Wrexham calls its shopping centre 'modern with traditional values'

With a history steeped in coal mining and heavy industry, Wrexham had long been a Labour stronghold.

This time around, the party will face challenges in wards where Dr Marek's Forward Wales party has candidates.

Dr Marek had been either a Labour MP or AM for Wrexham for 20 years before striking out on his own after he was deselected as a candidate by Labour.

Wrexham still has a Labour MP, and the council has had a Labour leader, although it lacked an overall majority of the 52 seats. In the run-up to this election, Labour's 24 councillors ran the council with the Radical group of 11.

The council was also made up of 10 Independents, four Conservatives and three non-aligned members.

Although Labour has done well in a town often regarded as the capital of north Wales, its majorities have been smaller than those typical of its industrial seats in the south.

Unskilled jobs

Recent years have brought change to the area's traditional industry, with the decline of coal and brick-making.

It has been quite successful in diversifying, attracting well-known names such as Kelloggs and Sharp, and new industrial estates have sprung up.

Wrexham Council has spent �22m on two new schools

Unemployment in Wrexham, at 2.2% of the 129,000 population, is relatively low but the figures fail to reflect that many skilled jobs in the manufacturing sector have been replaced by unskilled jobs in the retail sector.

In the past 12 months, Wrexham Council has shaken up secondary education, with three schools being merged into two new "super schools".

But the local authority was criticised after the cost rose from �12m to �22m. The original sum set aside for the project was found to be too small after it was revealed that the cost of inflation had not been built into the calculations.

The council was also criticised after plans to build a �6m theatre in Wrexham were shelved over spiralling costs.

More recently, council house tenants voted against moving ownership from the council to a newly-created independent housing association.

Perhaps the biggest recent test faced by the area was in June last year when trouble flared on the Caia Park estate on the outskirts of the town.

North Wales had to deal with two nights of disturbances between long-term local residents and Iraqi Kurds.