[Margaret Pilkington]

It could be so very different.
Ramsbottom is a small place...on the fringes of Bury and Manchester....it is a joy to visit.
The Railway is a huge draw, but then the town has a range of independent shops full of interesting things.

Accrington has had money spent foolishly.
Broadway was resurfaced a few years ago at the cost of something like £250,000.
It did not look great when it was finished and it looks even worse now....with the few millimetres thick resin surface coming off in great chunks.

That money could have been better used.
We are supposed to be a Floral Market Town.....there were planters all over the place advertising this fact....yet the market has been allowed to become a ghost of a market....with few stall occupied and a general down at heel look.

They built a new bus station well away from the market, so now people no longer get off the buses where the market is....this footfall has been lost, customers/potential customers lost.

The Market hall used to be a bustling place, full of diverse stalls....stalls that sold local produce....crumpets, cheeses, locally made jams and preserves.....gone!

There is absolutely nothing to come to Accrington for, so the new bust station ferries people away to places that have invested wisely in their town centres.