East Lancashire town centres receive high street grants
10:00am Saturday 31st March 2012 in News
A SHAKE-up of several East Lancashire town centres is on the cards after it was announced £500,000 in high street grants is heading to the region.
Blackburn-with-Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Rossendale and Pendle will receive £100,000 each from the High Street Innovation Fund.
Several bids to become one of 12 ‘Portas Towns’, a cash incentive to revitalise jaded shopping hubs, have been lodged by locations such as Darwen, Nelson, Rawtenstall and Clitheroe.
But this extra cash, confirmed by housing minister Grant Shapps, is part of a separate £10million pot. designed to bring empty shops back into use.
Brian Bailey, Blackburn council’s regeneration director, said: “Supporting and improving our town centres is one of our top priorities.
“This funding will help us to bring other plans, to help strengthen both town centres and support local businesses, forward more quickly.”
Coun Clare Pritchard, deputy leader of Hyndburn Council, said she had lobbied Mr Shapps about the original scheme not being wide-ranging enough and was ‘pleased he had listened’.
Ideas for how Hyndburn’s allocation, available to Accrington, Great Harwood and Rishton, should be spent will now be the subject of a six-week consultation exercise.
“We can use it to reduce business rates, tackle vacant properties or a combination of ideas,” she added.
Colin Hill, Burnley Council’s facilities head, said a decision on the borough’s £100,000 would be made once it was known whether Portas Town bids for Burnley’s Standish Street or the centre of Padiham, have been successful.
Burnley MP Gordon Birtwistle said: “This is more good news for Burnley and will allow to us to continue to develop the area and make the most of what we have to offer.”
Rossendale council leader Coun Alyson Barnes added: “This money will enable us to look at issues with empty shops across all our town centres.”
Comments(16)
woolywords
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11:38am Sat 31 Mar 12
doomchanter
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12:42pm Sat 31 Mar 12
shytalk
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12:49pm Sat 31 Mar 12
Now what we could really do with in the high street is either another charity shop, fast food takeaway,or Italian pizza palace/kebab shop because we don't have enough of those.
spendmymoneywisely
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1:47pm Sat 31 Mar 12
sean_brfc
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2:28pm Sat 31 Mar 12
stagfest
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6:18pm Sat 31 Mar 12
M.DANNY
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6:30pm Sat 31 Mar 12
Kevin, Colne
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6:31pm Sat 31 Mar 12
Firstly, supermarkets are continuing to expand their estate and competition for customers is intense. Secondly, internet shopping is growing exponentially. Thirdly, young adult consumers have been schooled in the world of supermarkets and the internet and while they will frequent the super-regional shopping centres, such as Meadowhall and The Trafford Centre, they tend to avoid local town centres like the plague.
These structural drivers are in large part responsible for the decimation of the high street.
Fourthly, we are in the grip of The Great Recession, some might use the truthful term depression, when unemployment is rising markedly and household incomes are under intense pressure. Many in work are worried about the security of their jobs and pay. Moreover, pay cuts, pay freezes and pay increases below the rate of inflation are wreaking havoc with household finances.
In short living standards for many folks in East Lancashire, which were below the national average, are now dropping like a stone.
Into this maelstrom the local bureaucratic and political elite is setting out to encourage fellow citizens to try their hand at business by entering high street retailing with a model that is demonstrably failing, and will be squandering public money (that could be better spent on other things) to demonstrate that with a few notable exceptions economic reality will trump the delusional fantasy of the local bureaucratic and political class.
julespent
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3:20am Sun 1 Apr 12
julespent
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3:20am Sun 1 Apr 12
Heelwalker.1
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9:39am Sun 1 Apr 12
julespent wrote:I agree, the parking fees are ridiculous and are discouraging people from coming to town.
£100,000 to help fill empty shops is peanuts. The greedy blackburn with darwen council need to reduce parking fees and stop sending people away to other places! That is what the money could do, although not sure how long the 100 grand would last reducing parking fees? perhaps it could reduce extortionate rents, retailers still need to earn a living! bring people back to blackburn please before it dies!!
After the stress of fighting your way through the traffic jams you are then ripped off by the greedy council for the pleasure of parking your car.
Is it any wonder more and more are using the out of town retail parks ? It's so much easier, stress free and free parking.
That's where I do my shopping. Think about it those on the council.
modan
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9:23pm Sun 1 Apr 12
ury,Stckport,Blackpo
ol and Grimsby have suffered far worst than other towns. Some towns like Preston,Huddersfield
,Chester,Lancaster,H
alifax and York have done well with 10% or less empty shops.With shopping habits are changing in modern times,people go to superstores,shopping Malls and internet shopping and thats why many high street have suffered.There is the reccession and people cut back on shopping.High Street shops needs help with cut in business rates and free parking to help small business get through reccession.It's tough times for high street at this moment.Big Stores have also suffered in this reccession ,many have closed down too likes of Woolworths,peacocks,
Bonmarche,TJ Hughes,Games,Past Times,Hawkins Bazaar ,Barratts,D2 Jeans,Jane Norman,Habitat,Le Senza,Ugo .
AndyD123
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3:05pm Mon 2 Apr 12
katypri
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7:18pm Mon 2 Apr 12
BluMonday
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11:54am Tue 3 Apr 12
Siouxsie-Jan says...
10:47am Sat 31 Mar 12
He's falling into the old trap of taking the electorate for fools. Just watch. Next he'll try passing off the new Urgent Care Centre as a full blown A&E Dept.