LETTER: Clitheroe has become a suburb of Manchester

In the late 1960s I used to work in Cheadle, Cheshire, one of the most rural “up market” counties of the North.
By The Newsroom
Published 6th Dec 2011, 14:26 BST

I experienced a conglomeration of traffic, Cheadle was already a suburb of Manchester, and was subsequently absorbed into the Greater Manchester Authority.

Clitheroe in the 1980s, when I returned, was still “provincial”. Do you remember Hillard’s, a novelty at the time, but a dingy little supermarket crammed into the narrow confines of the Old King Lane Hall?

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What we now know as Booth’s car park was the old railway sidings that delivered into the town. Now Clitheroe is virtually a suburb of Manchester as a commuter town with developed motorways, traffic teeming and clogging up the town as Cheadle was in the ’60s. It is only manageable well before 9 a.m.. thereafter I only venture into this once quiet market town with greatest reluctance.

I was happy to reside in the hitherto neighbouring country village of Chatburn. It is no longer so. Vehicles vie for space attracted by the popularity of the alternative shops. Where do I go now for peaceful rural tranquility. Tosside?

ROBIN PARKER,

Chatburn

Related topics:ClitheroeManchesterNorthChatburn