Community groups push for comprehensive anti-poverty plan in north Wales

A collaboration of 22 local groups is calling on a county borough council to commit to a comprehensive strategy to tackle poverty that prioritises the lived experiences of its communities.

Wrexham Poverty Action Collaboration highlighted that 8,000 children and young people live in poverty in the community, one in every four in the county with a notable absence of any council-led strategy to tackle this.

Following the successfulTackling Poverty Summit in March, where officers from Wrexham County Borough Council committed to taking findings forward, the Collaboration are now building the evidence base needed for a comprehensive strategy.

It is understood that Wrexham Council have made assurances that they will engage with the group from October 2025 onwards.

Groundwork

The Wrexham Poverty Action Collaboration includes members from TCC (Trefnu Cymunedol Cymru/Together Creating Communities, Wrexham Foodbank, and Citizens Advice Wrexham.

In the absence of a council-led strategy to tackle poverty, the Collaboration is laying the groundwork by funding community organisations that can go beyond statistics and capture the experiences of people that the system often overlooks.

David Hughes, The Collaboration’s Project Coordinator said: “The UN is clear: involve people at every stage. We know that the best solutions to poverty come from those who experience it.

“We’re using our funding to ensure more voices are heard and that any future strategy is truly informed by the reality of people’s lives, not just hearsay or assumptions.

“We have a real opportunity here. We’re inviting Wrexham Council to engage with this process, to meet with the people sharing their experiences, and to work with us to develop a strategy together that can make real, lasting change.”

Support

Community groups including Housing Justice Cymru, Caia Park Partnership, The Rainbow Foundation, and UareUK are receiving funding from the Wrexham Poverty Action Collaboration to collect lived experiences from local people.

These stories highlight the experiences of individuals struggling with mental health due to poverty, older adults facing fuel poverty and isolation, refugees navigating unfamiliar systems, people experiencing homelessness, carers under extreme financial pressure, and the ‘working poor’ – caught between low wages and limited access to support.

Working people experiencing financial hardship face a particularly acute crisis: families where parents work full-time are unable to access support because they are not on benefits, creating a critical gap in the system. These are people who contribute to Wrexham’s economy yet remain trapped in poverty, invisible to a system that wasn’t designed for them.

The Collaboration’s David Hughes continues: “These projects are meeting people where they are, in spaces they trust, capturing truths that surveys and statistics miss. They use trauma-informed, creative approaches, like art sessions, storytelling, and cook-and-eat gatherings, and they’re already starting to see results.

“But this work needs council leadership and commitment to turn it into lasting change. We’re ready to support power holders and decision makers in gaining insights and lived experiences and we need Wrexham Council to prioritise meaningful action.”

Funding

With funding from Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales, and strong backing in place from local Senedd Member, Lesley Griffiths MS, the Collaboration has already hosted a Tackling Poverty Summit at Wrexham University in March, earlier this year.

Its dedicated 22 members are also on the frontline, supporting families who live under the poverty line, such as WrexhamFoodbank that has given food parcels to over 10,000 people, including over 3,000 children, and almost 4,000 people receiving debt advice from Citizens Advice Wrexham last year.

The summit report outlines what should be in a new strategy, including:

• Improved information sharing across services and agencies
• Consistent, empathetic, and person-centred support
• Enhanced mental health provision and social inclusion initiatives
• Nutritional and financial education
• Inclusive employment practices
• Sustained funding and resources for essential services

For more information, visit the TCC site here.