Macclesfield needs a miracle

Many years ago, when I was the editor of Macclesfield Community News, I penned an item on the potential demise of Macclesfield.

Over my lifetime I’d seen any number of northern towns hit the skids as a result of appalling town planning.

One thing in Macclesfield’s favour, at that time, was that we had our own local authority Macclesfield Borough Council.

The local council did come in for its fair share of stick – but despite some political differences – in the main it was a case of Macclesfield folk, acting as Macclesfield Councillors, in the best interest of Macclesfield – and in turn Cheshire County Council acting in the best interests of Cheshire.

Sadly all that came to an end when the two divisive unitary authorities of Cheshire East and Cheshire West were formed – effectively ending Macclesfield’s control over its own future.

At the same time, town planners across the country were falling under the spell of developers – who convinced the ‘town planners’ (an oxymoron if ever there was one) that every town centre needed a redevelopment scheme.

Of course this redevelopment came at a huge cost – both financial and social. Small independent businesses that had operated in Macclesfield for decades were closed down to make way for the same national retailers that would soon be found in every other town in the country.

Shops which once had formed the heart of many social groups and gatherings were lost – and the biggest losers were the elderly and less mobile in the community. 

Quite why anyone would want to travel to another town, to shop in the same shops, was beyond me.

You only need to look at Ludlow in Shropshire or Malton in Yorkshire to see the impact on those towns which rejected the advances of the planners – they’re hugely successful, attracting thousands of visitors and shoppers every year.

Macclesfield’s Treacle Market is a perfect example of what shoppers and visitors want in a town – unique, quality goods that can’t be found in big stores.

With the birth and growth of the internet the disparity between the towns that redeveloped and those that held fast has grown exponentially – after all, why travel to a town to a national store if you can now buy from them online and have it delivered to your doorstep?

And logically, the next step will see those same national stores closing down their retail outlets and moving to a purely internet presence. After all, unlike small independents, they have no loyalty to any one town, their only concern is the ‘bottom line’ and their shareholders.

Unbelievably the planners continued to make things even worse by approving increasingly large retail parks – which initially sucked even more blood out of the few towns that resisted the changes.

The Trafford Centre decimated towns in the region – the shockwaves even hitting Macclesfield.

Despite the huge impact on Macclesfield of the Handforth Dean retail park, our own planners – now in the guise of Cheshire East – continue to approve out-of-town retail parks.

The writing was writ large when Macclesfield folk roundly rejected the three, increasingly desperate and reduced scale town centre re-development schemes a few years back – followed in no short measure by the rejection of Tesco’s plans to build a superstore and retail park.

Cheshire East evidently failed to understand what Macclesfield folk wanted and approved the Barracks Retail Park – due to open within a couple of months – on virtually the same site of the rejected Tesco plan.

Anyone with any sense could have predicted that a number of retailers would relocate, including Marks & Spencer, who’s Macclesfield store had been so badly hit by the success of Handforth Dean retail park they decided to pull the plug on their Mill Street store and move to a food-only store at the Barracks.

B&M evidently saw the way the wind was blowing so they took space – along with ALDI and several others.

What happens next is pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain. B&M will pull out of it’s Exchange Street store and ALDI will close its Queen Victoria Street store.

Last week River Island closed its doors – and despite the recent refit – I’ll guarantee unless something radical happens Boots Chemists will pull out of the Grosvenor Centre when the lease expires.

Of course, way too late, the evidently clueless councillors at Cheshire East have suddenly realised that the town centres in their care are dying.

So what do they do?

They start to chuck more of our money at the problem – in a futile attempt to halt the situation they had created – think on, circa £1.4 million on repaving Castle Street for starters.

Take the trouble to see what Cheshire East is spending, in other towns in its care, to address the very issues its responsible for and you’ll be staggered – £20 million plus on Crewe alone.

Heaven knows where we go from here – maybe a miracle?

One thing I’m sure of is that whilst the incumbents at Cheshire East rule and continue to listen to their planning officers – no one should get their hopes up.