[WillowTheWhisp]

It's probably down to false impressions. Like many people I am all in favour of improvements but HBC seem to waste an awful lot of money improving things to a state where they end up far worse than they were in the first place.

Let's take Broadway as an example. Now if you want to know the absolute heart and dead centre of Accy (sit down that man who said Burnley Road Crem!) I'm sure many people would immediately think of Broadway/Abbey Street/Peel Street/Blackburn Rd. So what do we have here?

A bus station which isn't big enough for the number of buses trying to fit into it, necessitating some buses parking outside of shops and others parking up a side street.

A market cramped and squashed into what was once half of the bus station in order to free up the land where the market once was.

On the land where the market once was we have a development which seems too large and overpowering for the area, and within which there are cheapo shop and empty retail premises despite there already being empty retail premises in other parts of the town centre.

Then we come to the joys and delights of Broadway - will they ever finish retarmaccing the blessed thing? Is it attractive? Personally I don't think so. Compared to Blackburn's Church Street it is a very poor relation.


Project Phoenix aka the regeneration of the area of Accrington along Blackburn Road - the haphazzard way the home owners there were treated is appalling. Some received £30,000 when their homes were purchased by the council. Others only received loans which they will have to pay back should they decide to move from the area?!? It almost sounds like 'Hotel California' - you can check out any time you like but you can never leave.

There has been talk of "doing something" with the canalside area of Church incorporating the old Commercial Hotel - but what and when will anything ever be done?

Then we come to the dreaded Panopticon which was proposed for the top of the Coppice. Amongst the many objections raised was the fear that it would attract more vandalism and the council doesn't seem to be able to prevent vandalism of what we've already got up there - plus the ideas and suggestions put forth would of themselves seem more like vandalising an area dear to the hearts of many of us who grew up here and loved playing up't'Coppie as children or taking our dogs or indeed ourselves for walks up there as adults.

We were told it needed to be on the highest point in the area so that it could be seen from afar - but then one of the ideas put forward would only have been seen from the air, which no doubt the local pigeons would have apppreciated but it would have carved up the land into concentric circles of earth with ditches in between which would surely have become waterlogged and present a danger to anyone who may have slipped whilst climbing over and "enjoyng" the 'High Form'. Why couldn't we have had something decent in a better location? Yet we were told almost in the way a frustratd parent tells a naughty chid. "You'll have what you're given and like it or you'll have nothing at all."

As Tealef said we're not against the concept of regeneration. What we are against is being fobbed of with something totally inappropriate.

Personally, as I have said several times in the past, I would love to see the area around Oak Street/Grange Lane improved and a feature made of the river there. It could be made beautiful, instead it languishes there forgotten and ignored. Why can't that be rejeuvinated and a Panopticon incorporated there? It could become a focal point. And while we're at it maybe they could build somewhere to house the old Arndale Clock that this website was (according to the local rag) supposed to have saved from destruction over two years ago but which has still not seen the light of day since it was removed to make way for that open air under cover cafe.

We were once referred to as the "All Our Yesterdays Brigade" but I don't feel that is a valid criticism. We are not against change, just against change for the worse.