Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil
Bury is much bigger than Accrington and its Council has a much bigger budget than Hyndburns. As usual HBC's website is not easy to fins information on and I could not find the full budget figures except for them having a capital program of £6.3 million which includes over £4 million for Woodnook. Take the £4 million for the questionable Woodnook scheme off and you have £2.3 million capital for everything else.
Bury's website has figures for 2012/13 as being a capital program of £15 million, a housing revenue budget of £30 million and a revenue budget of £130 million.
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Neil, I take your point about Bury having a bigger budget, but it isn't just about budgets, it is about the way the town markets itself.
Bury cannot compete with Manchester and its variety of big name shops...though to be fair Bury does have its share of those........I don't think that is what draws the people to it.
So what does draw the people into this town?
It has a vast and thriving
traditional market. Something that Manchester, as a city, does
not have....so it not only draws people from the small towns around it....it draws from the city too.
I have rarely seen this market quiet.....and if you go midweek, it is still thronged with people....because the coaches that bring people to the coastal towns of the northwest, make it one of their excursions.
Ramsbottom is another very small town. In the shadow of Manchester and Bury....but this little town always seems to have a good footfall.....why?
Because it has something to bring the people from outside the region in....the railway and the diverse independent little shops.
There are lessons to be learned, but it appears that HBC don't really want to learn them...they want to extract business rates from empty shops....they want to allow the detritus of society to drive would be visitors away from the town...and are happily supporting the building of a new bus station which will do exactly that for them.......for a back hander from TESCO.....Well done Tesco. That is another town you have helped to ruin.