FOLLOWING on from Malc Holland's letter last week (Stop All That Whingeing) I say, what are our councillors doing?

The ghost town effect is a very serious problem, and if not tackled we could see Northwich becoming like the Southern Welsh towns, where the town has expanded due to the focus of one major employer, and when that employer pulls out, the whole town's infrastructure dies.

Shops, part-time jobs, annual salaries around £10,000 per annum are not going to make this a boom town.

Furthermore, anyone with a qualification of HNC or above, faces a 40 mile round trip into work eg Liverpool or Manchester.

Are these new houses being built for the commuter, or to house the ever growing police we are going to need if this town is not revived by investment.

Stable jobs with prospects cause revenue to go back into the prosperity of the town.

The cause, stable families with children who want to follow the examples of their parents.

New companies bring more ethnically diverse people into the town, broadening horizons and creating greater cultural awareness, but most of all, bringing new ideas and views, therefore eradicating insular and jurassic attitudes.

Jobs ease the already crowded council waiting lists, allowing more affordable (and badly needed) rented accommodation to be built.

Northwich and Winsford are the two largest areas in Vale Royal and both are becoming employment blackspots.

Vale Royal is sandwiched between the county set in the North and a suburb of Liverpool (Chester) in the South, and the socio-economic divides between both, are great.

Our brain drain is immense because if you are a graduate the salaries are not worth working for, so you leave.

Wake up to the reality which I will never see, and certainly won't put up with.

I'm off sadly, back to North London, no more violent or dirty than my poor little town has become.

A STOCKHALL, Victoria Road, Northwich.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.