[WillowTheWhisp]

There's lots of potential Billcat. It's just that some of us get a bit fed up of it remaining potential for so long. An old warehouse may strike you as attractive, but a derelict pub with tatty posters daubed onto it, ripping off and fluttering in the wind is not a pretty site.

The market is cramped compared to what it was and compared to Blackburn market it's hardly worth calling one. We used to have a large flourishing outdoor market but that was demolished in order to build the Wilkinson's block and shops, half of which are empty. Some have been tenanted and empty, tenanted and empty, tenanted and empty which would seem to indicate that either the rents are too high or there is no call for more shops.

The current market occupies land which was once part of the bus station and now the buses don't fit in and stops have had to be put in other places such as round the corner or up by the shops (making it even less likely for the shops to succeed as they are hidden by the bus queues.)

I'm not against progress and regeneration, in fact I'm all for it but we seem to have change for the sake of change and much of it is retrograde.