE.
The PKC Group secures the Ebenezer for the Community June 2021.
Dear All, it was and still is our intention to reopen the Old Bookies at the Holly Bush Inn in the middle of Cefn Mawr. We have been in touch with both the Gambling Commission and WCBC concerning such, but this requires significant finance and unfortunately since WCBC decided to auction off the Ebenezer this has eaten up everything we can find to save the building for our community.
Therefore, we have had to put reopening the Old Bookies on hold until we have found some more cash to spare. Over the next few months, I will be working on the pub and in the shop to get it ready for when we can open and if you would like to have a chat, please call round, we would be happy to see you.
We realise that this may come as a disappointment, but we are doing all we can and assure you that we will be following up on this. That is why we got Dave Kynaston to do the sign at the beginning of the year. We want to raise the profile of our village centre and reopening the Old Bookies is an ideal way of doing so.
If you would like to come along to our monthly meetings for a chat over a couple of beers, they are held on the second Tuesday of the month at the Holly Bush Inn. Start time is 1900 and all are welcome. The subject is generally how we can as ordinary people can bring about better times for our community, and we welcome everyone’s ideas. Literally put, the more the merrier.
Another big subject for the next meeting will be a monthly market, please see the Cefn Community News for more details.
The next meeting is Tuesday the 13th of July, starting at 1900.
Regards, David Metcalfe, Cefn Community Councillor & Dee Valley AONB Champion.
Simon Baynes, the new Conservative MP for Clwyd South visits the Holly Bush Inn Cefn Mawr 2019 to hear about the PKC Groups Campaign "Back to the Future for Cefn Mawr"
We the PKC Group are now holding monthly meetings in the Holly Bush Inn on the second Tuesday of each month, start time 1900. Our main issue remains the Economic Regeneration of our community and the preferred route (because of opportunity) is for Sustainable Tourism Development. The opportunity that we have, are surrounded with, and intersected by could set us up as a Transport Hub and Tourist Destination in our own right, if the dots were simply joined together in accordance with, Welsh Planning Policy and the Future Generations Act 2015.
PKC Group meeting in Holly Bush Inn, July 2019
PKC Group helpot OPL Team with dry stone walling at Plas Newyd Llangollen, January 2020.
The PKC Group attends the annual UK World Heritage Conference in Llangollen October 2019 and a new initiative is announced by WCBC and the Arcadis the consultants working for them. A “Wider Social & Economic Study” would be completed next in the local master planning for our area.
Easter Bank Holiday Weekend 2019 saw very good weather and exceptional visitor numbers at both Ty Mawr Country Park and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, with car parks full, whilst our village centre remained quiet. Tourism is the only viable option we have of improving the economic prospects of our community and our unique position at the centre of the WHS Corridor between the aqueduct and Cefn Viaduct. Please consider the extremely high road traffic vehicle counts on the A539, A5 and A483, at 15.5 million vehicles annually, (three times that of Llangollen). We are on a mainline railway line leading to major cities and airports, Birmingham, Cardiff, Liverpool, Manchester and London. The former Ellesmere Canal (renamed Llangollen in the 1980’s) is one of the busiest canals of the inland waterway network and Offa’s Dyke is one of the most well-trodden long-distance footpaths in the UK. Yet our village centre suffers form a lack of footfall, what is going on????
What is lacking for our community is good SIGNAGE and COORDINATED VISITOR MANAGEMENT to join up the dots.
With both correctly implemented the economic decline of our community can be reversed, which is the main reason behind all PKG Group Proposals. Our latest for the Ebenezer (as an Arts & Visitor Centre for Cefn), and WBG Parking is about ending the segregation of our community from the very lucrative opportunity on our door step. However, unless WCBC and partners join in, we cannot gain access to the very substantial funding available to make this happen. So, it may be said, “The writing is on the wall” and unless WCBC is willing to work with us, the future economic base and prosperity of our community will be sold off.
Please see Easter Bank Holidat Weekend 2019.
The Holly Bush Inn, Established 1800, the oldest pub in Cefn Mawr and home of the Plas Kynaston Canal Group, Cefn Square, Cefn Mawr, Pontcysyllte World Heritage Site, Wrexham, LL14 3AE, Tel 01978 449 814
On the 18th of April 2018 another meeting was held at the Holly Bush Inn for the consultants Arcadis to meet the PKC Group and people from our community. Once again the primary objective from the PKC Group was to try and ensure that our community was being included in ways that would actually work in the thrid round of master planning for WCBC, CRT and Eastmans that Arcadis was working on.
The PKC Group has attended all meetings and consultations held in 2018 for this new round of master planning by Arcadis to try and ensure our community is not left out and ignored again. At these meetings we have been reassured that this will not be the case and we remain hopeful that this comes true so that our community can be turned around and put on the road to economic recovery which is perfectly feasible given our location and the potential we are surrounded with.
The Four Corner Stone Documents for the Cefn
For an outline of how our community at the centre of the Pontcysyllte World Heritage Site can be included and our economy regenerated please see the below documents that are all based on Welsh Planning Policy and the Future Generations Act.
