I agree that Marple is in decline. It is no longer the viberant town that it was twenty/thirty years ago. It has become run down and has to many charity shops. The charity shop in the old blockbuster shop looks scruffy!!
If you look at the regeneration of Poynton- in my opinion this has been a success and people travel to go there!! We need to encourage more specialist shops to open up in Marple - encourage the existing shops to open later. The Wednesday half day closing is out of date. Marple has the potential to be a great place that people choose to visit.
Umm, Market Street is a pretty good "centre". Unfortunately, the "improvements" over the last 30 years have made it a mess with cheap, tatty shop fronts replacing the C19 ones. The people responsible for the trees, the herb beds and the benches do their best but are fighting a losing battle.
I was only wondering the other day what the Portas money had been frittered on.
I lived on Market Street as a child when many of the properties were lived in by the shop owners and again in the early '80s when I lived over my father's shop and was the only resident in the street. I'm glad to see that more of the flats above the shops are occupied again.
The row attached to the Bull's Head and which carries a plaque giving the age of the properties - built in the year of the battle of Trafalgar! The row was sheduled for slum clearance just before the second World War - saved by Hitler and not many can say that! It's a pity that no-one saw fit to try and get Market street made a conservation area before the "developers" (hollow laugh!) got their sticky little paws on it.
