‘We don’t need something big to make town fabulous’

STUART PIKE income for the council and the leisure trust and frankly what it came down to was not a lot of income actually for quite some risk. We were putting lots of things in the town centre that wouldn’t traditionally be in a town centre. The risk with what we were proposing was we would actually displace shops.”

The council leader said the council’s plans for the town will now turn to issues including a new gyratory scheme, a town parking strategy, and tackling empty properties, pointing out the sale of the Queens Arms and plans for apartments at the old Picture House cinema.

Papers prepared for next week’s full council meeting set out the costs of and background behind a ‘reappraisal’ of Rawtenstall’s future.

The report, by the director of economic development Cath Burns, states: “Two significant changes have taken place which have caused the council to review the appropriateness of the proposal for Phase 2.

“Firstly, the local economy has begun to recover from the national recession and this has seen a growth in the number of town centre businesses and associated footfall locally.

“Secondly, there has been a lack of interest expressed from national retailers/food & beverage offerings or from local providers.

“Not proceeding with Phase 2 will require the council to pay back the £900K Growth Deal grant to the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership. £540,000 of funding is to be set aside for costs accrued to the Phase 2 project to date.

“£1.45m will be funded from reserves.”

A POST-MORTEM into a man’s sudden death has ended a police investigation.

Officers were called to a house on Industrial Street, Bacup shortly after 10pm on Wednesday, February 12 after reports of a sudden death.

A man, believed to be in his 40s, was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene.

A Lancashire Police spokesperson said afterwards: “A Home Office post mortem examination has taken place and the death is not being treated as suspicious.”