Sustainable Tourism & Economic Development for the Cefn & Cefn Mawr
The Cefn, Cefn Mawr & FGA 2015
The Cefn, Cefn Mawr & WSP 2016
The Kick Off Meeting 12th January 2017, present members were our local people in the PKC Group, Local Community Council, Local Traders and AVOW. The meeting was about WCBC, CRT & Eastmans who are employing Arcadis Consultants from Cardiff to prepare a third master plan for them. The objective of the meeting at the Holly Bush was to discuss how we could best get our community included in their plans as it had been clearly left out of the two previous master plans by them. With our community immediately next to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and at the centre of the World Heritage Site, there is no good reason why it should rate and remain as one of the highest unemployment areas in NE Wales, unless of course it is left out and ignored again.
A show of hands in the Holly Bush Inn for getting Cefn Mawr back on its feet, 14th January 2017, please note we all want the same thing, we want our village back and we want WCBC and other third parties to work with us. We do not want to be segregated from the WHS corridor any longer. If there is any doubt about our community being segregated please see “Where is Cefn Mawr” which clearly shows how our community has been left out and ignored. This must stop and WCBC needs to start working in accordance with WPP.
The PKC Group organised a Public Consultation for the planned Local Development Plan 2, (LDP2) by Wrexham County Borough Council (WCBC) at the Holy Bush Inn in March 2016. WCBC had not organised one for the local community and so the group helped out and it allowed the group to explain both the LDP2 as being proposed for the Cefn by WCBC and their proposals for incorporation into the LDP2 for the community of Cefn.
The PKC Group had held a number of meetings in 2014 and 2015 leading to the proposals submitted to the WCBC for inclusion into the LDP2 during its term until 2028.
This website is for Cefn, covering Cefn Mawr and Surrounding Villages that are central to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct World Heritage Site along the Llangollen Canal. The villages of Cefn and Cefn Mawr are immediately adjacent to both the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Cefn Viaduct that span the River Dee Valley.
Please send us your input, so we can build a better site and future for us, our children and grandchildren. Have a look and find out about the History, Present, and Plans for the future. Everybody is welcome to the information here on what has happened, is going on or is going to happen and to help out if you want to!
The Plas Kynaston Canal once served the industries of Cefn Mawr that provided employment for local people, but eventually became buried beneath the mighty Monsanto Works in the 1900’s. However those works have now closed and the site is vacant providing the opportunity to reinstate the Plas Kynaston Canal back to Cefn Mawr. This would reconnect Cefn Mawr & Surrounding Villages to the Inland Waterway Network. The Llangollen Canal is the UK’s busiest canal and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct draws over 300,000 tourists annually.
The canal could again bring employment opportunities & prosperity to the area by encouraging tourism into our villages and community, exploring the local industrial heritage of our area.
Plas Kynaston Hall is a Grade II listed building located within the Cefn Mawr conservation area and has been renovated by the Welsh Georgian Trust.
Since the Plas Kynaston Canal, PKC Group was formed in 2010 to promote tourism in the central section of the World Heritage Site on the Llangollen Canal adjacent to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct the PKC Group has received wide and popular support from the general public both locally, nationally and internationally. The PKC Group are putting the villages that lie between the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and the Cefn Viaduct along the River Dee and Llangollen Canal on the tourist map.
The PKC Group at the Glydrw University in Wrexham to highlight the potential for reinstating the Plas Kynaston Canal back into Cefn Mawr. The group likes to join in with local events around our community to encourage positive outcomes for Cefn. Although PKC Group is based in Cefn Mawr, it also looks at the wider community such as surrounding Villages of the Cefn, the Pontcysyllte WHS and County of Wrexham. Please check out this website for proof.
The PKC Group continues to be active in the role of seeking the reinstatement of the Plas Kynaston Canal to link Cefn Mawr and the Cefn into the inland waterway network at the centre of the Pontcysyllte World Heritage Site. This news article from 2010 shows a petition of 2000 signatories being handed into the Wrexham County Borough Council. The petition was raised locally in in the Cefn and remains valid. As does all the other work we have done (all of us) since then and we (PKC Group) keep in regular contact with Eastman’s, now the current site owner of the former Monsanto Chemical Works site.
Llyr Gruffydd, Plaid Cymru Assembly Member for the North Wales Region discussing matters with David Taylor and Steven Hughes about bringing tourism to Cefn Mawr and the PKC Group proposals to bridge the gap between the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct WHS and Cefn Mawr for the betterment of all. Llyr Gruffydd, visited the site in February 2012 for a meeting with the Heritage Minister of the Welsh Assembly Government.
Please note that these forms were in response to the second round of the WCBC Local Development Plan (LDP) Consultation in 2011.They were additional to the 2000 strong petition handed to the WCBC in 2010 by the PKC Group, which had been presented on behalf of our community at the centre of the Pontcysyllte World Heritage Site. The PKC received more support in the LDP than any other nomination for incorporation into the WCBC Local Development Plan.
The PKC Group thanks every one for their support and backing on this. Please remember this is a long term project with significant technical difficulties to overcome in order to achieve the full restoration of the PKC.
Want to see progress, come for a beer in the Holly Bush Inn or check out the Holly Bush Inn Renovation Story, restored in partnership with the THI & WCBC.
We are also proud to work alongside other voluntary groups such as the St Christophers School party clearing Crane Lane in the Cefn and all other local groups we promote on this website. On our website we link these to the national relevant bodies for the preservation and promotion of our local heritage, such as CADW, IWA, National Library of Wales, CRT, National Archives and Visit Wales.
If you want a copy of this home page please just down load this PDF which will print out easily on any home printer, and all the best from the PKC Group.
PKC Home Page 2017.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [3.8 MB]