Yes Accrington's night life has died on it's feet but it is the same in many towns throughout the country. Pubs which used to be locals, with their own identity, have been turned into trendy bars with no soul, just conversation killing loud music. The town centre pubs all had loud music and the atmosphere in those places was fantastic. To some the pub crawl was an excuse to drink the entire town dry but to most, wandering around the pubs, was what you did.
There was some trouble around town but nowhere near the level that we see today. I wonder if one of the causes is the type of drinks which are available these days. Those alcopops, which could fuel a motorbike, are drunk in large quantities, people lose control and get into all sorts of scrapes. There are other violence inducing substances available too but alcohol alone can do more than it's share of damage.
As for knocking your own town, that is something we Brits are very good at but we are wasting our time, the politicians are too busy protecting themselves from cross party snide attacks to take any notice of the electorate.
