Looking for the positives in town

HAVE you taken a walk into Rochdale town centre recently, and really taken time to look and consider what has been happening?

To the casual observer, there is a significant amount written that will aim to bring our town down, calling this, calling that and deterring you from looking, but take a trip to the town hall, a seemingly well-kept secret of the ‘Clock Tower’ restaurant, a fabulous refurbished place that has high quality food and service.

As I talk to others I’m told ‘I didn’t know it was there.’ Make the effort and go visit, you will be met with utmost courtesy and fine dining right in the heart of our town.

Just along The Esplanade, you must visit Touchstones, not only packed with our local history and fabulous exhibitions, the new Art Café must also be experienced.

Created on two levels, one themed ‘Victorian’ and the lower, with an industrial feel to the surroundings and again, service that is just so welcoming.

Then travel further into town and see the fabulous work that has been done around our cenotaph, new themed benches, park of remembrance and the new Tetrosyl offices, which have received significant investment to enhance the frontage and create jobs.

Obviously, there is the work done to open the river which is a real treat and though there will always be argument over where to spend the limited funds the council has or can attract, Rochdale is beginning to look sensational.

We have just had confirmation that Marks and Spencer will still open a full range store at the new Riverside complex in 2018 – Oldham has not been as fortunate – which is great news and the development activity is very much clear to see. To continue to attract investment like this into town, these surrounding enhancements are essential. Our market, though logic was questioned as it moved out of the Exchange Shopping Centre, is close to being found its permanent home, both indoor and outdoor and soon we will have a retail centre that will challenge both Bury and Oldham.

I would also add how accessible Rochdale is becoming, OK not everywhere is wheelchair friendly yet, but I have found we have people in our town who are naturally courteous and helpful as I push a wheelchair user and which makes our visit to town so enjoyable.

Don’t spend time reading bad press on social media – that will always be there for you if you want that – but go and look for yourself, view and experience what is good about all that is happening about us. Rochdale is becoming great again. Even a dinosaur is coming to visit us, and not many towns can boast that can they? Paul Fraser Rochdale I AM puzzled by allegations that letters from Rochdale and Littleborough Peace Group and its supporters are characterised by ‘cognitive dissonance’(Observer letters, November 19).

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘cognitive dissonance’ as ‘the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change.’

I can see no dissonance in Mr Gilligan’s or the peace group’s attitudes. Indeed, the thoughts and beliefs conveyed by RLPG and Mr Gilligan seem entirely consistent. As well as condemning Alastair Campbell’s ‘dodgy dossier’ for propagating the Iraq war, Mr Gilligan’s previous letters to the Observer have explicitly denounced Russian attacks on Syria. Mr Gilligan’s most recent letter clearly states ‘bombing is never the answer; whoever the perpetrator or the apologist.’ As I understand it, RLPG seeks a world free from war and threats posed by nuclear weapons of mass destruction and remain consistent in their call for ALL countries, to abandon the mutually assured destruction (MAD) doctrine. RLPG calls for the government to not only drop plans to renew Trident nuclear weapons, but to join with the overwhelming majority of the world’s countries who voted at the UN on October 27 in seeking to negotiate a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons.

To repeatedly assert, (no doubt to disparage Mr Gilligan and RLPG’s case for world peace, and any criticism of Campbell and Blair), that neither Mr Gilligan or RLPG have criticised Russian attacks frequently and vehemently enough, seems a pretty poor attempt to debate serious political issues.

I repeat, I cannot see any dissonance in the stance taken by Mr Gilligan or RLPG in Observer letters. G O’Gorman Fairway

WE ARE IN LANCASHIRE!

APRIL 1, 1974, must go down as one of the most successful April Fools Days of all time. That was the day that the awful sounding administrative ares of Avon, Merseyside, Humberside etc came into existence.

Which is fine by me, because that is all they are. In fact, on that day the official government statement was: “The new county boundaries are administrative areas and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties despite the new names adopted by the administrative counties.”

And so that is why it continues to annoy me that the hideous ‘Greater Manchester’ is used to describe where Rochdale is, rather than, correctly, Lancashire.

GM, Merseyside, Cumbria etc are not geographical counties and it’s a pity people have been brainwashed over the last four decades into believing otherwise.

And now I hear next year there will be a Greater Manchester Mayor. Unbelievable!

A Mayor of a fictitious geographical area.

I only wrote this letter after reading the opening sentences of Peter Baran’s excellent recent column ‘Life in my northern town.’

And if people want to know more about the correct location for Rochdale then I recommend the website Friends of Real Lancashire.

Thanks to Peter Baran. I also think his comments about Rochdale market were spot on too. Gary Barlow