What can be done to rescue Northwich? (From Northwich Guardian)

What can be done to rescue Northwich?

4:57pm Tuesday 17th January 2012 in Your Letters

I’VE often been annoyed by something that is happening locally and thought to myself ‘I’m going to write to the Guardian about this’, but never have, up until now.

Having just visited Northwich town centre, I feel that I must write to see if anyone else feels the same way as me.

The decline of Northwich began with the death of Northwich Urban and Rural District Councils and the change to Vale Royal.

Immediately, all funds were channelled to Winsford where they had a new shopping precinct, a second multi-storey car park, new police and fire headquarters, an industrial estate presently being rebuilt, and a new Lifestyle Centre.

What did Northwich get? An underpass.

Worse was to follow, the creation of the new Cheshire West and Chester Council, which meant that all money was diverted to Chester.

One prime example was the rumpus about the Christmas lights this year.

I bet there was no danger that they won’t decorate Chester city centre. But the money is available to change all our recycling bins and go back to a weekly collection. How much is that going to cost?

Northwich has been allowed to decay over the past 30 years.

We cannot even cremate our dead. We have to travel to Altrincham, Warrington or Crewe to do that.

What happened to the Northwich Vision which wasn’t transferrable from Vale Royal to Chester? Will it take another 20 years before something is done?

What about the surrounding towns?

Middlewich, Holmes Chapel and Knutsford continue to thrive, and both Crewe and Warrington are constantly rebuilding, having turned from industrial deserts into thriving towns in a relatively short length of time.

Where in Northwich can you buy children’s or adult’s clothes for anyone other than teens and 20s who take sizes 8 to 12?

Where can you buy furniture or flowers?

Why do we have the smallest Marks and Spencer in the north of England?

Where can you go for a night out, certainly not the cinema or the theatre, the nightclub or working men’s club, bowling alley or bingo hall?

If you end up having to visit the tax office, the DHSS or the magistrates’ court, you now have to travel miles away.

Our local hospital has all but disappeared and even Leighton, with its exorbitant parking charges, will refer you to other hospitals in far flung towns for any operation out of the ordinary.

My son was recently in hospital in Liverpool and my brother-in-law is due to be admitted to North Staffs.

What is left for us here? How sad it is that a lively little market town with a huge catchment area has been allowed to deteriorate to the point where I now never visit the town centre unless I absolutely have to.

One thing in its favour, Northwich does have a lot of charity shops and pawnbrokers.

Surely we are channelling what wealth there is in the town away from it because there is nothing here to buy. What gets me is the amount of traffic, because the roads are continually jammed. People can’t be shopping in Northwich because there is nothing to buy. They must all be trying to escape!

Does anyone remember Sir John Foster, for many years the conservative MP for Northwich?

For years he campaigned on the platform “Vote Labour if you want ICI nationalised”, and where is ICI nowadays, being demolished and replaced with houses. And of course we have attracted a lot of alternative employers to the local area!

The latest thing is that the NatWest Bank is closing its sub-branch at Station Road, meaning that local businesses and people have to use the main branch in the Bull Ring, park their vehicles in Leicester Street, and stagger down Witton Street with large amounts of money.

Have you read all the news in the papers about the banks ruining the country and still paying their executives huge bonuses?

And they say that a branch which is always full is uneconomical to run, I think not.

Just another symptom of the death of Northwich.

I recently went to exhibition in Northwich regarding a new development based on the river frontage where the Regal Cinema used to stand, to find that a Waitrose supermarket and a McCarthy and Stone retirement complex are going up.

This is just what we need when it will be the third McCarthy and Stone complex in the town.

We also already have various supermarkets. There must be a lot of money in food.

What’s the answer, any suggestions should be sent to County Hall Chester. Oh, they sold that off didn’t they?

BARBARA J DEAN Leftwich