I come across the letter pictured above (click image to enlarge) in a fantastic community magazine distributed throughout Stalybridge. The magazine is simply called the Staly Mag and it is full of useful information and advertisements relevant to Stalybridge.
It would be nice to see this magazine expand to cover other parts of Tameside. It also brings back memories from when I was a mad United fan. I always used to get a fanzine outside OT called Red Issue. Red Issue was identical to the Staly Mag in both size and paper texture.
The letter by a concerned Stalybridge business owner is well worth a read as it perfectly illustrates the issues currently facing Stalybridge town centre.
10 comments:
What about a TC magazine?
I think it would be a marvellous idea, especially if you took on paid journalists. Not hinting at all.
Another feather in TMBC's cap, along with Denton and Droylsden which recently came ninth and tenth in the entire country for the highest percentage of closed down shops in the high street.
The council hate the car and see it as a means of revenue to prop up their bloated, inefficient operation (£1.25 million on 57 part-time amateur councillors for just over 200,000 people - utter lunacy and now unaffordable).
This alongside the proliferation of patrollers who again go for motorists and other profitable and/or easy targets.
Denton, and indeed many other parts of the Borough are infested with traffic lights, speed bumps and a plethora of other, installed and unnecessary delays and obstructions.
Areas that welcome the car and prioritise traffic flow virtually always do better. In other parts of the country traffic lights etc are being removed and replaced with roundabouts and road re-engineering to keep traffic moving. These are the sort of areas that drivers, and money, go to. In Tameside, with its shoe-in Labour council, who know the slopeheads will re-elect them no matter what, and their pathetic Tory opposition (in name only) group, we get artificially generated congestion and the expansion of parking charges, coupled with draconian enforcement in dying town centres.
We need to improve transport in the borough and the best way would be to expand the metrolink and introduce a hefty congestion charge to curb car use and free up the roads for busses in places not served by metrolink.
Here we go again blaming car parking enforcement, Councillors, traffic lights and speed humps. What about the record amount of retail purchases done on the Internet. In November last year it was at 10.5% of all retail. All done from the comfort of one's home. Car parking and other issues are nothing to do with this increase. And where are all those private individuals who thought they could make a quick buck in Stalybridge when times were good? Where's the owner of the old Casablanca who just leaves a property in the state it is in?
Excuse me sir, I am a retailer in Stalybridge and the letter writer in the Staly Mag speaks for us all. Customer feedback tells us that over enthusiastic parking enforcers and the lack of free convinient parking is one of the major factors in our towns decline.
Green revolution, 80% use the car because it is quicker, cheaper and massively more more flexible. Many people need their car to get to work and if they've got a car, they'll use it.
To increase tram use to more than its current miniscule contribution would cost astronomical sums and it would STILL only move a fraction of the public. It is ideology based fantasy to bring back an outdated, highly expensive, inflexible system that causes significant delay and obstruction to the vast majority of the moving public.
At least trains stay out of the way and move a reasonable number of people. Buses also have an integral part to play, especially for non-car owners, and apart from the over proliferation of bus lanes generally don't cause much problem.
Labour councils like the tram because it's: 'socially inclusive'; looks good on brochures; is 'green' (i.e makes them look moral); annoys a lot of car users and finally, they can brag about their 'achievement'.
The money spent should have been invested in trains, buses etc which do a fair share of the load.
Overall the Metrolink does not add up.
Anonymous, we know all about internet shopping, the point is TMBC's hostile approach to the car is making a bad situation worse.
Red Light District
'Anonymous, we know all about internet shopping, the point is TMBC's hostile approach to the car is making a bad situation worse.'
No you're just looking for an easy target to blame.
Honeysuckle Drive is as quiet as ever. I love the way the houses back onto woodland. It's always been a ghost town around here.
Anonymous, what a pathetic brainless response.
I'm saying the internet and other factors ARE part of the problem but TMBC's hostile approach to the private car is making a bad situation worse. What's your response to THAT.
Parrot fashion drivel not required.
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