MARKET Street, Atherton, has new flags and hanging baskets decorate the area. Nice for the town centre but a resident of North Road is seething.

He says they don't want anything like that. All they would like is their one and only footpath (which is overgrown by grass and hedgerows, making it difficult to walk) trimmed back.

The pensioner complains that if he rings the council all they ask is who does it belong to?

He doesn't know, but says there's giraffes playing in there and that all it would take would be half a hour, a van and two men with cutters to make life a lot pleasanter.

With the waggons from Barrs and the other industries travelling down the road pedestrians are forced to stand still at the side of the road while they pass so they don't get dragged away.

Surely someone can come up with a solution, be it the factory, either Wigan or Bolton councils, the farmer, even a gang of younger residents getting together to chop back the problem which runs right through to Platt Lane, Westhoughton.

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