ACT NOW TO SAVE OUR TOWN

DEAR Hyndburn Councillors,

Please accept my apologies for interrupting your General Election.

I want to thank you for your many years of service and your dedication to our town and ask you bluntly whether you are as depressed about our town centre as I was during my many visits over the past few months?

Please, act before it is too late. We need to work fast collectively as one to save our town.

I was in town on Saturday... and left feeling totally depressed. I am embarrassed by the poor quality Christmas lights and shop decorations.

It’s the 7th December and the baby has already been born in the Nativity and the Town Hall square is empty without any music, no entertainers and no feeling that Christmas is less than two weeks away.

Inside the Town Hall, the shopkeepers look so glum, you would hardly believe that Christmas is the season to be jolly.

I cannot help but think that we need to bring everyone together, including all the councillors and business leaders to change the dynamic and the energy in our town.

Camden Market in London sells absolutely everything and there are no limits. People are encouraged to shop and enjoy the day. The culture of shopping, eating and drinking could be all combined.

I would abolish all stall and shop fees and encourage free or reduced rent. I would be looking at converting many shops into modern apartments and bring people to live in our town centres who would then become the future shoppers.

As a market town, we have such a proud history and heritage, people came from surrounding towns to enjoy shopping in our markets… but not any more.

We must ALL accept responsibility for the decisions the council has made in the past and we must address what has worked and what could still work and potentially, what could be better or removed completely.

We need to ask a wide range of questions and really listen to the answers. The town is not working as the town we remember.

We once went into the council offices and could speak to civil servants about town matters. Now, we go into council building on Broadway, and we can only talk to a council team member via a telephone if we are lucky for someone to pick up, whilst at the Town Hall on Blackburn Road, there is no one there.

Our town folk need a presence, just like the police needed a presence. We need to be a caring town, more effective at spreading the positive things we do.

We should be contacting all our citizens weekly on what our town is offering. But also have an effective listening team, who can address the matters concerning our people.

The shopping experience feels almost like the heart of our town has been ripped out and our shopkeepers are dying a slow death. Why would anyone set up a retail business with so little opportunity to make people happy?

Our retail shops and stalls are spread far and wide and the heart of our town has virtually gone. People do not enjoy shopping, especially on cold wet winter days.

I watched as many of the shoppers bought very little shopping. I watched the shopkeepers, watching the shoppers in hope that they would stop and buy, but the truth is, the whole town feels depressed and there is a genuine anxiety amongst the shopkeepers and stall keepers, who can hardly meet their costs.

Retail has become depressing and prices cannot compete with the major big shops who have the benefit of economies of scale.

Somehow, we need to centralise the shopping experience and encourage shop keepers to merge into a more centralised area.

We need to be competing with the big shops and creating something that cannot be done in the big shops.

As councillors, you need to stop the blame game and set up a think tank of cross party councillors and businesspeople which involves all the people of our town to ask the hard questions, like why do people shop?

What do they need? How can the market stalls compete with the big shops?

How can we create a retail experience to give the town a heart which creates an energy where people feel passionate about our town, when so many see the decay and lack of investment?

Our Victoria shops are in desperate need of modernisation.

Over the years, shopkeepers and market stall holders have been silenced into submission, all fallen victim to modern shopping methods such as buying online or buying from the large retailers such as Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Matalan, Pets at Home, Home Bargains, Aldi and Lidl.

They have had the life sucked from them.

As most of our town people like to shop online, the market experience must be a creative one, branding our town shops and stalls under one town brand, creating a shop window all linked to an online experience with delivery services added to what Hyndburn offers.

Incentives, promotions, what’s on, special discounts, it’s all within reach. Prices need to be competitive, otherwise, people will not spend.

We need to look at how “buying power” can create better effective economies of scale to reduce the prices of market products and create better competitive prices and remove all business rates and business’s taxes including VAT from shopkeepers in central town locations to create a renewed drive to get people shopping again.

Our town needs a non-partisan approach and we do not have months to work this out.

Very soon we are not going to have a retail experience. If we do not do anything, all our shopkeepers and stallkeepers will just give up and leave.

We need a retail SOS as soon as Christmas is over before it is too late.

Let’s challenge our people to provide honest feedback about our town centre, our Town Hall, our services, our shops, our markets and issues related to the retail therapy.

Councillors, we need to bang some heads together to bring life back into our town and give our people a vision of where we see our town being placed in five, 10 and 20 years’ time.

Where is the vision, where are the vision makers?

If I was a young person growing up in our town, where can they go and what can they do? How do they feel when they come into town and know our town has nothing for them, not even part time work?

Finally councillors, our country has massive hospitality needs, yet we have closed down one of the biggest assets, our hospitality catering college.

Our town once exported young talent to the leading hotels and restaurants around Britain and the world.

Education should never be about running a college like a business.

We should be inspiring our young people to follow their dreams and take on careers which will allow them to become extraordinary and help create a future for themselves, hopefully one day coming back to our town with a renewed energy and passion to give something back.

Thank you for listening and for taking the time to ask the question how do we change and support our towns transition into the future?

Wayne Fitzharris

Great Harwood