IN SPITE of the spurious claims of the losing Green Party candidate that he had the support of the whole of Leigh, the common sense and vision of the voters of Hope Carr Ward has prevailed.

Their overwhelming YES to Xanadu is a tribute to them for the future of Leigh, as well as a snub to interfering outsiders telling them what they should do.

Now that the election is over the people of Leigh can get on with planning Leigh's future and their involvement and enjoyment of the prospects of the most exciting leisure complex in the whole of Great Britain and Europe.

We all need to work together and adopt a more positive attitude to the Xanadu project and the wider benefits it will provide. We can't dismiss out of hand the economic benefits that this development will undoubtedly bring, not just to Leigh but the area as a whole.

In all the letters to The Journal, speeches and meetings over the past few weeks, nobody has yet suggested an alternative to the Xanadu development or given their visions for the future prosperity of Leigh and its residents.

We can understand some of the genuine reservations that some people may have over Xanadu but what the people of Leigh need are real alternatives, not just "we don't want Xanadu here."

For too long Leigh has been left behind in the investment and development stakes and now we have a real opportunity to take the lead we need to get behind the project to ensure its success.

In recent letters it has been suggested that the businesses in Leigh are in for a rude awakening, far from it, we are looking forward to, and planning for the future prosperity of this town with the help of Xanadu.

We are aware that everybody will not automatically flock to the town centre but it is up to us to give them a reason to visit us. We have a lot to offer now and with the promise of more inward investment we can have a lot more. It will not only make Leigh a more saleable commodity for our visitors, but for the people who live here.

The claims that 'in usual circumstances this application would be rejected' are also conjecture. Each application is looked at on its merits and surely with a development of this size the developers would have produced a planning brief in order to gain the views of the Planning Authority.

And yes, the economic case for the development is available to all to view. There are figures produced in the various reports giving the numbers of jobs that will be available during the building of the development, and during the day to day management as well as the expected numbers of visitors for a leisure complex of this size.

Simple costs are then attached to these figures which results in the annual spend in the area. There are historic figures available for the tourist implications for the area based on the numbers of visitors.

There are no reasons at all that Xanadu cannot exist harmoniously alongside the Pennington country park and the wildlife corridor and that the three million or so expected visitors can enjoy these as well.

Why is it that the majority of objectors are selfishly thinking about themselves and those who are in favour of the development are thinking about the future of the whole of Leigh?

Alan Jones

Leigh Business Partnership

Market Street

Leigh

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.