Town Centre Changes

GEaston said:
I read with interest but no surprise at all that 1 in 5 shops is going to be gone from high streets in the next 5 years. In Accy it'll be more.

That story, which is on the news today underlines the permanent change that our society is going through caused by a mix of recession and Internet shopping. The question to be addressed and alluded to by me is what should be done with the empty space. That's what I've been getting at in threads like this one and the one about what can the Mayor do to prevent Accys further decline.

All his is opportunity for me because I pickup the broken properties at auction to be fixed/repurposed to residential if required. In general the council needs a funded plan, and I don't believe they have one (they had a plan that was not funded) so what now Hyndburn?
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As the Mayor's role has been answered and is out of the equation you would be better contacting the town centre manager Rob Grigorjevs. He should be able to enlighten you as to the current plans. If you follow the link you will be able to pick up his email address. When you find out you can enlighten us all :)

Great Harwood Farmers Market
 
lancsdave said:
As the Mayor's role has been answered and is out of the equation you would be better contacting the town centre manager Rob Grigorjevs. He should be able to enlighten you as to the current plans. If you follow the link you will be able to pick up his email address. When you find out you can enlighten us all :)

Great Harwood Farmers Market
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I can't understand why the Farmers Market is not held in Accrington. If the Council are organising such things in the smaller towns of Hyndburn will it not take shoppers away from Accrington?
 
Neil said:
I can't understand why the Farmers Market is not held in Accrington. If the Council are organising such things in the smaller towns of Hyndburn will it not take shoppers away from Accrington?
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There could be a possibility they aren't allowed too Neil, there are a lot of minor rules and regs which go with the status of Market Town, always remembering that Gt Harwood was once a town on its own, before the days of Hyndburn and were at one time classed as part of the Ribble Valley
 
Neil said:
I can't understand why the Farmers Market is not held in Accrington. If the Council are organising such things in the smaller towns of Hyndburn will it not take shoppers away from Accrington?
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What's your problem, there's tons of bull sold on the flea market several days a week :)

I don't think the council organise the Farmers Market
 
Neil said:
I can't understand why the Farmers Market is not held in Accrington. If the Council are organising such things in the smaller towns of Hyndburn will it not take shoppers away from Accrington?
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Sorry Neil, why should a Farmers Market be forced to Accrington, are the outskirts of our magnificent Borough not allowed to use money making ideas for their own communities?
 
Less said:
Sorry Neil, why should a Farmers Market be forced to Accrington, are the outskirts of our magnificent Borough not allowed to use money making ideas for their own communities?
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Of course they are yes.

If you spread out the shopping opportunities across the Borough instead of trying to concentrate it in the centre of Accrington it will kill off Accrington even quicker.

There is only so much money to be spent so concentrating that spending in one town looks like the only way to make Accrington a vibrant shopping centre.

My own view is that ACcrington's current shopping area is far to big for the number of shoppers and should shrink to fit the shoppers.
 
The reason the farmers market is in Great Harwood is because it was started by local business man Nick (might be Neil sorry) Gaskell from Gaskell motors. It was originally on their land but it started to get quite decent so they then had words with the council who supported the move to town gate and who now work on it as a joint initiative.
 
The Great Harwood Farmers' Market is now held on Town Gate, the main square in the centre of Great Harwood, on the first Sunday morning of the month - there's one this Sunday. I haven't had chance to go yet but I believe it's very popular! As Gayle says, it isn't a Council initiative although they now have some involvement. There are some residents pressing for a Farmers' Market in Oswaldtwistle but we would have to find a site and it would need someone to back it in the way that Gaskell Motorbodies do in Great Harwood.
 
People have been enquiring whether the Accrington Town Team is an open forum. Rob Grigorjevs, the Town Centre Manager, said that it included representatives from town centre businesses but that if members of the public had concerns they were better contacting him by phone or e-mail and he would give an individual reply. However, yesterday a local business woman told me she had gone to the recent meeting and - shall we say? - expressed her opinions in a forthright manner!
 
As promised I'd like to update folk on the discussions I have had with the council on the Town Plan.

Firstly I had an excellent exchange with the guy in charge of the town plan Rob Grigorjevs. Unlike some other council contacts I've had he responded immediately and fully to the questions I posed, and we had a good debate about the town's issues. This is positive because it is important that the town's leaders do all they can to attract investment into the town, and part of that is creating an environment conducive to doing so.

Rob was open about the challenges facing the town given the size of the problem and budgetary constraints that economic realities pose. Half the problem it seems to me is the fact that hard up commercial enterprises in many cases own the historic or important real estate (thinking Arndale, Warner St Arcade, Conservative Club and doubtless many others) but where that is not the case the council is able to make more of a direct impact - such as the Market Hall upgrades, Railway Station/Tesco infrastructure upgrades, St James Churchyard upgrade, Bus station and Blackburn Road improvements.

I know the location of the new Bus Station is a contentious issue, but I leave that aside for the purposes of this post which is about what the council can do and is/has done in relation to the former Accrington Town Centre plan.

No doubt people will want to shoot me down for saying this but I call it as I see it based on my own experiences. I like what I see from Rob so far, and I have an open invitation to meet with him and other council leaders to discuss town improvement. Opportunities for me are not at all out of line with what the council seeks which is private help to improve the town, so I will take up the offers I have to meet with a range of council folk when I'm next in the UK in early August.

I also think it is encouraging that the council's leaders are genuinely interested in feedback on the experiences we have with the many parts of the council. I have many of these both positive and negative and a frank assessment of these will be passed to the councils leaders when I get the chance to meet with them.

Summary (entirely from my perspective which is the only perspective I have) would be so far so good.
 
Gayle said:
The reason the farmers market is in Great Harwood is because it was started by local business man Nick (might be Neil sorry) Gaskell from Gaskell motors. It was originally on their land but it started to get quite decent so they then had words with the council who supported the move to town gate and who now work on it as a joint initiative.
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I already knew how it started but you didn't need to spoil my rant :p
 
Update on Arndale shops. Textile Direct eventually closed down a few weeks ago. One that suprised me this morning is the Gold shop next door has also closed, apparently a couple of weeks ago.
 
The Market Hall and Market is getting more footflow... in fact the Market hall is almost full
 
magpie said:
The Market Hall and Market is getting more footflow... in fact the Market hall is almost full
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Can yeh explain that please magpie? Almost full of what?:confused: There are much less stalls than ever there was, a large space fer people to sit around, were i have seen odd displays put on, a museum of accy (very welcome it is, but still aint stalls) If also its getting more footflow, i am glad, But my question would be,Are the traders noticing n increase?
 
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