ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT STATION

SO, Rawtenstall will have a new bus station – one that it needs (but eight bays for a diminishing bus service).

The glass fronted bus station is what your council thinks you want, when really all that is required are new shelters similar to Todmorden’s, with rolling information boards, seats and shelter.

Have they told you what this involves? You’re losing parking, have you asked where?

Consideration is being given to paid parking but ask a council employee and they will tell you that they are taking an overall look at all our car parks!

You are losing the streets that have enabled the smooth transfer of traffic round the town for many, many years.

To persuade Transdev into the station they have promised 40 parking spaces for X43 passengers to use (Park and Ride).

Will these people pay to park when, until now, they haven’t? No, they will congest the streets and roads around.

The X43 situation should have been solved years ago. Now, these buses will traverse Bacup Road along with the rest (2,000 per week in all is forecast by Mr Sugarman) and will cross traffic lanes controlled by traffic lights to allow them out of the bus station. We will then subside this for three years!

The council says that this has all been at the wish of the residents. Maybe you think this also – fair enough, but maybe you don’t.

So please don’t just accept this, contact the authorities at LCC Highways, RBC and the Department of Transport (as yet, permission to close these streets is being contested) and talk to them.

This is a council which, as yet, has not clarified the empty homes debacle.

This is also the council who if you want to question them at a council meeting give you three minutes to ask your question, no second question even if the first answer you get doesn’t satisfy you and finally, no repeat of the subject for six months.

So please, residents of Rawtenstall and the Rossendale region, ask questions! Ann Ashton Rawtenstall

PHOTOS WERE GREAT TO SEE

GREAT to see that Peter has used the Crawshawbooth Amateurs photographs for this week’s feature (Nostalgia, March 3).

It may not be well known that this was the start of Rawtenstall/ Rossendale AOS and following ‘The Gondoliers’ they produced ‘Iolanthe’ in 1935 (hard to believe but I have recollections of seeing this !) and then in 1937 their ‘Mikado’ was the last production in the Grand Theatre in Rawtenstall centre before it was demolished in 1938.

They then crossed the road to The Pavilion for many productions up to the early 50s, with the members in the photos continuing in prominent roles for many more years and I have happy memories of making my stage debut with them and appearing with them in some shows in the 40s.

Sam Brearley (not Brierley) was the last survivor from these productions until his death in 2012, just short of his 100th birthday.

Interestingly Rakefoot Methodists, where they first appeared, is now the home of Valley Academy who are successfully carrying the theatre torch in the village. Stanley Whittaker via email