Deteriorating town with hope

(Above picture is credit of http://www.lostrailwayswestyorkshire.co.uk/)

I got inspiration to start this blog when someone I knew from years ago stopped me in Keighley on Friday night and asked what I was now doing in my life. They reminded me that when I was a lot younger, I used to say that my ambition in life was to become a journalist. I didn’t go through with this ambition, mainly due to not putting effort in to getting the needed grades. I also lost interest and decided to move away from the Keighley area in the hope of starting a new life. Looking back to when I was 16, I was probably just naïve due to my age. I had an idea in my head that moving 200 miles north to Scotland would change everything and my life would somehow transform. Making such a bold decision did teach me that the world isn’t that simple. Having very little grades and only a small amount of work history made finding full-time employment difficult. A credit crunch then kicked in and companies seemed more frightened to employ new staff. After a few temporary jobs and very little luck in many other interviews, I made another visit back to Yorkshire to see my family. After my visit, I went back up to Scotland for a final time. As the coach drove out of Keighley I finally began to realise how homesick I had become and became confused as to what I wanted from life. I realised that I somehow missed the town which has been ranked as the 40th crappiest town in The UK in a 2003 book. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crap_Towns).

This is a thought many who claim to be embarrassed by the town, but still continue living there could never understand. After a few weeks, I travelled back down to Yorkshire and decided that I should move back here. Somehow home just really is where the heart is in my case.

Since the mentioned 2003 book, very little positive change can be seen in the town. Continuing with the mention of how the credit crunch affected me in my younger age, the resulting recession has also had a negative effect on my nearby town.

Independent and national chain shops have shut down and replacing them has been an increase in charity shops, discount £1 style shops and more and more sub standard fast food takeaways. As other nearby places are starting to pick up their trade, we are yet to visually see anything new and positive to happen in our town.

With little shops to choose from, people are choosing to travel further afield. We have been promised a brand new shopping complex (Worth Valley Shopping Centre) and a load of old mills have been knocked down in preparation for this. As things stand, no building work has begun on this since the removal of the old mills. The original proposal estimated that the shopping complex would have been completed before now.

Although there has been news stories of positive developments with different shopping chains signing up to this, as things stand, we still have a hole in the ground and the rest of the town is struggling with little new investment to be seen. We need this to be built sooner rather than later to bring more people in to the town and to stop more and more shops closing down across the other parts of town.

 

When once our town centre nightlife was thriving from Thursday night until Sunday night, it can now sometimes be deserted on every single night. Why is it sometimes deserted every night? Well, there are a few different factors. There has been very little investment in the pub scene in Keighley and people have less money to spend than they used to. The lack of investment in the pubs has led to people choosing wiser as to where they will spend so much money and take in to account the level of entertainment compared to the amount spent. Nowadays people are more interested in wine bar style places. Although we have plenty of traditional pubs, Keighley does not have much to offer in the wine bar category. We have The Lord Rodney which is a nice, welcoming wine bar type place and the Royal Oak which has an impressive beer garden.

Bingley is only a short distance away and this is seeing more and more new wine bar style places. Bingley is busier and seems to be a better place for a 20-something single man to spend his beer money with plenty more 20 something women who also choose to spend their beer money here. This is something now lacking in Keighley’s nightlife experience. There is also Saltaire, Skipton and Bradford within easy reach and these all have more quirky style bars and more new bars of this type are opening in these places.(http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/11876229.15_new_bars_and_pubs_helping_to_revive_Bradford_s_nightlife_scene/)

Until we see the result of positive investment in the town, things will only continue to deteriorate. No details have yet been published as to when we can expect the Worth Valley Shopping Centre to be completed since their original proposals. The original proposal stated that building work would begin in 2013 and would take approximately 18 months to complete. As things stand, we are beyond this time frame and building work has not even begun. Once this is finally built, we will start to see positive change and investment in the town. We might even see a few nice quirky bars opening as a result of this which could improve the nightlife in the town. We can only hope that an improvement in nightlife in the town could even mean that 20 something aged single males won’t have to travel so far to find 20 something aged females to converse with. As things stand, we will see no improvements in the town for at least 18 months, but if/when it does happen, it will be great to see the town thriving and it will bring much needed positive energy to an often depressing town.

I believe the message has to be that we can hope that the Worth Valley Shopping Centre happens soon and more importantly it will give us a much needed reason to take pride in the town.