...Yet another council comedy caper

Tealeaf · 05-05-2005, 17:04

I've just been having a look at the on-line version of the Observer. It appears that some of the lease holders on Accy Market have a tenancy agreement which quite clearly states that business rates are contained within the overall rent ( a common practice for many councils with commercial properties and one which cuts down on the paperwork for both parties).

Along comes the council's Chief Finance Officer and says "Not so.....forget about whats written on the paper, in the box, under "business rates payable", i.e.zero.....You pay your rates on top , i.e. some £3,700pds...." - alot of dosh for any small buisness.

Is'nt this yet one more splendid advertisment for business-friendly Hyndburn? What, I wonder has Britcliffe to say about this farce?

chav1 · 05-05-2005, 17:06

HBC wont be happy until every buisness in accy is either a cheap shop or a charity shop

lettie · 05-05-2005, 17:12

I noticed yesterday that the music shop Replay has now gone from the Arndale. That's now 2 empty properties in the Arndale, the other being Cryers. No wonder other towns benefit from our lack of decent shops. I was looking for work shoes yesterday, the only place which had anything halfway decent was M&S and they didn't have my size. I found some today in Manchester no problem.

WillowTheWhisp · 05-05-2005, 17:42

Wouldn't the market tennants have a good case if they took that to court? After all it's down in black and white and an agreement like that should be a contract binding on both parties.

ShortStuff · 06-05-2005, 17:47

I agree with Willow - the tenants should take this further. HBC certainly would if it was the tenants not making their end of the deal.

It makes you sick - they may as well just block any roads coming into Accy cos it's embarassing to think that people not from Accy might see our poor excuse of a centre!

lettie · 06-05-2005, 17:53

I agree Shortstuff. Accy town centre is an embarrassment, empty shops, too many pound and charity shops and litter and chewing gum strewn streets. At least we still have a halfway decent market, but hang on a minute.......... It looks like the council are trying to scupper that one too.

cashman · 06-05-2005, 18:17

the market hall tenants recieved a letter from hbc the other week,it was a list of firms tenders which had been whittled down a bit,so the market hall is up for grabs,the tenants are already crippled by the rents that are charged,the hall will be done up when its taken over so who will pay for that,be lucky if theres anyone left in the building when this happens,i await with interest.

WillowTheWhisp · 06-05-2005, 22:50

Slightly off-topic but not quite:

I chanced to pass through the arcade on Thursday, as one does from time to time, and noticed that's half empty too. It's a disgrace. This used to be a terrific little town for shopping, people used to actually come here from elsewhere. Now I have to go to other towns to find what I want.

cashman · 06-05-2005, 22:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillowTheWhisp

Slightly off-topic but not quite:

I chanced to pass through the arcade on Thursday, as one does from time to time, and noticed that's half empty too. It's a disgrace. This used to be a terrific little town for shopping, people used to actually come here from elsewhere. Now I have to go to other towns to find what I want.

think the same could be said for a lot of people willow,the all our yesterdays crowd agree it was a terrific little town lol

WillowTheWhisp · 06-05-2005, 23:07

And because we remember how it used to be then surely that gives us more desire to see it great once more rather than sit here in apathy and let it sink into the mire.

chav1 · 06-05-2005, 23:21

the decline of accrington shopping started with the arndale center

no statistics to back it up but just my observation that since the arndale was built the town got quieter and quieter

even the arndale center has resorted to cheap shops to fill it up

mez · 06-05-2005, 23:25

i went shopping in blackburn yesterday with nette,(my daughter) & we noticed a couple of big stores had closed & gone from there too, is this a new trend or something?

chav1 · 06-05-2005, 23:32

larger buisnesses are tending to move to industrial estates i remember when dixons and currys were high street shops but they are far and few between now and mostly on industrial estates like whitebirk

i guess the thinking behind it is that once your in their shops out of the town in the middle of nowhere you wont bother shopping around as it would be too time consuming

an example of what i mean .

when shopping i would get my meat from one place , frozen food from another and various other things from other places

companys like tesco and asda tend to move to the outskirts of town so that once you go there for their cheaper products or stuff on promotion even though joe blogs in town center is doing sausages as an examle 20p cheaper a pack the customer cant be bothered loading up what he buys at asda then going to joe blogs and sees it as less hassle to pay the extra 20p on the sausages

not very good at explaining stuff but i think that was just about good enough lol

WillowTheWhisp · 06-05-2005, 23:33

It's the recession Tealeaf is talking about.

cashman · 06-05-2005, 23:48

read an article recently written years ago it said that nothing will be bought from shops in time,cos everyone will just order goods from home there will be a bar code gadget in the kitchen and when you run out of something e.g. sauce you swipe the code of the empty bottle and it will be delivered immiediatly,it gave many other examples sound crazy?far fetched? the other predictions in the article had already happened.it worries the hell out of me!