It was a llama kept in a pen - not a grizzly bear sat on the swings.

It had chickens, ferretts, fluffy bunny rabbits and if I remember rightly a very small pony.

The town just hasn't been the same since.

Anyway, I'll humour you whilst there's nowt on telly.

FWIW, I agree about industrial decline, its not just Leigh, its every town in the UK. We all want someone to blame. Blame the Council, blame Maggie, blame the Unions, blame Paul Rowley. Anyone will do.

No, blame Ching Chong Chinaman and his kids who will work for a bowl of rice a day. That's where the problem lay.

It will change though as CCC suddenly decides he wants 3 holidays a year, a car, and a plasma telly, and shipping costs rise. It migt take a generation or so but it will happen. Think 19th century Britain, folk working down the pit for a pittance to keep the family in lobby. Thats where the far east is now but as the song goes, the times, they are a changing.

However, and this is what has constantly annoyed me over the years, Wigan MBC have shown very littlw proactivity whatsoever to reverse the decline and promote inward or sustainable investment in the town, but as I have said previously on this thread, 'we' still voted the same useless councillors in so we're partly to blame too.

Billions has been available for almost 20 years in regeneration grants from central government and the EU, but all worthwhile efforts from the Council in gaining it went into Wigan. This in turn attracted outside investment and before you know it Wigans on its feet again.

Thats what our Councillors need to do, get together with the local developers (the only people who have done anything in this town), local businesses and our MP, and generate a plan of our own that can be worked upon with the NWDA.

It will upset a few folk, but tough. The alternative is sitting back and carrying on feeling sorry for ourselves.

It doesn't matter whether it's in manufacturing or not, those people (or their children) are still employed but not in Leigh.

What have Wigan Council done to encourage none manufacturing businesses to Leigh to allow these people alternative employment within the town?

The facts are in 1974 people travelled to Leigh for employment they now travel out of Leigh.

The facts are Leigh needs a train station and WMBC seem to want to anything to stop us getting one.
The facts are Leigh has been used to dump scum and minorities in, to drive decent folk away to surrounding villages, eg Culcheth
Leighs once thriving town centre has been reduced to take aways and pound shops, anybody with spare cash stays well clear
Everytime I opened the rag and saw who are councillors were I asked a question, 'would I invest in these idiots' - NO
We have a lot to blame ourselves for, we accepted this second class status without much of a scrap because our elected idiots played career politics.
I would vote for a simple agenda of 'whats best for Leythers' from a party with NO national connections and nothing to gain from being on by trhe ringmasters.

Spot on there Mo, but I disagree about the train station.

Look at it sensibly, where could it go? The lines have been built upon, turned to grazing land, or had roads built on them. The nearest line is runnig through Kenyon, a service run by Merseyrail. Do you think they care about us or that they would divert their Liverpool-Manchester trains into our village? No chance.

Then we have the West Coast Main Line running through Golborne. Richard Branson isnt going to be too happy having a station there, nor having local commuter trains hogging his 120mph line.

Next up is the line through Atherton - might as well be Aberdeen.

Wherever you look, its not viable. I'd love one, but we've more chance of an internation airport in Westleigh.

Most viable option in my opinion is extending the by-pass through to Kenyon Junction and having a huge park and ride facility running in and out of the town, paid for by local (re)development by way of commuted sums or planning gains.

There's hundreds of acres of brownfield land in the town that is prime for investment if folk can just get at it. That brings money into the town, puts local folk in work and money in their pocket, makes investment in the town centre more attractive and in time things turn around.

It might cost £30, 40, 50 million, but suddenly you're 30 mins on the train from the two largest cities in the NW, a stone throw from Europes largest rail terminal (when it happens), yet still 5 mins from the M6 and M62.

You've missed the point, in that the roads out of Leigh are absolute gridlock in the morning - I'm sure many of those would love to cut out the lengthy car journeys and work in their own town, but fact is the job opportunities do not exist and as such people have to work elsewhere. Problem being, that that usually means shopping elsewhere (pop out during their dinner etc rather than waiting til the post-6pm rush at Asda) and therefore boosting the economy of 'elsewhere' (population: you), rather than their own town.

You make excellent points but could you just clear this bit up, as surely you are just encouraging people out of the town by making it easier to get to a train station out of town. Can't see a massive advantage (when put against the cost of setting up) of all this to help bring people and investment into Leigh town. People that travel to Leigh on the train wouldn't use the parking and the new road as such.

Those lines are crying out for development aren't they?

A couple of years ago, when 'Our Andy' was Minister for Culture and Sport, I suggested that one of those disused lines could be made into a cycle way at a very low cost making the cycle to Warrington two miles shorter and therefore competitive with the time taken to commute by car. I pointed out that the positives were that it would have sporting, health and transport benefits for the people of Leigh who have to flee the town southwards in search of work.

His response was something along the lines of, sorry mate, most of that's outside of my constituency, so nowt to do with me, I'm just the minister for sport.

I see your point there but its a 2 way street, pardon the pun.

However it's done we need to make the town more accessible. Look on the map and its bang in the middle of a triangle that has 3 motorways, the West Coast Main Line, the Liverpool/Manchester line, yet has poor links to all of them.

There's maybe 3 million people within a 20 mile radius, but roughly only 100000 residents and very few large industies inside this triangle. There's lots of opportunity if it's opened up properly.

Folk from these parts already travel out of town by whatever means, folk rarely travel in because theres nowt to come for, poor public transport, and little parking.

It's not so much a matter of catering for us (though people may be tempted to move into the area bacause of it's improved commuter links), its catering for others by making the town easier to get to.

Stumbling block is as WF says with 'Our Andy' and Warrington BC, though there is a route to Kenyon along an old line that is on the borough boundary, about 1/4 mile beyond where the by-pass ends.

To be honest the bloke needs to get behind local matters again, which he'll have plenty time to do come next summer.

Put us on the Tram network then a rail link would not be needed.

Metrolink is the way forward and I still cannot believe that our councillors and MP have not suggested this to replace the busway scheme. Rochdale, Oldham, Bury, Altrincham, Eccles and many others have train stations AS WELL as metrolink.
Has anyone from W*gan MBC even put forward such a proposal?
At least if we had our own council we could lobby (ironic!!) our own councillors to put the suggestion forward.

It was mentioned a few years ago but was rejected by the GMPTE out of hand.