[Neil]

At the moment I do not like shopping in Accrington and try hard not to. As mentioned by accyman it is full of people I would rather not be around so I will go elsewhere. Once the rapid transport waste of money is finished people who rely on buses will be able to elsewhere faster as well. It has been mentioned by others before on AccyWeb, the problem with Accrington is some of the people not the place itself. Unfortunately the minority of people (I think they are the minority) are driving others out of town.

Many people want to shop at places like the Trafford Centre, Liverpool One and The Rock. They want to drive to Whitebirk, buy a TV stick it in the car which is parked outside the door and drive home with it. Shopping habits have changed over the years and trying to cling onto our old style town centre is one of the big problems we have. It is to big for the number of shops and shoppers. This leaves many empty shops and the town looking run down which in turn drives people away.

Is trying to prevent Whitebirk from expanding going to help Accrington town centre?
I don't think so, what it will do is make people like me drive to Preston or Manchester to shop. While I am over there I might spend some money in other shops.

The root cause of Accrington town centres problems need to be addressed, that is in the council can see what they are.