First and foremost, I'd like to thank everyone that has contributed to this thread, it's made a very interesting read.
There are some very good suggestions for the "demise" of Church and they probably all contributed to making it the place it is today. I thought the building of the motorway was particularly interesting. If I was to guess I'd have said that it would have been beneficial to Church to be linked with (eventually) the whole of Lancashire, but it seems this wasn't the case. Even the building of the Leeds and Liverpool canal was probably more beneficial if you look at why it was used at the time it was built. Although it doesn't really offer anything other than a walk for ramblers in today's world. I still think whatever caused all this happened way back though and probably festered for a few decades.
The fact that this is and was a working class area strikes me as probably the most distinctive reason I can fathom being a major factor in all of this. I've been doing some more digging myself and talking to the older generation it seems there were 2 areas of employment which kept most of the population of Church (and other local districts) afloat; these are obviously the cotton industry and the mining industry. I don't know exactly when the cotton mills were all closed down, but I do know it has had a knock on effect to the town/village and Lancashire. Seeing all of our cotton products are imported from China these days this will never happen again and our local heritage has probably disappeared forever. I don't really need to go into the mining thing, we all know what Maggie Thatcher did; it seems she took the only major industry we had left after the mills and left us with nothing. Now if you want to pay the bills it seems you're going to have to travel a lot further than before. Not really a problem with cars, but there's not really any money being injected into this area, well not that I can see. At least none that I can see will have a positive, long-lasting effect on Church. To me it looks like Accrington is "the beloved" and is the place being invested in. It's also local businesses that used to inject money back into the community and it seems that express gifts is the only place that offers mass employment around these parts. I think, due to health reasons, it's probably better that the mines are no longer, but from the other perspective there are no places that offer the amount of jobs that the mines did. I can't really see a way that Church can be what it once was and if the council/government thinks the same way, it's no wonder we've been forgotten. This is not really a convenient excuse considering they are the ones who are supposed to resolve problems and to invest locally, in housing, businesses and people. This being said, it seems most of Hyndburn was doomed to failure from the start and it seems Church has been hit really hard by this, my guess is it's probably hit other districts just as bad. It's no surprise the council wants to change the name of Hyndburn considering its legacy.
Still, it's not all bad, we still have some decent people around these parts who have to endure the ones who are making this place a bad place to live. We have a lot of schools around here being invested in. That's a start. Hopefully, they'll do a good job in Accy town center. I still can't help but think; I wish Church was still a town in it's own right.
By the way, I've lived here all my life too, only 22 years, but long enough to see how much it's gone downhill. I dread to think how much it's gone downhill since even further back; from the 1930s or even earlier. It makes me wonder, what I'm trying to do is find out these things from the people who know, whilst they're still around to tell the story, otherwise it will be forgotten.
John