IHAD a phone call from a cherished client of very long standing who had not been in my salon for about nine months.

This could not have been an easy call for him to make as he knows that I had battled hard and long against the closure of Church Street, Blackburn, and that it took a lot out of my soul when the battle was lost.

He also knows that I have kept silent since May 21 last year (the day that Church Street closed) because I am not in the habit of chasing lost causes and, in any case, I have no wish to be proved right at the expense of the town that I love so much.

Like so many loyal Blackburn shoppers, he has found easier alternatives in towns where he and his wife feel more welcome and in spite of his generous praise of my salon, he just got so tired of battling his way into the town, fighting to get a short-term parking spot and then trying to find his way out again that he simply gave up on his home town for shopping.

Since the closure of Church Street, I have spent countless hours staring through my shop window wondering just when things would improve, trying to come up with more excuses for the downturn in business than the average fisherman after a poor bag.

I talk to other traders who tell me the same tale privately and then see traders quoted in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph saying that things were never better. Very strange: perhaps they are afraid of the truth or perhaps they are afraid of being vilified by the executive member for regeneration who seems to blame every man and his dog for all that is so obviously wrong in the town.

Councillor Whalley even blamed me for the delays in the Church Street works due to the delays that I had caused during the so-called consultation process.

Would that I could exert such influence in this less-than-democratic town where so much power is concentrated in the hands of so few.

Currently, my partners and I are investing all that we have and much more besides in Fleming Square in the hope that the upturn in the town will come.

It is the only way we know. We are born optimists and have a belief that we can create a viable quality enclave in the town that will stand the test of time.

Time, however, will surely catch up with the councillors who have perpetrated these unforgivable acts of sheer madness on our town and the sooner the better.

JEFFREY STONE, Jeff Stone Hairdressing, Fleming Square, Blackburn.