THIS is an open letter to all Bury Council members who have decided - without any consultation with the retailers - to site the two annual fairs at The Rock end of town.

Not only will the main car park be closed to shoppers for the four-plus weeks that the fairs are on, but it has also been decided that the retailers should be subjected to eight hours of noise from children's rides situated outside their shop doors.

The Rock car park being closed could lose us as many as 2,500 shoppers. It is no good lowering the price of parking on Wilkinson's and Parsons Lane car parks to compensate for the loss of space on The Rock, because they are already full every day. You cannot squeeze a quart into a pint pot!

As for children's rides on the pedestrianised areas of The Rock: this is just ludicrous. There used to be a coin-in-the-slot Postman Pat ride outside one of the shops and, because of the acoustics of the area, it caused no end of inconvenience. The sound reverberates between the two sides because at the widest point it is only around 50 feet.

To have to carry out business and speak to customers to the noise of clanging bells, competing music and generators is going to be well nigh impossible. The same applies to the the main fair. This will start up on a Saturday afternoon so you can wave goodbye to trade for the shops opposite the car park. There is not a lot of excitement at Minden Health Centre regarding the proximity of this fair, either, and how are the veterinary surgeons supposed to concentrate on operations with all the noise?

As the Bury Times stated, the market traders objected to the fair being positioned in the market car park because of all the associated problems of trouble, litter and disruption to local residents. Well, good for the market traders and we would certainly support them.

So why are The Rock traders any different? Presumably it does not matter if we get the trouble, litter and disruption as long as the "holy" market is not spoilt. It is about time the council remembered there is more to Bury than the market and Mill Gate.

It is amazing that for years the retailers on The Rock have been trying to get the council to regenerate the area, only to be constantly told that there are no funds available. But they can soon find the £25,000 needed to accommodate the fair for four weeks. Even though complaints were still being voiced by retailers to the council on Monday morning, August 2, it has come to light that the plans were passed on Monday evening - a rather quick decision, don't you think?

If Bury Council were not so busy selling-off land to cover their cash shortfall (caused partly by the millions of pounds of tax-payers money being used to provide cheap loans for council employees' cars) they could have kept the fair where it was and where it had never bothered anybody . . . on Castlecroft. The council may argue that car loan money is totally separate, but at the end of the day it is tax-payers' money and it could be spent more wisely.

The Rock needs a thorough upgrading - not turning into a very poor replica of Blackpool Pleasure Beach!

TRADERS ON THE ROCK

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