I SHARE R Hadcroft's desire (Letters, may 31) to see inward investment in Great Harwood. I agree that Safeway's supermarket proposals look tempting - 180 new jobs would be a veritable tonic.
However, the small print says that, to survive, Safeway need a weekly turnover of £180,000 or £9.3 million per year. That sum needs to be sucked out of the local economy. The only place it can come from is local shops.
Instead of encouraging competition, local shops are bound to close through loss of trade. Along with the closed shops will be the loss of family and individual jobs.
The result: more empty shops and more unemployment. Those are established facts. The "up to" 180 jobs are not what they seem. Great Harwood requires "real" inward investment, not a partial, cynical make-over. It is not Safeway's responsibility to provide a new nursery or library, (that was a bribe, in effect), but the task of our council. Where has the council tax increase of eight per cent gone? Certainly not to Great Harwood.
Not everything is what it seems. A council executive told me that the Globe Centre in Accrington created 200 jobs - the cost £6 million. Many firms and council departments have moved with their staff to the Globe Centre.
If they moved with their staff, there has, in fact, been no job creation. Beware of the locally perfected double talk to justify dubious proposals.
P CONGDON (Mr), Hindle Fold Lane, Great Harwood.
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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